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SENATE IMPEACHMENT TRIAL OF PRESIDENT CLINTON -- CONTINUED

*** Elapsed Time 00:00, Eastern Time 03:08 ***

FEBRUARY 8, 1999

SPEAKERS: WILLIAM H. REHNQUIST, CHIEF JUSTICE, U.S. SUPREME COURT

U.S. SENATOR TRENT LOTT, MAJORITY LEADER

APPEARING ON BEHALF OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES:

U.S. REPRESENTATIVE HENRY J. HYDE (R-IL)

U.S. REPRESENTATIVE F. JAMES SENSENBRENNER (R-WI)

U.S. REPRESENTATIVE BILL MCCOLLUM (R-FL)

U.S. REPRESENTATIVE GEORGE W. GEKAS (R-PA)

U.S. REPRESENTATIVE CHARLES T. CANADY (R-FL)

U.S. REPRESENTATIVE STEPHEN E. BUYER (R-IN)

U.S. REPRESENTATIVE ED BRYANT (R-TN)

U.S. REPRESENTATIVE STEVE CHABOT (R-OH)

U.S. REPRESENTATIVE BOB BARR (R-GA)

U.S. REPRESENTATIVE ASA HUTCHINSON (R-AR)

U.S. REPRESENTATIVE CHRIS CANNON (R-UT)

U.S. REPRESENTATIVE JAMES E. ROGAN (R-CA)

U.S. REPRESENTATIVE LINDSEY O. GRAHAM (R-SC)

APPEARING ON BEHALF OF THE PRESIDENT:

CHARLES F.C. RUFF, WHITE HOUSE COUNSEL

GREGORY B. CRAIG, WHITE HOUSE COUNSEL

BRUCE R. LINDSEY, WHITE HOUSE COUNSEL

CHERYL D. MILLS, WHITE HOUSE COUNSEL

LANNY A. BREUER, WHITE HOUSE COUNSEL

DAVID E. KENDALL, ATTORNEY FOR PRESIDENT CLINTON

NICOLE K. SELIGMAN, ATTORNEY FOR PRESIDENT CLINTON

EMMET T. FLOOD, ATTORNEY FOR PRESIDENT CLINTON

MAX STIER, ATTORNEY FOR PRESIDENT CLINTON

GLEN DONATH, ATTORNEY FOR PRESIDENT CLINTON

ALICIA MARTI, ATTORNEY FOR PRESIDENT CLINTON

RUFF: ... the Jones case.

Faced with this record, the managers asked you to authorize Ms. Lewinsky's deposition, representing that she would, and I quote, and this is from the manager's proffer, "rebut the following inferences drawn by White House counsel on key issues. Among others, that President Clinton did not encourage Ms. Lewinsky to file a false affidavit and that President Clinton did not have an understanding with Ms. Lewinsky that the two would lie under oath."

Unhappily for the managers, and perhaps their unhappiness was best reflected in the tone of Manager Bryant's discussion on this subject, Ms. Lewinsky's testimony, as you saw yourself on Saturday, did just the opposite.

RUFF: In an extended colloquy with Mr. Manager Bryant on the subject of the affidavit, Ms. Lewinsky made clear beyond any doubt: first, that the president had never discussed the contents of the affidavit with her; second, that there was no connection between the suggest that she might file an affidavit and the reference to any cover story; and third, that she believed it possible to file a truthful affidavit.

Now you saw much of this portion of Ms. Lewinsky's deposition on Saturday, and I'm not going to impose too much on your patience, but I do want to play just a very few segments of that videotape. First, two segments beginning with the content of the affidavit.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

GRAHAM: Are you -- did he make it -- strike that.

BRYANT: Did he make any representation to you about what you could say in that affidavit?

LEWINSKY: No.

BRYANT: What did you understand you would be saying in that affidavit to avoid testifying?

LEWINSKY: I believe I've testified to this in the grand jury.

In the best of my recollection, it was -- to my mind, it came -- it was a range of things. I mean, it could either be something innocuous or could go as far as having to deny the relationship. Not being a lawyer nor having gone to law school was -- I thought it could be anything.

BRYANT: Did he, at that point, suggest one version or the other version?

LEWINSKY: No. I didn't even mention that. So, there wasn't a further discussion -- there was no discussion of what would be in an affidavit.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BRYANT: In his answer to this proceeding in the Senate, he has indicated that he thought he had -- might have had a way that he could have you -- get you to file a -- basically a true affidavit, but yet still skirt these issues enough that you wouldn't be called as a witness. Did he offer you any of these suggestions at this time?

LEWINSKY: He didn't discuss the content of my affidavit with me at all, ever.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RUFF: Next, a couple of brief segments on the issue of the cover stories. It may take just a moment to here to queue up.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BRYANT: Well, based on prior relations with the president, the concocted stories and those things like that, did this come to mind?

BRYANT: Was there some discussion about that, or did it come to your mind about...

LEWINSKY: Not in connection with...

BRYANT: ... these stories, the cover stories?

LEWINSKY: Not in connection with the affidavit.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BRYANT: Did you discuss anything else that night in terms of -- I would draw your attention to the cover stories. I've alluded to that earlier, but did you -- did you talk about cover story that night?

LEWINSKY: Yes, sir.

BRYANT: And what was said?

LEWINSKY: Um, I believe that the president said something: You can always say you were coming in to see Betty or bringing me papers.

BRYANT: I think you've testified that you're sure he said that that night. You are sure he said that that night?

LEWINSKY: Yes.

BRYANT: Now, was that in connection with the affidavit?

*** Elapsed Time 00:05, Eastern Time 03:13 ***

LEWINSKY: I don't believe so. No.

GRAHAM: Now, you have testified in the grand jury, I think your closing comments was that no one ever asked you to lie. But yet in that very conversation of December the 17th, 1997 when the president told you that you were on the witness list, he also suggested that you could sign an affidavit and use misleading cover stories. Isn't that correct?

LEWINSKY: I guess in my mind I separate necessarily signing affidavit and using misleading cover stories, so ...

GRAHAM: Well, those two ...

LEWINSKY: Those three events occurred, but they don't -- they weren't linked for me.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RUFF: And third, a brief segment on the supposed falsity of any affidavit that might be filed.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GRAHAM: The night of the phone call, he suggested you could file an affidavit.

BRYANT: Did you appreciate the implications of filing a false affidavit with the court?

LEWINSKY: I don't think I necessarily thought at that point it would have to be false. So no, probably not. I don't remember having any thoughts like that, so I imagine I would remember something like that, and I don't, but --

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RUFF: And last, if we might, a brief segment on the question of who's interests were being served.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BRYANT: But you didn't file the affidavit for your best interests, did you?

LEWINSKY: Actually, I did.

BRYANT: To avoid testifying?

LEWINSKY: Yes.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RUFF: Brief, but pointed, I think. And I'm sure you'll remember them from Saturday, and I'm sure you'll take those excerpts with you as you move into your deliberations.

RUFF: Now, there's another issue that surfaced early on, although perhaps it has dissipated, and that is whether the president ever saw a draft of Ms. Lewinsky's affidavit, something that the managers alleged early on.

But indeed, as we now know from that testimony, not only did nobody ever see a draft of the affidavit, the president and Ms. Lewinsky never even discussed the content of her affidavit -- not ever, as she put it -- neither on December 17 or on January 5 or on any other date. According to Ms. Lewinsky, the president told her he didn't need to see a draft because he'd seen other affidavits.

Now, early on Manager McCollum speculated for you -- speculated for you -- that when the president told Ms. Lewinsky that he didn't need to see her affidavit because he'd seen other affidavits, he really must have meant that he'd seen previous drafts of hers. And this is what he said: I doubt seriously the president was talking about 15 other affidavits of somebody else and didn't like looking at affidavits anymore.

RUFF: I suspect, and I would suggest to you, that he was talking about 15 other drafts of this proposed affidavit, since it had been around the horn a lot of rounds.

That's what Manager McCollum told you.

Well now we know that those drafts simply didn't exist. They never existed. How do we know? Well, somewhat belatedly the managers got around to telling us that. In describing the testimony that they would expect to receive from Ms. Lewinsky when they moved here for the right to take her deposition, they wrote, in their motion: That same day, January 5th, she called President Clinton to ask if the president would like to review her affidavit before it was signed. He declined saying he had already seen about 15 others. She understood that to mean that he had seen 15 other affidavits, rather than 15 prior drafts of her affidavit, parenthesis, which did not exist, close parenthesis.

RUFF: In sum: One, the only reference to an affidavit in the December 17th call was the suggestion of the president that filing one might possibly enable Ms. Lewinsky to avoid being deposed, itself an entirely legitimate and proper suggestion.

Two, the president and Ms. Lewinsky never discussed the content of her affidavit on or after December 17th.

Three, the president never saw or read any draft of the affidavit before it was signed.

Four, the president believed that she could file a true affidavit.

Five, Ms. Lewinsky believed that she could file a true affidavit.

Six, there is not one single document or piece of testimony that suggests that the president encouraged her to file a false affidavit.

RUFF: Well, if there is no proof that the president encouraged Ms. Lewinsky to file a false affidavit, surely there must be some proof for the other charge that encouraged her to give perjurious testimony if she were called to testify. Well, there isn't.

Let's begin by noting something that should help you assess the president's actions during this period: both the charge that encouraged the filing of a false affidavit and the charge that he encouraged Ms. Lewinsky to testify falsely.

The conversation that the managers have alleged gave lives to both offenses is that call of the early morning of December 17th. And the managers suggest that the president, in essence, used the subterfuge of a call to inform Ms. Lewinsky about the death of Ms. Currie's brother to discuss her status as a witness in the Jones case.

*** Elapsed Time 00:12, Eastern Time 03:20 ***

RUFF: Subterfuge? Come on. A tragedy had befallen a woman who was Ms. Lewinsky's friend and the president's secretary. But let's put this in the managers' own context.

On December 6th, the president learned that Ms. Lewinsky was on the Jones witness list. According to the managers that was a source of grave concern and spurred intensified efforts to find her a job. Efforts that were still further intensified when, on December 11th Judge Wright issued her order allowing lawyers to acquire into the president's relationships with other women.

Yet I have not heard any explanation as to why the president, now theoretically so distraught that he was urging Mr. Jordan to keep Ms. Lewinsky happy by finding her a job, as Manager Hutchinson would have it, waited until December 17th, 11 days after he learned Ms. Lewinsky was on the witness list and six days after the supposedly critical events of December 11th, to call and launch his scheme to suborn perjury.

RUFF: Now as to the charge of subornation, the managers do concede, as they must, that the president and Ms. Lewinsky did not even discuss her deposition on the 17th; logically, I suppose, since she wasn't actually subpoenaed until two days later.

Now one might think that this would dispose of the matter, since they do not identify a single other moment in time when there was any discussion of Ms. Lewinsky's potential testimony. But once again, having lifted the lid and seen that their pot was empty, they would ask you to find that the same signal that we now know did not encourage the filing of an affidavit was a signal to Ms. Lewinsky to lie if she was ever called to testify.

But of course we've long known that there was no such signal, and the grand jury, as was so often the case, one of the jurors took it upon him- or herself to ask that which the independent counsel chose not to, and you have this before you, and you've seen it before.

A juror: It is possible that you also had these discussions about denying the relationship after you learned that you were a witness in the Paula Jones case?

Ms. Lewinsky: I don't believe so, no.

A juror: Can you exclude that possibility?

RUFF: Ms. Lewinsky: I pretty much can. I really don't remember it. I mean it would be very surprising for me to be confronted with something that would show me different. But I -- it was 2:30, I mean the conversation I'm thinking of mainly would have to have been December 17 which was

A juror: The telephone call.

Ms. Lewinsky: Right. And it was, you know, 2:00, 2:30 in the morning. I remember the gist of it and I -- I really don't think so.

A juror: Thank you.

But all of this is not enough to dissuade the managers. Now that they know what the only two participants in the relevant conversation deny that there was any discussion of either the affidavit or the testimony, they have created still another theory. As Manager Bryant told you last week, and in essence it was repeated today, quote, "I don't care what was in Ms. Lewinsky's mind."

Now, that is quite extraordinary. The only witness, the supposed victim of the obstruction, the person whose testimony is being influenced, says that it didn't happen. And the managers nonetheless want you to conclude, I assume, that some subliminal message was being conveyed that resulted in the filing of a false affidavit, without the affiant knowing that she was being controlled by some unseen and unheard force.

I won't comment further.

RUFF: Two more pillars lie in the dust.

Next, the gifts.

On this charge the record is largely but in critical respects not entirely as the record has been from the beginning. Here is what it shows.

On the morning of December 28th, the president gave Ms. Lewinsky Christmas presents in token of her impending departure for New York. Ms. Lewinsky testified that she raised the subject of her subpoena and said something about getting the gifts out of her apartment, to which, as she herself has now told you, the president either made no response or said something like, "Let me think about it."

Betty Currie has testified consistently that Ms. Lewinsky called her to ask her to pick up a box and hold them for her.

Ms. Lewinsky has testified equally consistently, and testified again in her deposition, that it was her recollection that Ms. Currie called her and said that she understood she, quote, "had something for her," or perhaps even the president said, "You have something for me."

The president denies that he ever spoke to Betty Currie about picking up gifts from Monica Lewinsky. Betty Currie denies that the president ever asked her to pick up gifts from Monica Lewinsky.

RUFF: Now Ms. Lewinsky has stated on three occasions -- on three occasions -- before her most recent deposition that Ms. Currie picked up the gifts at 2 o'clock in the afternoon on the 28th. Having been shown the infamous 3:32 cell phone call, which had previously been trumpeted by the managers as absolute proof that it was Ms. Currie who called Ms. Lewinsky to initiate the process, Ms. Lewinsky testified on Monday that Ms. Currie came to pick up the gifts sometime during the afternoon and that there had been other calls earlier in the day.

But we learned at least a couple of interesting new things from Ms. Lewinsky on this subject.

First, when she received her subpoena on December 19th, nine days -- nine days -- before she spoke to the president about them, Ms. Lewinsky was frightened at the prospect that the Jones lawyers would search her apartment and she began to think about concealing the gifts that she cared most about, or that would suggest some special relationship with the president.

RUFF: And as she told you, she herself decided then that she would turn over only what she described as the most innocuous gifts, and it was those gifts that she took with her to see her lawyer, Mr. Carter, on December 22nd.

Thus, when she arrived to pick up her Christmas gift from the president on December 28th, she had already decided that she would not turn over all of the gifts called for by the subpoena and had already segregated out the ones she intended to withhold. But she didn't tell the president about that. Instead, as she testified, she broached the question of what to do with the gifts and the possibility of the giving them to Betty Currie, again, without describing what had already occurred, to which the president either made no reply or said something like, I'll think about it.

This testimony sheds light on one of the issues that has troubled everyone who has tried to make sense out of what happened on that day. Why would the president, if he were really worried about Ms. Lewinsky's turning over gifts pursuant to the subpoena, give her more gifts?

From our perspective, the answer is already, has always been an easy one. He wouldn't have been concerned. He's testified that he's not concerned about gifts; that he gives them all the time to all sorts of people, and he wasn't worried about it. And now we know that, from Ms. Lewinsky's perspective, as she explained in her deposition, it also made no difference that the president was giving her additional gifts, because she had already decided, having had the subpoena in hand for nine days, that she would not turn them over.

RUFF: Now a second ray of light also shines on two aspects of the managers case from Ms. Lewinsky's deposition. You may remember that as part of Article I in their trial brief, the managers allege that the president lied to the grand jury -- this is one of the never- ending list of possible perjuries -- that he recalled saying to Ms. Lewinsky on December 28th that she would have to, quote, "turnover what she had," unquote, when she raised the gift issue with him.

While the managers sought to obtain from Ms. Lewinsky testimony that would support that charge of perjury as well as the concealment charge under Article II, but she turned their world upside down on both the perjury charge and the obstruction charge.

When asked whether the president had ever said to her, "You will have to give them whatever you have," or something like that, Ms. Lewinsky testified that FBI agent Fallon (ph) of the OIC had interviewed her after the president's grand jury testimony, after they already knew what the president had said under oath, and asked her whether she recalled the president's saying anything like that to her.

RUFF: And I'm sure somewhat to the surprise of Manager Bryant, she testified that she told Agent Fallon (ph), quote "that sounds familiar."

Now aside from the not-so-minor point that Ms. Lewinsky's testimony corroborates the president's recollection of his response, and undermines the charge for both Article I and Article II, a couple of other things are worth noting. As my colleague Ms. Seligman pointed out to you on Saturday, this was the first time, after all Ms. Lewinsky's recorded versions of the events of December 28th, that we had ever heard that the president's version sounded familiar to her.

And second, there is not a single piece of paper, at least that we're aware of, in the entire universe turned over by the independent counsel to the House and thence to us, that reflects the FBI's interview of Ms. Lewinsky. If she hadn't been honest enough to tell Manager Bryant about it, we and you would never have known.

Senators, what else is there in the vaults of the independent counsel or in the memory of his agents that we don't know about?

RUFF: Another pillar down.

The job search. It may have become tiresome to hear it, but any discussion of the job search must begin with Ms. Lewinsky's testimony, oft repeated, that no one promised her a job to influence her testimony.

Remember my two themes: moving targets, empty pots. They come together here.

What the managers have presented to you is a series of different speculative theories. As each one is shown to be what it is, they move on to the next, in the hope they will find one, someday, that actually has a connection to reality.

But they cannot find that elusive theory, for the stubborn facts will not budge, nor will the stubborn denials by every participant in their mythical plot.

Now, we know that Ms. Lewinsky's job search began in the summer of '97, well in advance of her being involved in the Jones case. In October she interviewed with UN Ambassador Richardson, was offered a job. She had her first meeting with Mr. Jordan early in November, well before she appeared in the Jones case.

The next contact was actually before Thanksgiving, when she made an effort to set up another meeting with Mr. Jordan, was told to call back after the holiday. She did on December 8th, and set up a meeting on December 11th. Again, before either she or Mr. Jordan knew that she was involved in the Jones case.

RUFF: Now on that date of December 11th, which we've heard so much about, Mr. Jordan did open doors for Ms. Lewinsky in New York. But there was no inappropriate pressure. At American Express and Young and Rubicam, she failed on her own; and at Revlon, she succeeded on her own. As Mr. Jordan told the grand jury when asked whether there was any connection between his assistance to her and the Jones case, his answer was, "Unequivocally, indubitably, no."

In search of some efforts that Mr. Jordan -- of some evidence that Mr. Jordan's efforts were indeed triggered by Ms. Lewinsky's status as a witness, and therefore possibly inappropriate, may I just focus on his January 8th call to Mr. Perelman, the CEO of McAnders and Forbes (ph), admittedly, a date by which Ms. Lewinsky's status was known to her, to Mr. Jordan, and to the president. Ms. Lewinsky had reported that her original interview had not gone way, although we know it actually had, and that her resume had already been sent over from McAnders and Forbes (ph) to Revlon, where she was ultimately offered a job, Mr. Jordan was candid in stating that he went to the top because he wanted to get action, if action could be had.

RUFF: But the record is clear that the woman involved at Revlon who interviewed Lewinsky had already made a decision to hire her. No one put any pressure on her. There was no special urgency. There was no fix. In fact, if you want to know what happens when Mr. Jordan calls the CEO of a company to get action, look at his call to the CEO of Young & Rubicam. No job. No job. They made an independent decision whether or not to hire Ms. Lewinsky.

Now, other than the managers, there are only two people, as far as I can tell, who ever tried to create a link between the job search and the affidavit. Linda Tripp, Kenneth Starr. No one, not Ms. Lewinsky, not Mr. Jordan, not the president, no one ever said anything to so much as suggest the existence of such a linkage, and the managers can find no proof. Which is not to say they didn't try. Manager Hutchinson, you will recall, originally asked to you look at the events of January 5th, when he said that Ms. Lewinsky had met with her attorney, Mr. Carter, and then, according to the managers' account, Mr. Carter began drafting the affidavit, and Ms. Lewinsky was so concerned that she called the president, and he returned her call.

Well, the problem with this version, as my colleague, Mr. Kendall, showed you, was the affidavit wasn't drafted until January 6th. Mr. Carter has so testified.

RUFF: Now the managers would also have you believe that Mr. Jordan was involved in drafting the affidavit and that he was involved in the deletion of language from the draft that suggested that she'd been alone with the president.

Ms. Lewinsky's and Mr. Jordan's testimony is essentially the same. They talked. Mr. Jordan listened, you'll recall, and saying yes, she was talking and I was doodling. He called Mr. Carter. He transmitted to Mr. Carter some of her concerns, but he made it very clear to Ms. Lewinsky he wasn't her lawyer and in words that will resonate forever, at least among the legal community, Mr. Jordan said: I don't do affidavits.

And of course, Mr. Carter himself testified that it was his idea to delete the language about being alone. Now, the very best that the managers can do on this issue is to establish that Ms. Lewinsky talked to Mr. Jordan in the same conversation about the job search and about her affidavit.

RUFF: But as Mr. Jordan told you, Ms. Lewinsky was always talking about the job search, even made it very clear to you that there was no linkage between the two. If we can play just a very brief segment of Mr. Jordan's deposition.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HUTCHINSON: In your conversation with Ms. Lewinsky prior to the affidavit being signed, did you in fact talk to her about both the job and her concerns about parts of the affidavit?

JORDAN: I have never in any conversation with Ms. Lewinsky talked to her about the job on one hand or job being interrelated with the conversation about the affidavit. The affidavit was over here, the job was over here.

HUTCHINSON: But the...

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RUFF: And of course we've already dispensed with the notion, to the extent that the managers continue to assert it, that the president ever discussed the contents of the affidavit with Ms. Lewinsky or even ever saw a draft.

Now, recognizing that they would never be able to show that the inception of the job search was linked in any way to the affidavit, the managers developed a theory, which they've advanced to you, that the president committed obstruction of justice when the job search assistance became, in their words, quote, "totally interconnected, intertwined, interrelated," unquote, with the filing of Ms. Lewinsky's affidavit.

RUFF: The problem the managers have had that the managers have had, however, is that they've not been able to figure out when this occurred, why it occurred, or how it occurred.

Think back on how many versions of their theory you have heard just in the last few weeks. First, it all started on December 11th when Judge Wright issued her order permitting the Jones lawyers to take depositions to prove that the president had relations with other women. That was what galvanized the president and Mr. Jordan to make real efforts to find Ms. Lewinsky a job. Whoops. Didn't quite fit the facts.

Mr. Jordan met with Ms. Lewinsky and made calls to prospective employers before the order was issued.

All right. Let's try this. Second, well, it wasn't really the 11th, you see. It was the 5th. When the witness list came out. But they'd already told you in their trial brief, quite explicitly, and in the majority report of the committee to the Congress, that there was no urgency. Those were there words. There was no urgency after December ah.

RUFF: Now, I'm a city boy, but that dog went back to sleep.

Third, as Manager Hutchinson told you on Saturday, what really happened was that by December 17th, the president had, quote, "got the job search moving" and thought, quote, "maybe she's now more receptive," unquote, and that's why he called Ms. Lewinsky on the 17th and told her she was on the witness list.

Nice try. No thanks.

Now I don't know whether this chart which Manager Hutchinson used, was intended to speak for itself or to be elucidated by his own comments, but let's look at it.

December 5th, witness list, Lewinsky, exclamation point. True, witness list comes, Monica Lewinsky's name is on it.

December 6th, president meets with attorneys on witness list. True.

Seventh, president and Jordan meet. Well, that's also true. But we know they didn't talk about Monica Lewinsky. Not quite sure why it's there.

December 8th, Lewinsky sets up a meeting with Jordan for the 11th. true. At that point she doesn't know she's on the list, Mr. Jordan doesn't know that she's on the list.

RUFF: The 11th, the Lewinsky job meeting with Jordan. Yes, true, and as we know, well before Judge Wright's order came out. They still don't know, the two of them, that there is -- that her name is on the witness list.

December 17th, the call. True, they are on the list.

December 19th, the subpoena is served, true.

December 28th, the president and Lewinsky meet and hoofs (ph) are concealed. Now, true, but I'm not sure what that means in this context.

And last, interestingly, breakfast at the Park Hyatt. More evidence at risk.

Now, it is clear that if you string all these events together, and you have a theory that will link them all together, you've made some progress. There's only one problem. Other than what we know to be true on this list, there is nothing other than surmise that links them together in any fashion that one could consider improper, or certainly illegal.

RUFF: But that is in essence where the managers have brought us in their theorizing, for their fourth theory is that the pressure did not really begin to build until Ms. Lewinsky was actually subpoenaed and began to prepare an affidavit. And on this theory a call to Mr. Perelman was the final step, going right to the top of McAndrews and Forbes (ph) to make absolutely sure that Ms. Lewinsky stayed on the team.

But here there are other facts to deal with. For example, look what happened, or more importantly didn't happen on December 19. On that day, Monica Lewinsky came weeping to Mr. Jordan's office carrying with her the dreaded subpoena. And Mr. Jordan called the president and visited him with that -- visited with him that evening. And you'll recall that he talked in very candid terms to Ms. Lewinsky and Mr. Jordan about their relationship. Excuse me, to the president about their relationship.

Wouldn't one think that, if the president was in fact engaged in some scheme to use a job in New York to influence Ms. Lewinsky's testimony, that this would be the critical moment, that some immediate steps would be taken to be absolutely sure that there was a job for her?

RUFF: But what do we find? Mr. Jordan takes no further action on the job front until January 8th.

Now, there was never so much as a passing reference concerning any connection between the job search and the affidavit among any of the three participants. Any of the three participants. There's not one conversation that anyone could conclude was designed to implement this nefarious scheme that the managers would have you find,

And so now we have an entirely new theory: The one-man conspiracy. A beast unknown, I think, to Anglo-American jurisprudence. Now the fact that Ms. Lewinsky didn't -- this is on the managers' theory -- the fact that Ms. Lewinsky didn't know she was on the witness list until December 17th, and Mr. Jordan didn't know about it until she was subpoenaed on the 19th, and Mr. Perelman never knew it, all are proof positive that the president himself was the mastermind, pulling on unseen strings, and influencing the participants in this drama without their even knowing that they were being influenced.

Under this theory, the latest in the long line, Ms. Lewinsky's denial that she ever discussed the contents of her affidavit with the president, her denial that there was any connection between the job and her testimony, Mr. Jordan's denial that there was any connection between his efforts to find her a job and the affidavit, and the fact that Mr. Jordan never discussed any such connection with the president, are simply evidence of the fact that there must have been such a connection.

RUFF: that unbeknownst to Ms. Lewinsky, she was being corruptly encouraged to file a false affidavit. With all due respect, somebody's been watching too many re-runs of the X-Files.

Confronted with this problem, the managers now offer you one last theory. With every increasing directness they now accuse Mr. Jordan himself of obstructing justice by urging Ms. Lewinsky to destroy her notes.

Seemingly they ask you to find, even in the face of Mr. Jordan's forceful denials, that one who would forget a breakfast at the Park Hyatt until reminded of it by being shown the receipt, and who would then admit that his recollection was refreshed, and would admit that he remembered a discussion of the notes, must have obstructed justice himself. And of course, must have been engaged all along with an effort to influence Ms. Lewinsky's testimony on behalf of the president. Nonsense. Nonsense.

And so this pillar returns to the dust from which it came.

RUFF: Next, the charge that the events surrounding Mr. Bennett's statement to Judge Wright during the Jones deposition form the basis for two charges -- they form the basis for two charges.

First, that the president obstructed justice in the Jones' case, and second, that he committed perjury by telling the grand jury that he really wasn't paying attention at the critical moment.

Both charges depend on the managers' ability to prove that indeed the president hadn't -- had been paying attention, and to do that, they had always relied on the videotape of the deposition in which it can be seen that the president was looking in the direction of his lawyer while Mr. Bennett was talking. But two weeks ago, two weeks ago they came to you and they produced, with a modest flourish, a new bit of evidence, an affidavit from Mr. Barry Ward (ph), clerk to Judge Wright, trumpeted, in their words, as, quote, "lending even greater credence to their claim."

Now in their memorandum in support of their request to expand the record by including Mr. Ward's (ph) affidavit, the managers told you the following, and this is the managers' own language: From his seat at the conference table next to the judge, he saw President Clinton listening attentively to Mr. Bennett's remarks while the exchange between Mr. Bennett and the judged occurred.

RUFF: Further, the managers say, Mr. Ward's (ph) declaration would lend even greater credence to the argument that President Lincoln lied on -- President Clinton lied on this point during his grand jury testimony and obstructed justice by allowing his attorney to utilize a false affidavit in order to cut off a legitimate line of questioning.

Mr. Ward's (ph) declaration proves that Mr. Ward (ph) saw President Clinton listening attentively while the exchange between Mr. Bennett and the president judge occurred. But this is what Mr. Ward's (ph) affidavit actually says -- the affidavit that was attached to the very motion, the language from which I just read to you. And I direct your attention only to the last sentence, because this is the only one of any moment.

"From my position at the conference table, I observed President Clinton looking directly at Mr. Bennett while this statement was being made."

Search if you will for any evidence relating to whether the president was looking attentively or not. There is not one iota of evidence added to the videotape. You were misled.

RUFF: Indeed, Mr. Ward (ph) said to The Legal Times on February 1st, 1999: I have no idea if he was paying attention; he could have been thinking about policy initiatives for all I know.

You were misled. The record before the affidavit is the record after the affidavit. The managers ask that you remove the president of the United States on the basis of a videotape showing that he was looking in the direction of his lawyer.

Well, it wasn't much of a pillar to start with.

There's no dispute, and we move now to the conversation of January 18th with -- between the president and Ms. Currie -- there's no dispute that President Clinton called Ms. Currie into the White House on Sunday, January 18th, the day after his deposition and asked her certain questions and made certain statements about his relationship with Ms. Lewinsky. The only dispute is whether in doing so the president intended to tamper with a witness.

The managers contend that he was corruptly attempting to influence Ms. Currie's testimony. The president denies it. Now since we know that Ms. Currie was not on the Jones witness list at the time of the president's deposition or at the time of either of his conversations with Ms. Currie, and we know that discovery was about to end, the managers have argued that the president's own references to her in the Jones deposition constituted an invitation to the Jones lawyers to subpoena her.

And they argue that proof of that invitation can be found in a witness list signed by the Jones lawyers on January 22nd, which listed Ms. Currie and 17 other potential witnesses.

*** Eastern Time 03:52 ***

RUFF: Now when I spoke to you on January 19th, I told you that Ms. Currie had never placed on a witness list. I was wrong, and Manager Hutchinson has quite properly taken me to task for it. But I fear that he's become so caught up in this new information that he has lost sight of it's true significance, or rather lack there of.

In order to convince you that Betty Currie was going to be called by the Jones lawyers, when the president spoke to her on January 18th, the managers, somewhat like Diogenes, lit their lantern and sought out the most reliable witness they could find, a witness whose credibility was beyond questioning, who had no ulterior motive, no bias -- Paula Jones's lawyer.

And they brought in to you in a form that they hoped would allow his motive and bias to go untested.

RUFF: Remember how the managers have told you that's it's important to be able to look a witness in the eye, test his demeanor. I doubt that you need to do that to understand what might color Mr. Holmes' (ph) view of the world. So let's look at what he had to say.

You have in the exhibits before you an unredacted witness list attached to Mr. Holmes' affidavit. I've put up on the easels the redacted list that was originally used by the managers a few weeks ago because I really see no purpose in unduly exposing the names of the people who were on that witness list.

Well, let me direct you to these words, just as a sidelight, under seal.

You will remember that the president has been criticized for violating the gag order when he spoke to his own secretary about his deposition. What then do we say when the managers produce a document from a lawyer for one of the parties that is still under seal, not yet released by the court, and reveals the names of individuals who are no part of these proceedings?

Surely, the managers could have made their point just as well without such a revelation.

RUFF: Now, Mr. Holmes (ph) states that the Jones lawyers had two reasons for putting Ms. Currie's name on the witness list. One, because of President Clinton's deposition testimony; and two, because they had, quote, "received what they considered to be reliable information that Ms. Currie was instrumental in facilitating Monica Lewinsky's meetings with Mr. Clinton and that Ms. Currie was central to the cover story Mr. Clinton and Ms. Lewinsky had developed to use in the event their affair was discovered." Now, he doesn't tell us where he got this reliable information, but of course we know it's Ms. Tripp.

But let's figure out whether in fact Betty Currie really made it on the list because of the president's testimony. If you look at the number of times that she's mentioned in the deposition, it's become conventional wisdom that the president inserted her name either into his testimony so frequently and so gratuitously that he did in fact invite the Jones lawyers to call her and thus must have known that she was going to be a witness when he spoke to her on January 18.

But if you look at the deposition, you'll find that the first time her name is mentioned the president is simply responding to a question about his early meetings with Ms. Lewinsky and states that Betty was present. The lawyers for the plaintiff then ask 13 questions, give or take a few, about Ms. Currie. Now, they know there's no secret here.

RUFF: They got their information from Linda Tripp, and Linda Tripp surely told them about Ms. Lewinsky's relationship with Ms. Currie.

It was only in response to a couple of their questions about whether letters had ever been delivered to Ms. Currie and whether she stayed at some extraordinarily late hour that the president said, you'll have to ask her.

He didn't invite -- he didn't suggest to them that they call Ms. Currie. They knew whatever they needed to know about Ms. Currie to put her on their witness list.

Now to judge further whether Ms. Currie made it on to the list at the president's invitation or because they already knew about witnesses from Ms. Tripp, let me direct your attention if you look at the exhibit in front of you rather than the redacted version here. The person listed on the witness list at number 165. Her name does not come up at all in the deposition, but we know that she was in fact the subject of conversation surreptitiously recorded between Ms. Tripp and Ms. Lewinsky.

And note, too, the name of Vernon Jordan, which is on this list. They're the ones, the Jones lawyers are the ones who first bring them up. And we know, of course, that they knew from Ms. Tripp that he was already involved in this scenario.

RUFF: Thus, neither the January 22nd witness list nor Mr. Holmes' affidavit supports the managers' theory. The president did not know Ms. Currie would be a witness when he spoke to her after her deposition, and he could not therefore have tampered with a witness.

Well, beyond their statement about how they got this information, Mr. Holmes volunteers that they didn't get it from the Washington Post. Well perhaps not, but it's clear that in the days after the Post story broke, we know that some of the names on the list came from the press reports. We know the Jones lawyers began tracking the newly-public activities of the independent counsel, which was issuing its own subpoenas in the hours and days following the story's release.

And for some insight into what at least the independent counsel thought was going on, look at the pleading they filed with Judge Wright on Wednesday, January 28th to prevent the Jones lawyers from continuing to use their investigation as an aid -- that is, the IC's investigation -- as an aid to (OFF-MIKE) discovery.

Their pleading said: As recently as this afternoon, plaintiff's counsel caused process to be served on Betty Currie, who appeared before the grand jury in Washington yesterday. Such deliberate and calculated shadowing of the grand jury's investigation will necessarily pierce the veil of grand jury secrecy.

Now, the managers have criticized us for ignoring this second conversation between the president and Ms. Currie, suggesting I suppose that it takes on an even more sinister cast than the first.

RUFF: But there's simply nothing of any substance to take from the second conversation that adds to the events of January 18th.

It's clear that the conversation occurred on Tuesday, January 20th, before the Starr investigation became public. The managers disingenuously have suggested in their exhibits, the one they distributed on Saturday, that this conversation occurred after The Post story appeared. And if you look at the exhibit that was used on Saturday, you'll see, "January 20th, Post story is known." Of course, that's late at night. "January 21st, posted on the Internet, president calls Betty for 20 minutes." And then sort of sneaking it in down here, "January 20th or 21st, president coaches Currie for the second time."

But the record shows this: Ms. Currie has said that the conversation occurred, quote, "whenever the president was next in the White House," that is, after the Sunday conversation. And that was Tuesday, the 20th, the day after the Martin Luther King holiday.

Thus the second conversation is of no greater legal significance than the first, since the president knew no more about Ms. Currie's status as a witness on Tuesday than he did on Sunday.

RUFF: In sum, the managers have tried to convince you that the president knew, or must have known that Betty Currie would be a witness in the Jones case. If anything, we now know that the reason she was put on the January 22nd list, along with many others had more to do with Linda Tripp than anything else.

But putting this aside for the moment -- that is putting aside the question whether the president could have had any reason to believe that Ms. Currie would be a witness, look at whether Ms. Currie herself believed that she was being corruptly influenced on January 18th.

In response to continuing efforts by the prosecutors to get her to admit that she felt some untoward pressure from the president, she testified, and you've seen this before as well, "Did you feel pressured when he told you these statements?"

"None whatsoever."

"And what did you think, or what was going through your mind about what he was doing?"

"At the time I felt that he was -- I want to use the word shocked or surprised that this was an issue and he was just talking."

RUFF: Question: That was your impression, that he wanted you to say -- because he would end each of the statements with "right," with a question?

Answer: I do not remember that he wanted me to say right. He would say 'right,' and I could have said 'wrong.'

And at the end: "Did you feel any pressure to agree with your boss?"

"None."

And so on a human level -- a human level -- we have the president who has just seen his worst nightmare come true and who knows that he's about to face a press tidal wave that will wash over him and his family and the country, and we have his secretary, who knows of -- indeed, has been a part of his relationship with Monica Lewinsky -- but knows nothing about the long since ended improper aspects of that relationship. We have a conversation that was the product of the emotions that were churning through the president's very soul on that day. What we do not have is an attempt corruptly to influence the testimony of a witness.

Only one pillar left.

The managers ask the Senate to find that the president's conversations with Mr. Blumenthal and other aides was an effort to influence their testimony before the grand jury. Their theory, much as it was true of some of their other theories, founders on shoals that they don't account for.

RUFF: As they would have it, in the days immediately following the Lewinsky story, the president spoke with a few members of his senior staff, as they would allege, knowing that they would probably be grand jury witnesses, and misled them about his relationship with Ms. Lewinsky, so they would convey that misinformation to the grand jury when they were called.

Now just so that you can see for yourself what the president testified to in the grand jury on this subject, I want to play about three or four minutes of that testimony for you.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

(UNKNOWN): ... but you denied a sexual relations or relationship with Monica Lewinsky. They told us that you denied that. Do you have any reason to doubt in the days after the story broke? Do you have any reason to doubt?

CLINTON: No, the -- let me say this. It's no secret to anybody that I hoped that this relationship would never become public. It's a matter of fact that it had been many, many months since there had been anything improper about it in terms of improper contact.

(UNKNOWN): Did you (OFF-MIKE) or not, Mr. President?

CLINTON: Let me finish. So what -- I did not want to mislead my friends, but I wanted to find language where I could say that. I also frankly did not want to turn any of them into witnesses, because I -- and sure enough, they all became witnesses.

(UNKNOWN): Well, you knew they might be witnesses, didn't you?

CLINTON: And so -- and so I said to them things that were true about this relationship; that I used -- in the language I used, I said there's nothing going on between us.

*** Elapsed Time 00:58, Eastern Time 04:06 ***

CLINTON: That was true. I said, I have not had sex with her, as I define it. That was true. And that I hoped that I would never have to be here on this day giving this testimony. Of course. But I also didn't want to do anything to complicate this matter further.

So I said things that were true. They may have been misleading. And if they were, I have to take responsibility for it, and I'm sorry.

UNIDENTIFIED PROSECUTION LAWYER: It may have been misleading, sir, and you knew, though, after January 21st when the Post article broke and said that Judge Starr was looking into this, you knew that they might be witnesses. You knew they might be called into a grand jury, didn't you?

CLINTON: I think I was quite careful what I said after that. I may have said something to all these people to that effect, but I -- I also, whenever anybody asked me any details I said, look, I don't want you to be a witness, or I turn you into a witness or give you information that could get you in trouble. I just wouldn't talk. I by and large didn't talk to people about this.

UNIDENTIFIED PROSECUTION LAWYER: If all of these people -- let's leave out Mrs. Currie for a minute -- Vernon Jordan, Sid Blumenthal, John Podesta, Harold Ickes, Erskine Bowles, Harry Thomason. After the story broke, after Judge Starr's involvement was known on January 21st, have said you denied a sexual relationship with them. Are you denying that?

CLINTON: No. I'm just telling what you meant by it. I told what you I meant by it when they started this deposition.

UNIDENTIFIED PROSECUTION LAWYER: You told us now that you were being careful but that it might have been misleading. Is that correct?

CLINTON: It might have been. Since we have seen this four-year, $40 million dollar investigation come down to parsing the definition of sex, I think it might have been. I don't think at the time that I thought that's what this was going to be about.

In fact, if you remember the headlines at the time, even you mention that Post story, all the headlines were, and all the talking people who talked about this, including a lot who have been quite sympathetic to your operation, said, well, this is not really a story about sex, this is a story about subornation of perjury and these talking points and all this other stuff.

CLINTON: So I -- what I was trying to do was to give them something they could -- that would be true, even if misleading in the context of this deposition, and keep them out of trouble and let's deal -- and deal with the, what I thought was the almost ludicrous suggestion that I had urged someone to lie or tried to suborn perjury in other ways.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

RUFF: It's clear from that excerpt, I think, that in the hours and days immediately following the release of the Post story, the president was struggling with two competing concerns. How to give some explanation to the men and women he worked with every day and worked with most closely, without putting them in the position of being grand jury witnesses? But he was not in any sense seeking to tamper with them or to obstruct the grand jury's investigation.

And putting aside for the moment our strenuous disagreement both with the factual underpinning of and legal conclusions that flow from the managers' analysis of these events, I find it difficult to figure out how it is that they believe the president intended that his statement to Mr. Blumenthal or his statement to Mr. Podesta would involve their conveying false information to the grand jury, or that he sought in some fashion to send that message to the grand jury when at the very moment that those aides were first subpoenaed, he asserted executive privilege to prevent them from testifying before the grand jury.

RUFF: For someone who wanted Mr. Blumenthal to serve, as the managers would have it, as his messenger of lies, that's strange behavior indeed.

There is an issue here that I don't really want to get into at length, and I, not having heard the last two hours of the managers' presentation, don't know whether they're going to get into, and that is, in Manager Graham's favorite issue, the question of whether there was some scheme to smear Monica Lewinsky early, middle or late.

I will (OFF-MIKE) to say that no such plan ever existed, I just want to ask the managers this. Although I must admit that for the first time in my life I have heard Marlene Dietrich's name used as a pejorative, what was Manager Bryant saying about Ms. Lewinsky? That she was lying? That she'd misled the managers? That because her testimony helped the president they were now going to attack her character and her integrity?

I don't know how many of you have seen "Witness for the Prosecution," either before or after Mr. Bryant used that example, but ask yourselves: What was he saying, what was he doing?

Ladies and gentlemen of the Senate, I don't know whether there's a market for used pillars, but they're all lying in the dust.

*** Elapsed Time 01:06, Eastern Time 04:14 ***

RUFF: It's difficult for me as a lawyer, as an advocate for my client, to speak to this body about lofty constitutional principles, without seeming merely to engage in empty rhetoric. But I'd like to think, I guess, that if there were ever a forum in which I could venture into that realm and be excused for doing so, could be heard without the intervening filter of skepticism that I fear too often lies between lawyer and listener, this is the time and this is the moment.

Only once before in our nation's history has any lawyer had the opportunity to make a closing argument on behalf of the president of the United States. And only once before has this Senate ever had to sit in judgment on the head of the executive branch. You all must cast an a eye to the past, looking over our shoulders to be sure that we've learned the right lessons from those who have sat in this chamber before us. We also must look to the future to be sure that we leave the right lessons to those who come after us.

I hope that no one will ever have need of them, but if they should, we owe them, not only the proper judgment for today, but the proper judgment for all time.

Now you've heard the managers tell you very early on in these meetings, that we've advanced a, quote, "so-what defense," that we're saying that the president's conduct is really nothing to be concerned about, that we should all simply go home and ignore what he has done. And that, of course, to choose a word that would have been familiar to the framers themselves, is balderdash.

If you want to see so-what in action, look elsewhere. So what if the framers reserved impeachment and removal for only those offenses that threaten the state. So what if the House Judiciary Committee didn't quite do their constitutional job if they took the independent counsel's referral and added a few frills and then washed their hands of it.

RUFF: So what if the House approved articles that wouldn't pass muster in any court in the land. So what if the managers have been creating their own theories of impeachment as they go along. And so what and so what and so what.

By contrast, what we offer is not "so what," but this: Ask what the framers handed down to us as the standard for removing the president. Ask what impeachment and removal would mean to our system of government in years to come. Ask what you always ask in this chamber: What is best for the country?

Now the president wouldn't allow any of us to say "so what"; to so much as suggest that he -- what he has done can simply be forgotten. He's asked for forgiveness from his family and from the American people, and he's asked for the opportunity to earn back their trust.

In his opening remarks, Manager Hyde questioned whether this president can represent the interests of our country in the world. Go to Ireland and ask that question. Go to Israel and Gaza and ask that question. If you doubt whether he should here at home continue in office, ask the parent whose child walks safer streets; or the men and women who go off to work in the morning at good jobs.

We are -- we are together, I think, weavers of a constitutional fabric in which all of us now are clothed and generations will be clothed for millennia to come.

RUFF: We cannot leave even the smallest flaw in that fabric. For if we do, one day someone will come along and pull a thread, and the flaw will grow, and it will eat away at the fabric around it, and soon, the entire cloth will begin to unravel.

We must be as close to perfect in what we do here today as women and men are capable of being. And if there is doubt about our course, surely we must take special care as we hold the fabric of democracy in our hands, to leave it as we found it, tightly woven and strong.

Now, before today I wrote down the following: The rules say that the managers will have the last word. Well, the rules today say the managers will have the last paragraphs. That truly isn't so, because even when they are finished, theirs will not be the last voices you hear.

Yes, one or more of them will now rise and come to the podium and tell you that they have the right of it, and we the wrong, that our sense of what the constitution demands is not theirs and should not be yours. That is their privilege.

But as each of them does come before you for the final time, and as you listen to them, I know that you will hear not their eloquence, as grand as it may be, not the pointed jibes of Manager Hutchinson, nor the stentorian tones of Manager Rogan, nor the homespun homilies of Manager Graham, nor the grave exhortations of Manager Hyde, but voices of greater eloquence than any of us can muster.

RUFF: The voices of Madison and Hamilton and the others who met in Philadelphia 212 years ago and the voices of the generations since and the voices of the American people now and the voices of generations to come. These, not the voices of mere advocates, must be your guide.

It's been an honor for all of us to appear before you in these last weeks on behalf of the president. And now our last words to you, which are the words I began with: William Jefferson Clinton is not guilty of the charges that have been brought against him, he did not commit perjury, he did commit obstruction of justice, he must not be removed from office.

Thank you very much.

REHNQUIST: The chair recognizes the majority leader.

LOTT: Mr. Chief Justice, I ask consent that we take a 15-minute recess.

REHNQUIST: Without objection, it's so ordered.

(RECESS)

REHNQUIST: The Chair recognizes the Majority Leader.

LOTT: Mr. Chief Justice, I believe now we're ready with the Managers from the House. I understand that they do have a two hour presentation and I will look for guidance from the Chief Justice about whether or not we should take a break before the last 45 minutes. That would be after Mr. Manager Rogan, if at all.

REHNQUIST: Very well. The Chair recognizes Mr. Manager McCollum.

MCCOLLUM: Mr. Chief Justice and members of the Senate, at the out set of my closing remarks, I would like to lay the record straight on a couple of matters with all due difference to White House Counsel. The suggestion that Mr. Ruff made at the beginning of his closing that we were somehow being unfair to him on the timing today of the rebuttal, it seems to me to be a little strained. He thinks (OFF- MIKE) protest too much as a remark I used earlier a quote from Shakespeare and I think it's appropriate here too because if you recall, we had no rebuttal, at all, as you normally would have in the Bar (ph) case to begin with and secondly, we thought we ought to have live witnesses here -- we haven't those and the list could on and I really don't think that we are being unfair.

Secondly, I would like to make one correction and make a clear point. I'm sure it was not intended, but in your remarks, I believe, Mr. Ruff, you indicated there was no history with regard to beyond a reasonable doubt standard. Maybe I misunderstood that, but I want the record to be clear that in the Claiborne (ph) case, there was in fact a vote that took place here in case of Judge Claiborne (ph) some 75- to-17, saying that that standard did not apply to impeachment cases.

Now having said that, I would like to move to my own thoughts.

MCCOLLUM: Notwithstanding the clever and resourceful arguments that White House counsel have made to you today and in the past few weeks, I suspect that -- that most of you, probably more than two- thirds, believe that the president did indeed commit most of, if not all of the crimes he's charged with under these articles of impeachment. And I suspect that a great many of you share my view that these are high crimes and misdemeanors.

But nonetheless, it is my understanding that some of you who share these views are not prepared to vote to convict the president and remove him from office; that instead you are of the mind at the moment, subject to our persuading you otherwise and your own debate, to acquit him.

Ultimately, the choice is yours not ours, but a few moments I'd like to spend with you reviewing just a few of the facts -- not many -- and suggesting to you what I believe and we managers believe would be some very significant negative consequences of failing to remove this president.

Having heard all the evidence over the past few days and weeks, there should be little doubt that beginning in December, 1977 (ph), William Jefferson Clinton set out on a course of conduct designed to keep from the Jones court the true nature of his relationship with Monica Lewinsky. Once he knew he'd have to testify, he knew he was going to lie on his deposition and he knew that he was going to have to lie, not only himself, but get Monica Lewinsky to lie if he was going to be successful. And he was going to have to get his personal secretary to lie about that relationship. And he was going to have to have his aides and others help him cover this up if he was going to be successful in lying in the Jones court deposition.

He did all these things. And then he chose to lie to the grand jury again because if he had not, he would have not been able to protect himself from the crimes he had already committed.

MCCOLLUM: No amount of arguing by White House counsel can erase one simple fact: If you believe Monica Lewinsky, you cannot believe the president.

If you believe Monica Lewinsky, the president committed most of the crimes with which he's charged in these articles today.

For example, while the president did not directly tell her to lie, and never advised her what to put in her affidavit, she knew from the December 17th telephone conversation with the president that he meant for her to lie about the relationship and file a false affidavit and that he lie as well.

And I want to refresh your recollection. These charts we put on some time before, in more complete form. You have them in front of you. This is a direct quote from her. We showed this on television Saturday where she was reading from her grand jury deposition and confirming this is indeed what she said and what she -- her interpretation of that affidavit, phone conversation in essence meant, despite everything else that you've heard.

She said, "For me, the best way to explain how I feel what happened was, you know, no one asked me or encouraged me to lie, but no one discouraged me, either. It wasn't as if the president called me and said: You know, Monica, you're on the witness list. This is going to be really hard for us. We're going to have to tell the truth and be humiliated in front of the entire world about what we've done -- which I would have fought him on, probably -- that was different. And by him not calling me and saying that, you know, I knew what that meant."

I knew what that meant. She lied in that affidavit. The president clearly intended to influence her by suggesting the affidavit and all of the other things that went on in that conversation, and all of the circumstances that were there.

MCCOLLUM: Monica Lewinsky was equally clear in her testimony to you Saturday, that Betty Currie called her about the gifts, not the other way around. And surely nobody believes that Betty Currie would have called Monica Lewinsky about the gifts on December 28th unless the president had asked her to do so.

And then the day after the president's deposition in the Jones case, the president clearly committed the crimes of witness tampering and obstruction of justice when, in logical anticipation of Betty Currie being called as a witness, he said to Betty Currie, "You were always there when she was there, right? We never really alone. You could see and hear everything. Monica came on to me and I never touched her, right? She wanted to have sex with me, and I can't do that."

Now, I'm not going to rehash all of the evidence in this case again. But it is my understanding that some of you may be prepared to vote to convict the president on obstruction of justice and not on perjury. I don't know how can you do that. I honestly do not know how anybody could do that.

If you believe Sidney Blumenthal's testimony that the president told him that Monica Lewinsky came at him and made a sexual demand, and that he rebuffed her, and that she threatened him and said she would tell people they had had an affair and that she was known as a stalker among her peers, surely you must conclude that the president committed perjury when he told the grand jury that he told his aides, including Blumenthal, nothing but the truth even if it was misleading.

The exact quotes from the president's grand jury testimony -- people are worried about what are the exact quotes, what are the words. I want to give you the words: "And so I said to them things that were true about this relationship. So I said things that were true. They may have been misleading. So what I was trying to do was to give them something they could -- that would be true, even if misleading."

That was even played on television in the White House presentation a few minutes ago. That was perjury. What he told Sidney Blumenthal was not true. It wasn't just misleading. It was not true. He knew it was not true. And it was perjury in front of the grand jury.

MCCOLLUM: If you believe the president the crimes of witness tampering and obstruction of justice when he called Betty Currie into his office the day after his deposition and told you, "You were always there when she was, right, the ones I just read to you," and the other statements to coach her, surely you must also conclude that the president committed perjury before the grand jury when he told the grand jurors his purpose in making these statements.

He said -- and this is what he said, these are his exact words to the grand jurors -- "I was trying to figure out what the facts were. I was trying to remember. I was trying to remember every time I'd seen Ms. Lewinsky."

That is not true. He knew that was not true. That is not what he was doing. No one rationally can reason that that is what he was trying to do when he made the coaching statements to Ms. Currie. That was perjury in front of the grand jury.

And then we've heard a lot of talk about the civil deposition. Nobody's trying to prove up that deposition or is lying in here today. Nobody's trying to use that as a duplication or anything else of the sort. But the president said before the grand jurors, quote, "My goal" -- and he's talking now about the Jones case deposition -- "my goal in this deposition was to be truthful." That's the lie. That's the perjury. That is as simple as the second count of the perjury article is.

Does anybody believe after hearing all of this that the goal of the president in the Jones deposition was to be truthful? He lied to the grand jury and he committed perjury.

And last but not least, if you believe Monica Lewinsky about the acts of a sexual nature that they engaged in, how can you conclude the president committed perjury when he specifically denied -- how can you not conclude that he committed perjury when he denied those acts? Those are very explicit.

MCCOLLUM: Mr. Ruff up here suggested this was a subjective question. Maybe about the interpretation of the definition, you might call it subjective, but he used -- and we're not going to go over all that again with you today, but I want to remind you he used specific words that he confirmed were in that deposition -- and said, "I did not do those things. I did not touch those parts."

Monica Lewinsky, if you believe her, testified that he did do those things many times. He committed perjury when he said he didn't do those things, if you believe Monica Lewinsky.

If you're going to vote to convict the president on the articles of impeachment regarding obstruction of justice, I urge you in the strongest way to also vote to convict him on the perjury article as well. I think you're doing a disservice not to do that, and sending a terrible message about perjury and the seriousness of it for history and to the American people if you don't.

As you have seen these federal sentencing guidelines, Mr. Ruff talked about those up here a while ago, perjury and obstruction of justice do have, under the baseline guidelines, a higher amount of sentencing than simple plain, vanilla bribery does. That's where they start. And yes, he's right, you can get enhancements for aggravating circumstances for bribery in certain cases, and you can get a greater sentence.

But so can you get a greater sentence for perjury. If there was any significant effort to wrongfully influence the administration of justice is one, for example, then you can get a significantly enhanced sentence for perjury if you committed perjury, and so on.

We didn't choose to bring up a litany of those lists and show all the enhancements that you could get, but of course you could do that. But for the pure base, there is no question about it. And the other significant thing, if you recall I brought up, and some of us did a couple of weeks ago now, witness bribery -- bribing a witness -- is treated more severely under the sentencing guidelines for base sentencing than ordinary bribery is.

MCCOLLUM: Clearly, all three are high crimes and misdemeanors.

Now, what are the consequences of failing to remove this president from office if you believe he's committed the crimes of perjury and obstruction of justice? What are the consequences of failing to do that? What's the downside?

First, at the very least, you will leave a precedent of doubt as to whether perjury and obstruction of justice are high crimes and misdemeanors when impeaching the president. In fact, your vote to acquit under these circumstances may well mean that no president in the future will ever be impeached or removed for perjury or obstruction of justice. Is that the record that you want?

Second, you will be establishing the precedent that the standard for impeachment and removal of a president is different of that for impeaching or removing a judge or any other official. While arguably, although it's never happened, a federal judge could be removed for a lesser standard under the good behavior clause of the Constitution, such removal would have to be by separate tribunal, have to be by a procedure set by statute, because, under the impeachment provisions of the Constitution, which all judges have been removed under previously, the same single standard exists for removing the president as for removing a judge. And that standard is that you have to have treason, bribery or other high crimes and misdemeanors.

So while the Constitution on its face does not make a distinction for removing a president or removing a judge, if you vote to acquit, believing that the president committed perjury and obstruction of justice, for all time, you're going to set a precedent that there is such a distinction.

Third, if you believe the president committed the crimes of perjury and obstruction of justice and they're high crimes and misdemeanors, but you do not believe a president should be removed when economic times are good and it's strongly against the popular will to do so, by voting to acquit, you'll be setting a precedent for future impeachment trials.

Can you imagine how damaging that could be to our constitutional form of government to set the precedent that no president will be removed from office for high crimes and misdemeanors unless the polls show that the public wants that to happen? Would our Founding Fathers have ever envisioned that? Of course not.

MCCOLLUM: Our Constitution was structured to avoid this very situation.

Fourth, then there is what happens to the rule of law if you vote to acquit. What damage is done for future generations by a vote to acquit? Will more witnesses be inclined to commit perjury in trials? Will more jurors decide that perjury and obstruction of justice should not be crimes for which they convict?

No military officer, no cabinet official, no Judge, no CEO of a major corporation, no president of a university, no principal of a public school in this nation would remain in office. No matter how popular they were, if they had committed the crimes of perjury and obstruction of justice as charged here. To vote to acquit puts the president on a pedestal that says as long as he's popular, we're going to treat him differently with regard to keeping his job than any other person in any other position of public trust in the United State of America.

The president is the commander-in-chief. He is the chief law enforcement officer. He is the man who appoints that cabinet; he appoints the judges. Are you going to put on the record books the precedent that all who serve under the president and whom he's appointed will be held to a higher standard that the president?

What legacy to history is this? By voting to acquit the president, what mischief have you wrought to our Constitution, to our system of government, to the values and principles to be cherished by future generations of Americans.

All William Jefferson Clinton -- all because, I guess is the argument, that William Jefferson Clinton was elected and is popular with the people.

MCCOLLUM: All this when it is clear that a vote to convict will amount to nothing more than the peaceful, orderly and immediate transition of government of the presidency to the vice president.

William Jefferson Clinton is not a king; he is our president. You have the power and the duty to remove him from office for high crimes and misdemeanors.

I implore you to muster the courage of your convictions, to muster the courage the founding fathers believed that the Senate would always have in times like these.

William Jefferson Clinton has committed high crimes and misdemeanors. Convict him and remove him.

I yield to Mr. Canady.

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