Starr Rejects Lewinsky Deal For Immunity Intern Would Admit To Affair, But Not To Being Asked To Lie

The lawyer for Monica Lewinsky has told prosecutors that in exchange for immunity from prosecution his client would testify that she had a sexual relationship with President Clinton, but that she was not prepared to flatly accuse either the president or his close friend, Vernon Jordan, of asking her to lie about it, investigators involved in the case said Friday.

Such testimony would further heighten the humiliation for Clinton over his relationship with Lewinsky, who came to the White House as a 21-year-old intern fresh out of a small college in Oregon. It would undercut the threat of an obstruction of justice case against the president or Jordan. But it would leave the question of whether Clinton perjured himself in a deposition in the Paula Jones case, where he reportedly said he had no sexual relationship with Lewinsky.

The special counsel, Kenneth Starr, has rejected the offer as insufficient and has begun building a criminal case against her, a move aimed at forcing her to disclose in detail the nature of her relationship with Clinton or risk going to prison, according to individuals familiar with the investigation.

Focusing on written “talking points” Lewinsky gave her friend and confidant Linda Tripp, Starr’s team is preparing to charge Lewinsky with encouraging Tripp - who, like her, was a witness in the Jones sexual harassment case - to lie under oath.

On Wednesday, in an interview with Roll Call, a Washington weekly, Clinton said flatly, “The relationship was not sexual.”

Lewinsky’s lawyer, William Ginsburg, went on television Friday and appealed to the prosecutors, from the office of special counsel, to reopen negotiations to give immunity to Lewinsky.

Those negotiations broke down a few days after agents confronted Lewinsky with tape recordings Tripp made of conversations in which Lewinsky is said to have described a long-running sexual relationship with President Clinton in the White House. It was during those negotiations that Ginsburg made the offer to have Lewinsky admit the sexual relationship.

Ginsburg said prosecutors and FBI agents attempted to convince Lewinsky to wear a wire to secretly record conversations, presumably between her and Clinton or Jordan.

Clinton, whose administration has been engulfed by the sex and obstruction of justice scandal, asserted his innocence to his Cabinet on Friday and urged them to stay focused on their jobs despite the immense distraction of the weeks startling revelations.

“I’ll be fine,” he told a Cabinet meeting at the White House as officials labored without success to present an appearance of normal public activity. “And you will be too, and let’s all hang in there.”

The White House said Friday night that Clinton will not answer questions about the matter before the middle of next week, at the earliest.

Mike McCurry, the White House press secretary, held a third consecutive briefing in which he was unable to shed any light on an affair that has come to threaten the Clinton presidency.

“I don’t have anything to add new to this story today,” McCurry told reporters who demanded answers to dozens of questions about the Lewinsky matter.

McCurry was asked for the first time Friday whether the president had considered resigning. “No,” McCurry snapped. “That is not a serious question.”

But it was a question that was being widely speculated upon throughout Washington and beyond. Friday evening brought to a close a week unlike any seen in the capital since the darkest days of Watergate.

Lewinsky’s attorney complained that lawyers and FBI agents from the office of Starr had interviewed her for eight hours at a Virginia hotel last week without a lawyer present. She was lured there by Tripp.

The agents questioned her about her alleged sexual affair with Clinton and an allegation that Jordan had prevailed on her to deny it in a sworn statement.

“She’s mentally devastated,” said William Ginsburg, a Los Angeles lawyer representing Lewinsky. “She is at the vortex of a storm involving probably the three most powerful men in the United States - the president, Vernon Jordan and the independent prosecutor, Kenneth Starr.”

There were also these developments in what is becoming the most dangerous controversy to beset Clinton:

The Los Angeles Times reported that a source who has listened to portions of Tripp’s tape recordings said Lewinsky can be heard saying Clinton made frequent late-night telephone calls to her home, engaged in telephone sex with her and eventually left her emotionally devastated when he became involved with several other women.

The Boston Globe reported that a source who has listened to the tapes said Lewinsky never uses words as strong as “lie, instruct or direct,” in describing how Clinton and Jordan supposedly sought to affect her testimony. “It’s softer,” said the source, “more like a tacit agreement to deny rather than lie.”

Elsewhere on the tapes, the source said Lewinsky described oral sex with the president in some detail. Some published reports have said Clinton does not consider oral sex to be adultery.

U.N. Ambassador Bill Richardson joined the ranks of administration officials subpoenaed by Starr’s investigators for records relating to Lewinsky. The subpoenas covered both the U.N. mission in New York and Richardson’s office in Washington, a spokesman said.

Richardson offered Lewinsky a junior-level job at the mission in New York after she left the White House and a subsequent job at the Pentagon.

Starr’s agents also served subpoenas Friday at the Pentagon, where Lewinsky worked until just before Christmas. Investigators sought personnel records, e-mail messages and memorandums about Lewinsky’s hiring in the Office of Public Affairs.

The Pentagon’s spokesman, Kenneth Bacon, who hired Lewinsky, said he expected that “some people” at the Pentagon - including himself - would be called before the grand jury.