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the paper is by fbi agent hey susan newshour special report on pbs for washington a one hour summary of today's house judiciary committee impeachment hearings thank you an atm fee but the world is the biggest challenge of the new century which is widely condemned promote satellite technology to help

the american farmer be even more in the world we invest and we get to celebrate additional funding is provided by viewers like you good evening i'm kwame home and today the house judiciary committee held a long awaited opening session of its impeachment inquiry regarding president clinton it was the third time in us history congress has launched a presidential impeachment pro the thirty seven member committee met all day and into the evening we have extended excerpts of the testimony and questioning of the only witness today independent counsel kenneth starr star began by reading a fifty eight page statement summarizing findings of his four year investigation of the president members of the house judiciary

committee and the public already knew for the most part what independent counsel kenneth starr would say during the two hours allotted for his opening statement his detail report on possible impeachable offenses committed by president clinton was released two months ago and advance copies of today's statement began to circulate last night but it was the first time the public got to hear kenneth starr make his case against the president star was introduced by committee chairman henry hyde throughout our history we've had a number of impeachment inquiries but this one represents a historical first never before has an impeachment inquiry risen because of or a furlough from an independent under section five nine five ce thank you for that reason we have no precedent to follow on the involvement of the independent counsel in our proceedings however it seems both useful and instructive that we should hear from him since he is the person most familiar with the complicated matters the houses directed us to

review today the search for the truth continues as we turned to the underlying facts and as we began that surge we turn to one person judge star who has a comprehensive overview of the complex issues we face speaking for the democratic committee's ranking member john conyers used his opening statement to launch a stinging attack against kenneth starr the idea of a federally paid six policemen spending millions of dollars to trap an unfaithful spouses or the police civil law or the police civil litigation would have been unthinkable prior to the starr investigation let there be no mistake it is not now acceptable in america to investigate it person's private sexual activity and it is not acceptable for a roald attorneys and investigators

the chapel young woman in a hotel room this character from calling her lawyer ridicule her when she asked to call her mother but the record suggests i'm sorry to say that is precisely how kenneth w star has conducted this investigation there also was a brief partisan skirmish democrats demanded tripling the thirty minutes the president's personal attorney david kendall would have to question star they were voted down by the republican majority and the independent counsel then proceeded with the statement that lasted more than two hours it then began with an overview as i refer will explains the evidence suggests that the president made false statements under oath and thwarted the search for truth and jones vs clinton the evidence for this suggest that the president made false statements under oath to the

grand jury on august seventeen of this year that same night the president publicly acknowledged an inappropriate relationship but maintained that his testimony had been legally accurate the president also declared that all inquiries into the matter should then because he said it was private indeed the evidence suggests that the president repeatedly tried to thwart the legal process in the jones matter and in the grand jury investigation that is not a private matter the evidence further suggests that the president in the course of those efforts and has used his authority and his power as president and contravene his duty to faithfully execute the laws that too is not a private matter at the outset i want to emphasize that our for old never suggest that the

relationship between the president and ms lewinsky in on itself could constitute a high crime or misdemeanor indeed the referral never passes judgement on the president's relationship with ms lewinsky the propriety of our relationship is not the concern of our office there are frozen stirred about obstruction of justice lying under oath tampering with witnesses and the misuse of power there are for all cannot be understood without appreciating this vital distinction this case or manner with the us raises the following initial question is a plaintiff in a sexual house more loss are entitled to obtain truthful information from the defendant and from associates of the defendant in order to support her claim

that should be easy to answer no citizen who finds himself accused in a sexual harassment case or in any other kind of case and why under oath or otherwise obstruct justice and thereby prevent the plaintiff from discovering evidence and presenting her case let me summarize the five points that explained how the president's relationship with ms lewinsky what was otherwise private conduct became a matter of concern to the courts this is critical to fully understand the nature of the committees in court one the president was sued for sexual harassment in federal court and the supreme court of the united states ruled in that case that the case should go forward to the law of

sexual harassment and a lot of evidence allowed the plaintiff to inquire into the defendants relationship with other women with women in the workplace which in this case included the president's relationship with ms lewinsky great applying those subtle legal principles judge susan webber wright's repeatedly rejected the president's objections to such in court the judge instead ordered the president to answer the questions for it is a federal crime to commit perjury and obstruct justice in civil cases including sexual harassment cases violators are subject to a sentence of up to ten years' imprisonment for obstruction and five years for perjury five

the evidence suggests that the president and ms lewinsky made false statements under oath and obstructed the judicial process in the jones case by preventing the court from obtaining the truth about the relationship the key point about the president's conduct is this one at least six different occasions from december seventeen nineteen ninety seven through august seventeen nineteen ninety eight the president had to make a decision he could choose truth or he could choose deception on all six occasions the president chose deception a pattern of calculated behavior over a span of months the conversation between the president and ms lewinsky on december seventeen was a

critical turning point the evidence suggests that the president chose to engage and a criminal act to reach an understanding with ms lewinsky that they would both make false statements under oath at that moment the president's intimate relationship with a subordinate employee was transformed it was transformed into an unlawful effort to thwart the judicial process this was no longer an issue of private conduct meanwhile the legal process continued to unfold and the president took other actions that had the forseeable effect of keeping ms lewinsky on the team or the president helped ms

lewinsky obtain a job in new york vernon jordan who had been there a listed in the job search for ms lewinsky testified that he kept the president informed of the status of ms lewinsky is job search and her affidavit on january seven nineteen ninety eight mr jordan told the president that ms lewinsky had signed the affidavit mr jordan stated to the president that he was still working on getting her job the president replied good and other words the president knowing that a witness had just signed a false affidavit encouraged his friend to continue trying to find her a job that as always he received a job offer from rubble on on january

twelve thank you ron and shorting called prose poems and serve a mission accomplished let me turn to the president's january seventeen deposition the president made false statements not only about his intimate relationship with ms lewinsky that about a whole host of matters the president testified that he did not know but vernon jordan had met with ms lewinsky and talked about the jones case that wasn't true he testified that he could not recall being along with ms lewinsky that was untrue he testified that he could not recall ever being in the oval office hallway with ms lewinsky except perhaps when she was delivering pizza that was untrue he testified that he could not recall gifts exchanged between ms lewinsky in him that was untrue he testified after a fourteen second pause that he was

not sure whether he'd ever talk to muslim linsky about the possibility that she might be asked to testify in a lawsuit that was untrue the present testified that he did not know whether ms lewinsky had been served a subpoena at the time us are in december nineteen ninety seven that wasn't true when as attorney read ms wednesday's affidavit to mind a sexual relationship the president stated that the affidavit was absolutely true that was untrue the president testified before the grand jury on august seventeen indeed the president made false statements to the grand jury and then that same evening spoke to the nation and criticized all accounts to show he had done so as invasive and irrelevant star spent more than an hour detailing evidence in the lewinsky matter he then moved on to the other investigations concerning president clinton he was authorized to look

into courts regarding the firings of white house travel office employees and does his ocean by white house personnel of the fbi files of prominent republicans during the president's first term and i star said he found no evidence of wrongdoing six he did however go into depth about the original case he was mandated to investigate whitewater land deal the clintons investigate that investigation resulted in fourteen convictions including the former associate attorney general of the united states love trouble then sitting governor of arkansas art chung guy tucker and the clintons to business partners and susan mcdougal and starts that he found evidence suggesting wrongdoing by the president as well in late nineteen ninety seven we in our office considered whether this evidence that i just described justified a referral to congress we drafted the report but we concluded that it would be inconsistent with the statutory standard

because of the difficulty of establishing the truth with a sufficient degree of confidence with that let me be the first to say that the lewinsky investigation in particular presented some of the most challenging issues that any warrior or invested later could face major decisions during the lewinsky investigation had not been easy and given the hurricane force winds swirling about us we were well aware that no matter what decision we made criticism would come from somewhere as attorney general reno has said and high profile cases like these not referring to this case but in high profile cases you are in her words damned if you do and damned if you don't so you better just do what you think is the right and proper thing after a lunch break star was questioned by the council for the judiciary committee's democrats abbe lowell and by members

themselves first up was low the self in a new schedules first question to tennis star was about what lol called the adversarial tone of stars impeachment report to the house of representatives this is how your reporters been described it is a report that marshals and characterizes the information into an aggressive piece of legal advocacy it is one where there are few of the factual assertions are left to speak for themselves in short it is a document with an attitude that is notable for its failure to acknowledge that there might be more than one way to view at least some of the evidence and that was from the supreme court reporter of the new york times when the green house on september twelfth nineteen ninety eight it cannot be your testimonies in this just are that the five ninety five c background material did you say to this committee which was involved in reviewing that statute that you review required you to make the accusations

conclusions in short how to refer with an attitude is it my opinion of the statute are my reading interpretation of the statute mistral is that i am called upon to establish the reason that in the independent counsel's view the matter is that i stand before you may constitute a grounds for impeachment but a very serious and weighty matter and we approached it in a very serious and weighty i stand behind this peripheral i'm sure will be questions about what we tried to do in this report for oil was to assemble and organize form rather than sending you simply truckloads of an organized information give a coherence and then it is your judgment and the us if it is the judgment that this rep ferraro has not in fact stood

the test of your close examination did we get the facts wrong then of course you should count your own judgment in your own assessment but this reflects just so the committee knows the views of some of the most experienced prosecutors in the country i stand behind it because it is mine i stand behind each word it is my ultimate judgment but this is a professional pride it's not the product of one single person lol also called on star to defend the actions of his investigators on the day they first approached monica lewinsky monica lewinsky sworn testimony which if you'd like you could follow and tap twenty one to compare back and forth we will have an on the stand as well she testified under oath that she was there to have lunch with linda tripp she was accosted by agents who flashed their badges at her she asked to see her attorney was told that wasn't such a good idea she was then asked to go upstairs to discuss how much trouble she was in and then she reluctantly went upstairs to meet with your staff do you think

your statement that monica lewinsky consented to meet with several agents doesn't distorted picture of what really happened that day or i think it was i consider it was consensual that as we made it clear that she was not under arrest and that she was in fact at liberty to make a decision as to what she wanted to wanted to do a look at the second line of your quote of your press statement he said during the five hours while awaiting her mother's arrival miss lewinsky drained juice and coffee a dinner at a restaurant strolled around the pentagon city mall and watch television to remember making that statement to the press yesterday but your statement to the press mr starr doesn't include the fact that ms lewinsky swore to that she was scared and was crying a lot of the time what she asked to see her attorney quote she would not be able to help herself with her attorney there she was told that she was threatened with going to jail for quote twenty seven years that she was not there for the five hours

that your press statement says but was there for over ten hours and that when she asked to call her mother to discuss what you were discussing with her your deputy jackie bennett said you're twenty four you're smart you're old enough you don't need to call your mommy that was in your statement to the press that day was it not was just will and let me explain what prior statements are designed to do this this was not designed to provide a verbatim transcript of commentary they are designed to respond to what we were in fact being accused doctor charged with and what we were being accused often charged where was improper contact with a witness now the facts of the matter are these we did in fact use a traditional technique but one foresman always uses we were waiting

patiently for her mother to arrive she chose not to make a decision before her mother arrived at the conclusion all of her time weather's she had established a legal relationship which we fully recognize and always honored and she and her mother indicated i was not there but i'm told they indicated their appreciation for the way in which she was being treated now this was in response besides being a great response mitchell the allegations that she was being subjected to the kinds of conditions that would over beer the well we then and the purpose of this was to say here is in fact the material that the public should in fact know and all of this is absolutely true he was questioning of star took more than an hour start then faced questions from the thirty seven member committee coming at him in short five minute bursts let me ask you judge star whether you

believe that there is any difference in the law or perjury in a lot of making false statements to a grand jury just because they happened to relate the sexual matters they do not and mr sensenbrenner has as i have tried to indicate in the opening statement as we've indicated in the roof for all perjury is extraordinarily serious business is insidious the courthouse cannot operate if perjury is allowed to either be excused or to be minimized and why should we in fact go through the process of say there is an oath we want you to tell you or we would your honesty that's what we're asking in concord we want your honesty and it does not matter whether the issue has to do with sexual harassment our bankruptcy or of the criminal

law is law dreadfully serious and in my reading i know that there's scholarly commentary to the opposite the fact perjury would in fact have been viewed as an impeachable offense at the time of the founding of the republic and courts from that time all had taken perjury is extraordinarily serious regardless of the kind of case let me ask you about the travel get an fbi files which you did not mention the exoneration of the president and you are wrong france why did jerod food any exculpatory information and your reference and why didn't you put it in there and set of putting it in your statement here are we put the statement here you're right we did not include that in the referral

because of my views of what i refer was supposed to do but it had this invitation is being was to try to because i was invited and priscilla to that invitation we reflected on what is the information that you might need because we had been told mr connors by the congress you know don't be holding things back if you have information that could be relevant provided and that's what we have in fact been trying to do now if there's a sense that we're providing too much information will be guided by that because we try to be helpful you tell us that months ago you concluded that know that the president was not involved in the fbi files and you've never had the evidence of other travelers yet now several weeks after the election is the first time he's saying that what you were told that before the election we were sending us to refer lot of negative stuff about the president and only now despite the same if the second suggested thousand so it's possible you give us his exoneration of the president so we kept at it was frank what we've tried to

do is be responsive to congress which is sad provide us with information is there any other additional information that would be useful for one cannot afford it i can about this record your reading of the statute and keyser frank the reason is because what we provide a jew and the referral is substantial and credible information of possible potential offenses the silence with respect to anything else means necessarily that we have not concluded no it don't have anything to say or give them back to say you could cool the fda while you can clearly at their fire with robin the president what the gentleman's time has expired however i would deal to the witness such time as you need to answer the many questions mr frank has put to you well here again there is a process to question the purpose of this rule for all was to provide you with what we had found substantial and credible information that's point one

final point i would say is we still have an investigation as i indicated underway and with respect to both fbi files we've indicated that hand and the travel office i've drawn a distinction between the two matters that i'm reporting to so you know that as of this time we do not believe that there is any information in either of those matters kinds of rancor will be relevant to you in this particular case a number of our colleagues on this panel have suggested that because the paula jones case was dismissed an overly settled oh because there was indeed right now to buy the judge will be appealed of the underlying question of whether or not there was any relevance to the testimony you about other people being sexually harassed as being relevant to that case that somehow there for the president lied in that case it's immaterial

were the elements of perjury president when the president lied under oath as you described it in that paula jones case in and the ticket was materiality president's uriarte is not affected it is made totally bogus argument to suggest that because the lawsuit was eventually settled or dismissed that and act lets call a perjury we said before statement under oath that's the way we presented at that is simply an utterly demonstrably wrong as a matter of law on august twentieth nineteen ninety eight ms lewinsky testified that quote no one ever asked me to lie and i was never promised a job for my silence unquote that was in response to a question by a grand juror me ask you again cause i know maz to alaska's but i didn't find the answer adequately why wasn't this statement directly including your four hundred fifty five page referral to congress not in a footnote and not paraphrase isn't that relevant

trenchant we relevant information about what we're doing and if you are sold as passionate about simply producing the facts why wouldn't you included this statement verbatim and in quotes particularly on a matter as important as impeachment we did supply the information the reason that you're having of course these serve these questions with respect to refer was because we produced everything that was relevant to your assessment of ms lewinsky and i stand by what we said and page one seventy four of the referral i think its fair in light of our assessment but your assessment of course major will be different with respect to the report any old fully quote the cut because we do not think that that is consistent with the truth it would be misleading to say in our judgment and i understand you may disagree with us well we specifically said a page one seventy four not enough with ms lewinsky has stated that the press never

explicitly told her to la with one finds that inadequate then one finds an inadequate it is your judgment i'd like to know your observation of the witnesses and in evaluating the core operating evidence assess the truthfulness specifically of monica lewinsky they carry and vernon jordan he could tell it was a brief assessment of how you feel they are their credibility it is with some reluctance that i answer this because of fundamental fairness concerns but let me i say this with respect to ms lansky i think she desperately does not want to hurt the president ends at the same time she has a very considerable memory a recollection a memory bank the relevant facts that

is quite significant with respect to betty currie asleep with the bear witness whittle from those questions there and tough questions i wonder that is an awkward for a leaner had briefly judge dark we could revisit the jones deposition the president was asked whether he had ever given any gifts to miss lewinsky does the evidence gathered indicate that the president gave false or misleading testimony when he answered i don't recall yes our assessment and this is an assessment shared by three very experienced and career prosecutors was that the advance of december twenty eight nineteen ninety seven it must have been so clear and vivid and any reasonable person's recollection that the president would naturally have recalls that on january seventeen nineteen ninety eight less

than one month later given the nature of the events which are undisputed of what happened during that oval office visit by ms lewinsky to the present over the holiday period so the recollection was so clear where the events were so clear that to suggest that one doesn't recall the rockettes blanket in the white the the various gifts that were shared between the two adjust and argued if i could do it he is especially in light of the fact that we did have testimony which is now before you that the president has blessed with one of the most powerful memories that many people who have come in contact with a wide variety of people that have never seen so we're told the president's memo is extremely strong but judge there would you say that we're reasonable to say it might be selective recall

well i don't want to get into characterization but i would simply say i would not resist such a characterization there are three questions that i have for you first is a president subject to criminal prosecution when he leaves office for offenses committed while in the office secondly would there be sufficient time within the statute of limitations for prosecution of the perjury and other offenses suggested in your referral of september after the president leaves office and third does not that process will serve as a complete assurance that the little small will be fully observed your answers please as to question one i agree with your reading i think the plain language suggest exactly that that the framers did intend to be separate proceedings i also agree with your comment if i could just add this that it was not intended to be a sanction in the

sense of the criminal law serving the deterrent purpose is and but like with the criminal law at its best is designed to serve i also would answer yes to your second question in terms of power my reading i should say of the statute of limitations in terms of rule of law of values i certainly do i think that there is strength in big a proposition that no person should be above the law but i would also say that there is a fundamental fairness question in my mind charged as i am as an independent counsel with opining in any way that could be interpreted as sort of a call just a walk the appropriate disposition would be of a particular matter i know what my duty is one they disagree with my reading of my duty but it was to send you this and then i think in terms of fundamental fairness to all the individuals involved one simply has to assess that after this body has done its duty and reached its its

judgment be a gentleman from georgia ms jabbar as a matter of law is a now well established star that there is no such thing as being trapped in her yes and never be forced to fly before a grand jury or a federal court zach work legally there is no excuse for telling a lawyer and under oath amelia meath on the offer up several presumptions known as your question but presumed dead started that linda tripp as a really nasty person lets resume further judge star for purposes of a hypothetical that lucy engelberg is is a crafty manipulator lets resume the monica is an oversight blabber now let's resume that there really is a vast right wing conspiracy out there somewhere maybe work here today to freeze in the paula jones really was and arrested just in the money that lets resume that the independent counsel statute was not corporate statute unless presumed that hill

horror of horror you use tobacco products like presumed all of those awful things would any of that in your professional judgment changed their conclusions contained in your referral and in your testimony today that there is substantial and credible evidence that president william jefferson clinton may have committed impeachable offenses it would not change at the facts have a real power to them and it was just as brandeis who said the fax facts facts give me facts and that's what we saw to do congressman in this referral the last two members to question kenneth starr were republicans mary bono of california and lindsey graham of south carolina graham is one of a handful of committee republicans who previously expressed doubt that stars charges rise to the level of impeachable offenses if i bring the temperatures there that matter if one

confessed in the one put the state through the pain and expense of a trial and punishment that matter judge garza judge don't you take dating consideration i certainly think it's a relevant consideration to whether someone accept responsibility or else you know this is some pundit uploaded it's the seven months stupid point i'm trying to make is that the law that you cherish and i cherish that we all love allows free to treat people differently based on what they lied about that's not a bad thing to talk about every porter doesn't get the same punishment that's a concept that we're gonna have to deal with here without public outrage impeachment is hard to do and it should be hard and the truth of the matter is judged are we may never get public outrage on behalf of what the president did because some of the things that are watergate like we can't lay at the feet of the president but what he did do is eli who his teeth and a civil deposition and i'm going to disagree with you

about the legal effect when the judge role that his deposition was not admissible i have a problem materiality in terms of perjury and i'm going to disagree with enamel state now baumohl worth the last two months i'm not going to consider that an impeachable offense because i don't think legally you would probably get prosecuted for better you'd have a heck of a hard time was the case was dismissed in your testimony was doing ines pohl and i may be wrong but i mean given the benefit that they're not telling you right now it is peyton place what we are left with but the cover up peyton place is gone to the point that no longer can ignore it and feel good about it because i believe the president united states went into a grand jury and fraud is your grand jurors took an oath and six and seven months after this whole affair started after being buried by everybody in this country the company wide idea gentleman's time has expired the jungle lady from california ms bonanno thank you mr chairman you know i just are

you and your family have been subjected to an enormous amount of personal persecution during a ten ten years of independent counsel particularly over the last year what motivates you to keep going forward you know in the end do you have this this bone to pick with the president and his personal vendetta the whole persona animosity toward him and has that affected the job we've done well i thank you for that question and i hold no animosity and i would love to be back and private life i received questions today with respect to well didn't you accepted being sheltered pepperdine and look who made a contribution so you're right i would prefer to be almost or constituent will before the west my duty is to do my duty i did not ask for this investigation to come walking in the door

it came to us we took it to the department that i was greatly interview meyer greatly the department of justice and we said what do we do as colleagues how do we collaborate how should this matter that unfortunate for the country in and forcefully for this committee is now before you and it came to me and that's why i'm here committee member's questioning of the independent counsel took about four and a half hours shortly after a thirty pm eastern time the president's private attorney david kendall who was in the committee room most of the day got his turn to question star my task is to respond to two hours of uninterrupted testimony from the independent counsel as well as to his four year forty five million dollar investigation which is included at least twenty eight attorneys seventy eight fbi agents and an undisclosed number

of private investigators investigation which has generated by a computer hundred fourteen thousand five hundred very good news stories in print and two thousand five hundred thirty minutes of network television time not to mention twenty four hour scandal coverage on cable a four under forty five page refer or fifty thousand pages of documents from secret grand jury testimony four hours of videotaped testimony twenty two hours of audiotape some of which was gathered in violation of state law and the testimony of scores of witnesses not one of whom has been cross examined and i have thirty minutes do this it's a bonding exercise but let me begin with this simple but powerful truth that nothing in this overkill of investigation amounts

to a justification or the impeachment of the president of the united states was distorted even believe it up very active and very well can it up you're here really as an advocate for this were four you know i view myself no i think that's not write god i do believe in the referral i tried to answer questions with respect to the er for all although many questions did not relate to the roof are all related to other matters but i do believe in it but the reason that i should not be advocating is because it is this committee's judgment that they will come to leverage of the submission of this in writing with the supporting materials and then it's up to the committee to determine that they want to call additional witnesses and the why our guests are chaz was to

put before them the information that we found that the statutory standard of substantial incredible information in your testimony this morning mr starr you said we go to court and out on the talk show circuit where officers of the court who live in the world of law we present our cases in court at age thirty six of your testimony that mr charles black only your europe press spokesman a public relations adviser has been on by my count ken talk shows and is on nightline tonight i'd be happy to read them to you this is from a late april but it does that sound about right that he's been on eleven torture was that probably sounds about right but i would have to do the camp but let me say that no lesser of forty than archibald cox talked

about very eloquently and moving wave of public information for action of a prosecutor's office not only that we have the right we have the duty to engage in a proper public information function because this is the public's business we must do so in order at times to combat misinformation that is being spread about including frequently by lawyers who claimed that their clients have been grossly mistreated which is what criminal defense lawyers are paid to do is to start to get there would be no disagreement that you as the united states prosecutor are under a legal obligation to protect the secrecy of the grand jury process yes though there's no dispute whatsoever dispute indeed indeed if you turn to temp seventeen of the materials you wrote me a letter being unfair or six nineteen ninety eight and if i can direct your attention to the second paragraph of that letter i complained

about leaks of grand jury information about you had replied from the beginning i have made prohibition of leaks a principal priority of the office is a firing offense as well as one that leads to criminal prosecution in the boom in the sales of you reminded his staff that leaks are utterly intolerable my reading that correctly it is surely a director and has anybody been fired from your office mr starr for leaking know how was i don't believe anyone has late grand jury information mr campbell you did issue a press conference about missile with his treatment at the ritz carlton that was a press release it was on the record everybody knew you were saying that you were accountable to use your phrase you were transparent but you also spoke frequently on background to the press and my question to you is you and those around your

subordinates yes be careful when you say do you know because i do not speak frequently or otherwise to the press i think that there may well be times as a prosecutor when you it's necessary to correct misinformation you sometimes done is necessary to get the facts out so that people are misguided but why speak off the record on background why not be accountable it depends on the circumstances and i will say this i believe the justice department practice it's really was the practice when i was there i will hazard that it's still the practice of the justice department that these are judgment calls as to whether the prosecutor wants to make herself or himself part of the story a specific example if someone comes to us with a specific allegation of wrongdoing on the part of one of our prosecutors and maybe a criminal defense lawyer who has said the prosecutor did the following bad things it may be utterly bogus because people do in fact

lot about what happens to their clients and i'm sorry to say that we do not want to in any way be part of the story is to weather and obviously we can't talk about matters occurring before the grand jury but we can in fact respond to a suggestion that the fbi in some way or a prosecutor in someway conducted herself or himself improperly it was in the grand jury that the events friday january sixteenth were presented through the testimony of ms lewinsky was it not their second appearance the assembly that's right and do you remember in this is if you have the appendices to your own it i think they can get them i don't think we need to because this is a famous passage of the grand jurors the year prosecutors had no more questions and that the grand

jurors themselves began to inquire about the events that day one of them said at age eleven forty three we wanna know about that day we really want to know about that day and this elicited and from his alinsky who was under oath a tearful description of what happened to her she asked is for him to leave the room kitchen that's my recollection the transcript and in fact she said that she was told on friday our jenny were the sixty or your agents that she'd have to place calls or wear a wire to see to call betty and mr jordan and possibly the president's question and did you tell him you didn't want to do that yes it just lets his testimony yes those are just another astaire when did you first learn you yourself that there might be an audiotape up with a conversation involving the president and a young woman and the young

woman among one answer and a young woman of i think we've had questions about that and it i have i have been asked that a lot and i'm searching my recollection but let me say this if you're talking about monica lewinsky and i don't know that you are you didn't use her name but the first i knew to the best of my knowledge and recollection of monica lewinsky was in january of nineteen ninety eight now i had questions and they seem to me to suggest that there is some information with respect to information economy in november of nineteen ninety seven with respect to tapes and it was all very vague and shrouded in mystery and i said i will be happy to respond if i get some additional information with respect to monica lewinsky oj the same as what we're here to talk about i did not know anything about monica lewinsky to the best of my recollection i don't think i ever had occasion to

meet her otherwise hear about her until january of nineteen ninety eight the chairs got to intervene the hour is over quite a little bit bleak mr cole and mr campbell of had two hours mr schipper iss been waiting since ten o'clock and was getting testy which is his natural state so the statement mr campbell you will have an opportunity to further opportunity to present and an address the committee at length in extend so a few lawyers say end offer whatever evidence exculpatory or otherwise you want you'll have a full opportunity before we go to any markup if we go to a markup so really it's a long day it one must have some compassion for mr starr and it was trimmed his affair i think you but i would i would simply request <unk> testified for two and a

quarter hours upon simply trying to get my fair crack at him i would like to go into omissions from the referral other areas german it's well i'm your holiday and come back tomorrow if there were well i i don't think many of us want to come back tomorrow so but we want you we'll have a not really you will have an opportunity to address the committee fully and produce whatever you want by way of evidence witnesses exculpatory material we will not foreclose you but the night is waning and we'd like to get to mr schipper is so with your kind indulgence and i see you're pulling your glasses away which is a healthy sign and indeed star's final question of the day was david schaper is the counsel for the committee's republican majority we have heard over two hours of question almost three hours of questioning if we include the democratic members of this committee and i haven't heard anybody ask you one

question about the facts of these cases so your permission judge i'm going to take a few minutes and get to the facts and the issues that are really before this committee it's been suggested that your people use the young lady and betrayed a young lady wouldn't that more properly belong to the president of the united states well i'm not sure i should be the one to pass judgment but we certainly did not betray ms lewinsky we were doing our job and we certainly never took any steps other than to try to vindicate the interests of the criminal you have and given a duty to that nazi and you've performed their duty to the best of your the ability of a director i've certainly tried and i did not to do it to the best of my ability and i'm proud of what we have been able to accomplish as i indicated earlier the records of convictions of changed but also the decisions not to seek

an indictment to this se asian to issue for reports all of that is part of what we have a labored together with mr kendall playing to the number of persons involved in the investigation i'm proud of those persons they're my colleagues and they have become my friends and they've worked very long and very hard under very difficult circumstances and recognizing and were big big boys and i mean that in a gender neutral why we are accused in arkansas of a political witch hunt we talk it and we did our arguing in court and we proceed to the satisfaction of a fair minded true with a very distinguished judge that the sitting governor and the president in the first lady's business partners were guilty of serious felonies and we have been listening month after month to its a political witch hunt and that was unfair but we learned that goes

with this territory and jed for all that doing your duty you been pilloried in the attack from all sides that i would hope not all sides yes that's years sometimes seems like girls how long you've been an attorney judge for a twenty five years to live an attorney for almost forty years now and say i'm proud to be in the same room with you in years i think was very effective for star completed his testimony and leaped the judiciary committee hearing room a few minutes ago that concludes our special report on today's house judiciary committee impeachment hearing the newshour will be back tomorrow evening with more reaction to an analysis the impeachment process more information about the impeachment inquiry can be found on the newshour online and while michel and thank you for joining us and good night brought to you in part by adm keating

the world is the biggest challenge of the new century which is why edm is conducting research into aquaculture and other news sources at else's market of the world simon smith barney by viewers like you it seems he's an