COMPLETE STARR REPORT (LINK)
WHY WAS THE REPORT SO GRAPHIC?
Excerpts from the Starr Report Concerning Seven Sexual Encounters
November 15 Sexual Encounter
Ms. Lewinsky testified that Wednesday, November 15, 1995 -- the second day of the government shutdown -- marked the beginning of her sexual relationship with the President.(146) On that date, she entered the White House at 1:30 p.m., left sometime thereafter (White House records do not show the time), reentered at 5:07 p.m., and departed at 12:18 a.m. on November 16.(147) The President was in the Oval Office or the Chief of Staff's office (where Ms. Lewinsky worked during the furlough) for almost the identical period that Ms. Lewinsky was in the White House that evening, from 5:01 p.m. on November 15 to 12:35 a.m. on November 16.(148)
According to Ms. Lewinsky, she and the President made eye contact when he came to the West Wing to see Mr. Panetta and Deputy Chief of Staff Harold Ickes, then again later at an informal birthday party for Jennifer Palmieri, Special Assistant to the Chief of Staff.(149) At one point, Ms. Lewinsky and the President talked alone in the Chief of Staff's office. In the course of flirting with him, she raised her jacket in the back and showed him the straps of her thong underwear, which extended above her pants.(150)
En route to the restroom at about 8 p.m., she passed George Stephanopoulos's office. The President was inside alone, and he beckoned her to enter.(151) She told him that she had a crush on him. He laughed, then asked if she would like to see his private office.(152) Through a connecting door in Mr. Stephanopoulos's office, they went through the President's private dining room toward the study off the Oval Office. Ms. Lewinsky testified: "We talked briefly and sort of acknowledged that there had been a chemistry that was there before and that we were both attracted to each other and then he asked me if he could kiss me." Ms. Lewinsky said yes. In the windowless hallway adjacent to the study, they kissed.(153) Before returning to her desk, Ms. Lewinsky wrote down her name and telephone number for the President.(154)
At about 10 p.m., in Ms. Lewinsky's recollection, she was alone in the Chief of Staff's office and the President approached.(155) He invited her to rendezvous again in Mr. Stephanopoulos's office in a few minutes, and she agreed.(156) (Asked if she knew why the President wanted to meet with her, Ms. Lewinsky testified: "I had an idea."(157)) They met in Mr. Stephanopoulos's office and went again to the area of the private study.(158) This time the lights in the study were off.(159)
According to Ms. Lewinsky, she and the President kissed. She unbuttoned her jacket; either she unhooked her bra or he lifted her bra up; and he touched her breasts with his hands and mouth.(160) Ms. Lewinsky testified: "I believe he took a phone call . . . and so we moved from the hallway into the back office . . . . [H]e put his hand down my pants and stimulated me manually in the genital area."(161) While the President continued talking on the phone (Ms. Lewinsky understood that the caller was a Member of Congress or a Senator), she performed oral sex on him.(162) He finished his call, and, a moment later, told Ms. Lewinsky to stop. In her recollection: "I told him that I wanted . . . to complete that. And he said . . . that he needed to wait until he trusted me more. And then I think he made a joke . . . that he hadn't had that in a long time."(163)
Both before and after their sexual contact during that encounter, Ms. Lewinsky and the President talked.(164) At one point during the conversation, the President tugged on the pink intern pass hanging from her neck and said that it might be a problem. Ms. Lewinsky thought that he was talking about access -- interns were not supposed to be in the West Wing without an escort -- and, in addition, that he might have discerned some "impropriety" in a sexual relationship with a White House intern.(165)
White House records corroborate details of Ms. Lewinsky's account. She testified that her November 15 encounters with the President occurred at about 8 p.m. and 10 p.m., and that in each case the two of them went from the Chief of Staff's office to the Oval Office area.(166) Records show that the President visited the Chief of Staff's office for one minute at 8:12 p.m. and for two minutes at 9:23 p.m., in each case returning to the Oval Office.(167) She recalled that the President took a telephone call during their sexual encounter, and she believed that the caller was a Member of Congress or a Senator.(168) White House records show that after returning to the Oval Office from the Chief of Staff's office, the President talked to two Members of Congress: Rep. Jim Chapman from 9:25 p.m. to 9:30 p.m., and Rep. John Tanner from 9:31 p.m. to 9:35 p.m.(169)
November 17 Sexual Encounter
According to Ms. Lewinsky, she and the President had a second sexual encounter two days later (still during the government furlough), on Friday, November 17. She was at the White House until 8:56 p.m., then returned from 9:38 to 10:39 p.m.(170) At 9:45 p.m., a few minutes after Ms. Lewinsky's reentry, the President went from the Oval Office to the Chief of Staff's office (where Ms. Lewinsky worked during the furlough) for one minute, then returned to the Oval Office for 30 minutes. From there, he went back to the Chief of Staff's office until 10:34 p.m. (approximately when Ms. Lewinsky left the White House), then went by the Oval Office and the Ground Floor before retiring to the Residence at 10:40 p.m.(171)
Ms. Lewinsky testified:
We were again working late because it was during the furlough and Jennifer Palmieri . . . had ordered pizza along with Ms. Currie and Ms. Hernreich. And when the pizza came, I went down to let them know that the pizza was there and it was at that point when I walked into Ms. Currie's office that the President was standing there with some other people discussing something.
And they all came back to the office and Mr. -- I think it was Mr. Toiv, somebody accidentally knocked pizza on my jacket, so I went to go use the restroom to wash it off and as I was coming out of the restroom, the President was standing in Ms. Currie's doorway and said, "You can come out this way."(172)
Ms. Lewinsky and the President went into the area of the private study, according to Ms. Lewinsky. There, either in the hallway or the bathroom, she and the President kissed. After a few minutes, in Ms. Lewinsky's recollection, she told him that she needed to get back to her desk. The President suggested that she bring him some slices of pizza.(173)
A few minutes later, she returned to the Oval Office area with pizza and told Ms. Currie that the President had requested it. Ms. Lewinsky testified: "[Ms. Currie] opened the door and said, 'Sir, the girl's here with the pizza.' He told me to come in. Ms. Currie went back into her office and then we went into the back study area again."(174) Several witnesses confirm that when Ms. Lewinsky delivered pizza to the President that night, the two of them were briefly alone.(175)
Ms. Lewinsky testified that she and the President had a sexual encounter during this visit.(176) They kissed, and the President touched Ms. Lewinsky's bare breasts with his hands and mouth.(177) At some point, Ms. Currie approached the door leading to the hallway, which was ajar, and said that the President had a telephone call.(178) Ms. Lewinsky recalled that the caller was a Member of Congress with a nickname.(179) While the President was on the telephone, according to Ms. Lewinsky, "he unzipped his pants and exposed himself," and she performed oral sex.(180) Again, he stopped her before he ejaculated.(181)
During this visit, according to Ms. Lewinsky, the President told her that he liked her smile and her energy. He also said: "I'm usually around on weekends, no one else is around, and you can come and see me."(182)
Records corroborate Ms. Lewinsky's recollection that the President took a call from a Member of Congress with a nickname. While Ms. Lewinsky was at the White House that evening (9:38 to 10:39 p.m.), the President had one telephone conversation with a Member of Congress: From 9:53 to 10:14 p.m., he spoke with Rep. H.L. "Sonny" Callahan.(183)
In his Jones deposition on January 17, 1998, President Clinton -- who said he was unable to recall most of his encounters with Ms. Lewinsky -- did remember her "back there with a pizza" during the government shutdown. He said, however, that he did not believe that the two of them were alone.(184) Testifying before the grand jury on August 17, 1998, the President said that his first "real conversation" with Ms. Lewinsky occurred during the November 1995 furlough. He testified: "One night she brought me some pizza. We had some remarks."(185)
December 31 Sexual Encounter
According to Ms. Lewinsky, she and the President had their third sexual encounter on New Year's Eve. Ms. Lewinsky -- by then a member of the staff of the Office of Legislative Affairs
-- was at the White House on Sunday, December 31, 1995, until 1:16 p.m.; her time of arrival is not shown.(186) The President was in the Oval Office area from 12:11 p.m. until about the time that Ms. Lewinsky left, 1:15 p.m., when he went to the Residence.(187)
Sometime between noon and 1 p.m., in Ms. Lewinsky's recollection, she was in the pantry area of the President's private dining room talking with a White House steward, Bayani Nelvis. She told Mr. Nelvis that she had recently smoked her first cigar, and he offered to give her one of the President's cigars. Just then, the President came down the hallway from the Oval Office and saw Ms. Lewinsky. The President dispatched Mr. Nelvis to deliver something to Mr. Panetta.(188)
According to Ms. Lewinsky, she told the President that Mr. Nelvis had promised her a cigar, and the President gave her one.(189) She told him her name -- she had the impression that he had forgotten it in the six weeks since their furlough encounters because, when passing her in the hallway, he had called her "Kiddo."(190) The President replied that he knew her name; in fact, he added, having lost the phone number she had given him, he had tried to find her in the phonebook.(191)
According to Ms. Lewinsky, they moved to the study. "And then . . . we were kissing and he lifted my sweater and exposed my breasts and was fondling them with his hands and with his mouth."(192) She performed oral sex.(193) Once again, he stopped her before he ejaculated because, Ms. Lewinsky testified, "he didn't know me well enough or he didn't trust me yet."(194)
According to Ms. Lewinsky, a Secret Service officer named Sandy was on duty in the West Wing that day.(195) Records show that Sandra Verna was on duty outside the Oval Office from 7 a.m. to 2 p.m.(196)
January 7 Sexual Encounter
According to Ms. Lewinsky, she and the President had another sexual encounter on Sunday, January 7, 1996. Although White House records do not indicate that Ms. Lewinsky was at the White House that day, her testimony and other evidence indicate that she was there.(201) The President, according to White House records, was in the Oval Office most of the afternoon, from 2:13 to 5:49 p.m.(202) According to Ms. Lewinsky, the President telephoned her early that afternoon. It was the first time he had called her at home.(203) In her recollection: "I asked him what he was doing and he said he was going to be going into the office soon. I said, oh, do you want some company? And he said, oh, that would be great."(204) Ms. Lewinsky went to her office, and the President called to arrange their rendezvous:
[W]e made an arrangement that . . . he would have the door to his office open, and I would pass by the office with some papers and then . . . he would sort of stop me and invite me in. So, that was exactly what happened. I passed by and that was actually when I saw [Secret Service Uniformed Officer] Lew Fox who was on duty outside the Oval Office, and stopped and spoke with Lew for a few minutes, and then the President came out and said, oh, hey, Monica . . . come on in . . . . And so we spoke for about 10 minutes in the [Oval] office. We sat on the sofas. Then we went into the back study and we were intimate in the bathroom.(205)
Ms. Lewinsky testified that during this bathroom encounter, she and the President kissed, and he touched her bare breasts with his hands and his mouth.(206) The President "was talking about performing oral sex on me," according to Ms. Lewinsky.(207) But she stopped him because she was menstruating and he did not.(208) Ms. Lewinsky did perform oral sex on him.(209)
Afterward, she and the President moved to the Oval Office and talked. According to Ms. Lewinsky: "[H]e was chewing on a cigar. And then he had the cigar in his hand and he was kind of looking at the cigar in . . . sort of a naughty way. And so . . . I looked at the cigar and I looked at him and I said, we can do that, too, some time."(210)
Corroborating aspects of Ms. Lewinsky's recollection, records show that Officer Fox was posted outside the Oval Office the afternoon of January 7.(211) Officer Fox (who is now retired) testified that he recalled an incident with Ms. Lewinsky one weekend afternoon when he was on duty by the Oval Office:(212)
[T]he President of the United States came out, and he asked me, he says, "Have you seen any young congressional staff members here today?" I said, "No, sir." He said, "Well, I'm expecting one." He says, "Would you please let me know when they show up?" And I said, "Yes, sir."(213)
Officer Fox construed the reference to "congressional staff members" to mean White House staff who worked with Congress -- i.e., staff of the Legislative Affairs Office, where Ms. Lewinsky worked.(214)
Talking with a Secret Service agent posted in the hallway, Officer Fox speculated on whom the President was expecting: "I described Ms. Lewinsky, without mentioning the name, in detail, dark hair -- you know, I gave a general description of what she looked like."(215) Officer Fox had gotten to know Ms. Lewinsky during her tenure at the White House, and other agents had told him that she often spent time with the President.(216)
A short time later, Ms. Lewinsky approached, greeted Officer Fox, and said, "I have some papers for the President." Officer Fox admitted her to the Oval Office. The President said: "You can close the door. She'll be here for a while."(217)
January 21 Sexual Encounter
On Sunday, January 21, 1996, according to Ms. Lewinsky, she and the President had another sexual encounter. Her time of White House entry is not reflected in records. She left at 3:56 p.m.(218) The President moved from the Residence to the Oval Office at 3:33 p.m. and remained there until 7:40 p.m.(219)
On that day, according to Ms. Lewinsky, she saw the President in a hallway by an elevator, and he invited her to the Oval Office.(220) According to Ms. Lewinsky:
We had . . . had phone sex for the first time the week prior, and I was feeling a little bit insecure about whether he had liked it or didn't like it . . . . I didn't know if this was sort of developing into some kind of a longer-term relationship than what I thought it initially might have been, that maybe he had some regular girlfriend who was furloughed . . . .(221)
According to Ms. Lewinsky, she questioned the President about his interest in her. "I asked him why he doesn't ask me any questions about myself, and . . . is this just about sex . . . or do you have some interest in trying to get to know me as a person?"(222) The President laughed and said, according to Ms. Lewinsky, that "he cherishes the time that he had with me."(223) She considered it "a little bit odd" for him to speak of cherishing their time together "when I felt like he didn't really even know me yet."(224)
They continued talking as they went to the hallway by the study. Then, with Ms. Lewinsky in mid-sentence, "he just started kissing me."(225) He lifted her top and touched her breasts with his hands and mouth.(226) According to Ms. Lewinsky, the President "unzipped his pants and sort of exposed himself," and she performed oral sex.(227)
At one point during the encounter, someone entered the Oval Office. In Ms. Lewinsky's recollection, "[The President] zipped up real quickly and went out and came back in . . . . I just remember laughing because he had walked out there and he was visibly aroused, and I just thought it was funny."(228)
A short time later, the President got word that his next appointment, a friend from Arkansas, had arrived.(229) He took Ms. Lewinsky out through the Oval Office into Ms. Hernreich's office, where he kissed her goodbye.(230)
C. February 4 Sexual Encounter and Subsequent Phone Calls
On Sunday, February 4, according to Ms. Lewinsky, she and the President had their sixth sexual encounter and their first lengthy and personal conversation. The President was in the Oval Office from 3:36 to 7:05 p.m.(231) He had no telephone calls in the Oval Office before 4:45 p.m.(232) Records do not show Ms. Lewinsky's entry or exit.
According to Ms. Lewinsky, the President telephoned her at her desk and they planned their rendezvous. At her suggestion, they bumped into each other in the hallway, "because when it happened accidentally, that seemed to work really well," then walked together to the area of the private study.(233)
There, according to Ms. Lewinsky, they kissed. She was wearing a long dress that buttoned from the neck to the ankles. "And he unbuttoned my dress and he unhooked my bra, and sort of took the dress off my shoulders and . . . moved the bra . . . . [H]e was looking at me and touching me and telling me how beautiful I was."(234) He touched her breasts with his hands and his mouth, and touched her genitals, first through underwear and then directly.(235) She performed oral sex on him.(236)
After their sexual encounter, the President and Ms. Lewinsky sat and talked in the Oval Office for about 45 minutes. Ms. Lewinsky thought the President might be responding to her suggestion during their previous meeting about "trying to get to know me."(237) It was during that conversation on February 4, according to Ms. Lewinsky, that their friendship started to blossom.(238)
When she prepared to depart, according to Ms. Lewinsky, the President "kissed my arm and told me he'd call me, and then I said, yeah, well, what's my phone number? And so he recited both my home number and my office number off the top of his head."(239) The President called her at her desk later that afternoon and said he had enjoyed their time together.(240)
F. March 31 Sexual Encounter
On Sunday, March 31, 1996, according to Ms. Lewinsky, she and the President resumed their sexual contact.(264) Ms. Lewinsky was at the White House from 10:21 a.m. to 4:27 p.m. on that day.(265) The President was in the Oval Office from 3:00 to 5:46 p.m.(266) His only call while in the Oval Office was from 3:06 to 3:07 p.m.(267) Mrs. Clinton was in Ireland.(268)
According to Ms. Lewinsky, the President telephoned her at her desk and suggested that she come to the Oval Office on the pretext of delivering papers to him.(269) She went to the Oval Office and was admitted by a plainclothes Secret Service agent.(270) In her folder was a gift for the President, a Hugo Boss necktie.(271)
In the hallway by the study, the President and Ms. Lewinsky kissed. On this occasion, according to Ms. Lewinsky, "he focused on me pretty exclusively," kissing her bare breasts and fondling her genitals.(272) At one point, the President inserted a cigar into Ms. Lewinsky's vagina, then put the cigar in his mouth and said: "It tastes good."(273) After they were finished, Ms. Lewinsky left the Oval Office and walked through the Rose Garden.(274)