Monica Lewinsky began her White House employment as an intern in the Chief of Staff's office in July 1995. … The month after her White House internship began, Ms. Lewinsky and the President began what she characterized as "intense flirting." …

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….

[Later that day], en route to the restroom… she passed George Stephanopoulos's office. The President was inside alone, and he beckoned her to enter. She told him that she had a crush on him. He laughed, then asked if she would like to see his private office. 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 if he could kiss me." Ms. Lewinsky said yes. In the hallway adjacent to the study, they kissed. Before returning to her desk, Ms. Lewinsky wrote down her name and telephone number for the President.

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Monica Lewinsky…had worked in the White House in the summer of 1995 as an intern and then in a staff job from December through early April, when she was transferred to the Pentagon.

P773

On her first morning [during the government shutdown]… Monica spotted the President as he walked by the door to the Chief of Staff's office, where she was working. She mouthed "Hi," and he smiled back a "Hi" before returning to the Oval Office.

What was particularly unusual that day was that the President, who normally visited the Chief of Staff's office once a week, dropped by four or five times….

After a while, the President went into the Chief of Staff's inner office. … Monica, who was wearing a smart navy-blue pantsuit, decided to raise the stakes in their flirting ritual. She was standing with her back to the office door, and when he returned she put her hands on her hips and with her thumbs lifted the back of her jacket, allowing him a fleeting glimpse of her thong underwear where it showed above the waistline of her suit's paints. This incident, now infamous, was, as far as she was concerned, merely one step further in their flirtation. It was over in an instant, although she was awarded with an appreciative look as the President walked past. …

Later she passed the office of George Stephanopoulous, the Senior Advisor for Policy and Strategy and, glancing in, saw the president was in there alone. He gestured to her and said, "Come on in here for a second." When she went in, she found herself alone in an otherwise empty office with the President of the United States…. Nervously struggling to make conversation, Monica blurted out, "You know, I have a really big crush on you." Laughing, he hesitated for a moment before replying, "Come into the back office."

Monica's recollection of the next few moments is vivid, if romantically colored. In the inner office, the President stood close to her before wrapping his arms around her and holding her tightly. "I remember looking at him and seeing such a different person than the one I had expected to see. There was such a softness and a tenderness about him, his eyes were very soul-searching, very wanting, very needing and very loving. There was, too, a sadness about him that I hadn't expected to see."

There were other thoughts racing through her mind: "Oh my goodness, he's so gorgeous—and I can't believe I am here, standing alone with the President of the United States."

They talked about her schooldays and where she was from, and he told her that she was beautiful and that her energy lit up a room. "Then he was just holding me, taking in my worth and my energy as a woman and a human being. He asked if he could kiss me and when he did, it was soft, deep, romantic. It was wonderful. At the same time as kissing him I'm thinking, I can't believe this is happening,' as well as. "What an incredible, sensual kisser!"

P73

Bill told me that Monica Lewinsky was an intern he had befriended two years earlier when she was volunteering in the West Wing during the government shutdown. He had talked to her a few times, and she had asked him for some job-hunting help. This was completely in character for Bill. He said she had misinterpreted his attention, which was something I had seen happen dozens of times before. It was such a familiar scenario….

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[The President] invited her to rendezvous again in Mr. Stephanopoulos' office in a few minutes, and she agreed. (Asked if she knew why the President wanted to meet with her, Ms. Lewinsky testified: "I had an idea.") The met in Mr. Stephanopoulos' office and went again to the area of the private study. This time the lights in the study were off.

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. 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." 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. 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."

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He… said, "If you want to meet me back in George's office in five or ten minutes you can." She agreed. After waiting nervously for a few minutes, Monica was relieved when the President opened the door to Stephanopoulos's inner office, which was dark, and gestured her inside. They smiled at each other, and immediately kissed. Soon, in the intensity of the moment, the encounter had become a good deal more intimate, their clothing unbuttoned, their hands exploring each other. Then, in the unlovely and degrading language of Kenneth Starr's report, "she performed oral sex on him."

During that time the President took a call from a Congressman as Monica continued to pleasure him. The American public were subsequently to be especially shocked by this behavior, but what impressed Monica at the time was her realization that Bill Clinton was her sexual soulmate. As she says, "We clicked at an incredible level. People have made it seem so demeaning for me but it wasn't, it was exciting and the irony is that I had the first orgasm of the relationship."

P74

According to Ms. Lewinsky, the President telephoned her at her desk and suggested that she come to the Oval Office and was admitted by a plainclothes Secret Service agent. In her folder was a gift for the President, a Hugo Boss necktie.

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. 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." After they were finished, Ms. Lewinsky left the Oval Office and walked through the Rose Garden.

P95

Monica went to his office at lunchtime, carrying a folder of papers. This time she hid a Hugo Boss tie and a silly erotic poem among her batch of papers. It was after this encounter, which led inevitably to kissing and sexual caresses during which Monica—famously, thanks to the Starr report—moistened one of the President's cigars in a most intimate fashion, that she realized that she had falling in love.

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Wearing a navy blue dress from the Gap, Ms. Lewinsky attended the radio address at the President's invitation…. [A]ccording to Ms. Lewinsky, the Presidents "started to say something to me and I was pestering him to kiss me, because… it had been a long time since we had been alone."(436) The President told her to wait a moment as he had presidents for her. As belated Christmas gifts, her gave her a hat pin and a special edition of Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass. …

Ms. Lewinsky testified that after the President gave her the gifts, they had a sexual encounter: We went back over by the bathroom in the hallway, and we kissed. We were kissing and he unbuttoned my dress and fondled my breasts with my bra on, and then took them out of my bra and was kissing them and touching them with his hands and with his mouth.

And then I think I was touching him in his genital area through his pants, and then I think I unbuttoned his shirt and was kissing his chest. And then…I wanted to perform oral sex on him…and so I did. And then…I think he heard something, or he heard someone in the office. So, we moved into the bathroom.

And I continued to perform oral sex and then he pushed me away, kind of as he always did before he came, and then I stood up and I said… I care about you so much;… I don't understand why you won't let me make you come; it's important to me; I mean, it just doesn't feel complete, it doesn't seem right.

Ms Lewinsky testified that she and the President hugged and "he said he didn't want to get addicted to me, and he didn't want me to get addicted to him. "The looked at each other for a moment. Then saying that "I don't want to disappoint you." The President consented. For the first time, she performed oral sex through completion.

When Ms. Lewinsky next took the navy blue Gap dress from her closet to wear it, she noticed stains near one hip and on the chest. FBI Laboratory tests revealed that the stains are the President's semen.

P115

In February 1997, Monica was among the guests at an evening taping of my weekly radio address, after which I met with her alone again for about fifteen minutes. I was disgusted with myself for doing it, and in the spring, when I saw her again, I told her that it was wrong for me, wrong for my family, and wrong for her, and I couldn't do it anymore. I also told her that she was an intelligent, interesting person who could have a good life, and that if she wanted me to, I would try to be her friend and help her.

P773

Then [Betty] Currie called again to invite Monica to the radio address that week, on February 28; to which Monica wore the now notorious navy-blue dress from the Gap, which she had just got back from the dry cleaners.

There were only six other people present at the address, but throughout Monica nervously wondered if she was going to be alone with the President for [a] long-promised embrace. Once the recording was over they had their photograph taken together, after which the President told her to go to Betty Currie's office because he had something for her. …

For the first time in ten months Monica found herself alone with "Handsome."… In that romantic mood, they moved to his bathroom, the most secluded area of his inner office, where they started to "fool around." …

Yet, their caresses continued, becoming more intimate, and this time, when in the middle of oral sex the President pushed her away, Monica told him that she wanted him to come to completion. He told her, "I don't want to get addicted to you and don't want you to get addicted to me." Whatever his own rationalizations, so far as Monica was concerned, it was much too late for that. She told him that she "cared about him so much" and they hugged. It was then that he agreed to go on with their embrace until, for the first time in their affair, the President found sexual completion in her presence, a tiny sample of his semen staining her Gap dress. For Monica, this marked a new chapter in their relationship, and intensity of feeling that would, she felt, bring them closer to the day when they would properly consummate their relationship. …

While she was not absolutely sure that the tiny stains on the fabric were from the President, she did joke with Neysa and Catherine about it, saying that if he was responsible, he should pay the dry-cleaning bill.

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The President himself spoke publicly about the matter several times in the initial days after the story broke. On January 26, the President was definitive: "I want to say one thing to the American people. I want you to listen to me. I'm going to say this again: I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky. I never told anybody to lie, not a single time. Never. These allegations are false."

The President's emphatic denial to the American people was false. And his statement was not an impromptu comment in the heat of a press conference. To the contrary, it was an intentional and calculated falsehood to deceive the Congress and the American people.

P427

The day before [the State of the union address] I reluctantly appeared once more before the press to say "I did not have sexual relations" with Lewinsky.

P773

President Clinton stood before the cameras and the American people and declared with a jab of his finger: "I did not have sexual relations with that woman—Miss Lewinsky. I never told anybody to lie, not a single time…never. These allegations are false. And I need to go back to work for the American people." It was a sound bite that came to haunt him.

Almost all those who knew the truth watched in angry his belief as he lied to the nation. Monica herself had mixed emotions. "I was pleased that he had denied it, because everyone was saying that he was going to have to resign if this was true. I didn't want him to resign. But I was very hurt when he said, 'that woman." His distance and coldness were a very direct message to me of how angry he was.

"At the same time, if the President had come out and acknowledged the improper relationship, that would have taken a lot of pressure and attention from me. But he didn't do that and the consequences are plain to see."

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At a January 26 press event designed to focus on funding children's after-school care, as Al Gore and Secretary Richard Riley and I stood by his side, the President issued a forceful denial that he'd had sexual relations with Lewinsky. I thought his show of anger was justified under the circumstances, as I understood them.

P440

On Saturday morning, August 15, with the grand jury testimony looming and after a miserable, sleepless night, I woke up Hillary and told her the truth about what had happened between me and Monica Lewinsky. She looked at me as if I had punched her in the gut, almost as angry at me for lying to her in January as for what I had done. All I could do was tell her that I was sorry, and that I had felt I couldn't tell anyone, even her, what had happened. I told her that I loved her and I didn't want to hurt her or Chelsea, that I was ashamed of what I had done and that I had kept everything to myself in an effort to avoid hurting my family and undermining the presidency.

P800

She subscribed to the commonly held belief that the Clinton marriage was purely a business arrangement, and, moreover, that it would end once his presidency came to a close. "At this point," she says, "I wasn't thinking that we had a future together. There were days when I thought that maybe they [the Clintons] won't be together when his term ends and he will be free."

P89

Early the next morning, Saturday, August 15, Bill woke me up just as he had done months before. This time he didn't sit by the bed, but paced back and forth. He told me for the first time that the situation was much more serious than he had previously acknowledged. He now realized he would have to testify that there had been an inappropriate intimacy. He told me that what happened between them had been brief and sporadic. He couldn't tell me seven months ago, he said, because he was too ashamed to admit it and he knew how angry and hurt I would be.

I could hardly breathe. Gulping for air, I started crying and yelling at him, "What do you mean?  What are you saying? Why did you lie to me?"

I was furious and getting more so by the second. He just stood there saying over and over again, "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I was trying to protect you and Chelsea." … I was dumbfounded, heartbroken and outraged that I'd believed him at all. …

These were terrible moments for all of us. I didn't know whether our marriage could—or should—survive such a stinging betrayal, but I knew I had to work through my feelings carefully, on my own timetable.

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