Clinton Denies Telling Intern To Lie White House Papers Subpoenaed As Sex Scandal Threatens President

An infuriated President Clinton, struggling to fend off yet another damaging allegation about his personal behavior, denied Wednesday that he had an “improper sexual relationship” with a White House intern and encouraged her to lie under oath about their involvement.

Yet even as the president did his best to rebut the charges, Whitewater prosecutor Kenneth Starr issued a subpoena for White House documents that might shed light on Clinton’s relationship with 24-year-old Monica Lewinsky along with allegations he had encouraged her to lie about it under oath.

In a series of interviews, Clinton emphatically rejected the allegations that literally have exploded overnight into what some observers are calling the most ominous personal and political scandal Clinton has faced in his roller-coaster presidency.

“The relationship was not improper,” Clinton insisted in an interview with Roll Call, a biweekly newspaper. “The relationship was not sexual.”

Clinton also flatly denied reports that he had asked Lewinsky to lie about their relationship or had directed trusted friend and adviser Vernon Jordan to coach Lewinsky on his behalf.

“I did not urge anyone to say anything that was untrue,” Clinton said in a televised interview on PBS’ “NewsHour.”

In an interview with National Public Radio, Clinton said the charges had infuriated him but he is trying to put the episode “in a little box” and focus on pressing domestic and international issues such as the State of the Union address, the ongoing crisis with Iraq and his visits this week with Israeli and Palestinian leaders.

But Clinton said the White House would cooperate fully with Starr’s expanded probe.

Starr, who was appointed to investigate Clinton’s involvement in the Whitewater affair, won approval last Friday to broaden his probe to examine whether Clinton encouraged Lewinsky to provide false testimony about their relationship.

Starr is attempting to determine whether Clinton deployed Jordan to talk with Lewinsky about the sworn statement she recently provided in the Paula Jones sexual harassment case. In that statement, Lewinsky denied having a sexual relationship with the president.

Standing up for Jordan, who so far has declined to comment on the allegations, Clinton declared: “He is in no way involved in trying to get anybody to say anything that’s not true at my request.”

A former Department of Defense official said Lewinsky “up and left” her Pentagon post in December “with no notice.” The office has been short-handed ever since.

The new charges were brought to Starr’s attention by a co-worker of Lewinsky who secretly tape-recorded conversations in which Lewinsky allegedly described her involvement with Clinton and White House efforts to influence her testimony.

Lewinsky has not spoken publicly about the allegations, and her whereabouts could not be immediately determined Wednesday.

In related developments:

The parent company of Revlon, the cosmetics company, confirmed that Jordan “referred” Lewinsky for a public relations position as she was preparing to leave the administration late last year.

A spokesman for Clinton’s ambassador to the United Nations, Bill Richardson, confirmed that Richardson offered Lewinsky a job last October .

Several members of Congress said they believe impeachment proceedings are a possibility if the charges against Clinton are substantiated.

First lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, discussing the matter after delivering a speech in Baltimore, said she believes the allegations are “absolutely” false and politically motivated.

Last Saturday, as Clinton provided his own deposition in the Jones case, the president was asked point-blank about his relationship with Lewinsky. He denied any sexual involvement with her, according to people familiar with the matter.

Lewinsky, a former resident of Southern California, first worked at the White House as an unpaid intern in the summer of 1995. She returned to the White House in the fall of that year, and spent five months working in a paid position in the White House legislative affairs office. She later transferred to a post in the Pentagon public affairs office, a job she quit only a few weeks ago.

Starr’s expanded investigation was sparked by another former White House aide, Linda Tripp, who worked with Lewinsky at the Pentagon and surreptitiously taped several conversations with her co-worker.

Sources said Tripp started taping the conversations last summer because she was angry that Clinton’s private lawyer, Robert S. Bennett, questioned her credibility after she told Newsweek magazine she had observed the aftermath of a romantic encounter between Clinton and yet another aide.

Tripp told Newsweek that she saw Kathleen Willey, a longtime Clinton supporter who was volunteering at the White House, emerge from the Oval Office with her clothing askew and her makeup smeared.

Willey, who was compelled to testify in the Jones case, reportedly said under oath that the president groped and kissed her when she went to his office to ask him for a paid job because her husband was experiencing financial problems.

Before she brought the allegations about Lewinsky to Starr’s attention, Tripp had been in contact with the independent counsel’s office as part of its earlier investigation of the death of White House Deputy Counsel Vincent Foster.

Some Clinton critics were clearly squeamish about probing the alleged sexual liaison between the president and the young aide. They said the primary issue is whether Clinton perjured himself or tried to obstruct justice by encouraging someone to lie to cover up his misdeeds.

“We’re not interested in the president’s sexual proclivities or alleged infidelities, but if there is evidence of obstruction of justice we might look into that,” said Rep. Dan Burton, R-Ind., who plans to conduct hearings through much of this year on fund-raising abuses concerning the White House.