Fbi Tapes Back Up Charges Against Clinton

The FBI secretly tape-recorded former White House intern Monica Lewinsky talking last week about how President Clinton had urged her to lie about having a sexual relationship, then confronted her with the tapes to convince her to cooperate with its investigation of Clinton, sources familiar with the investigation said Wednesday.

Lewinsky, 24, was recorded while meeting at an Arlington, Va., hotel with a former colleague, Linda Tripp, who was cooperating with authorities and wearing a “body wire” recording device, the sources said.

The FBI operation helped corroborate other tapes made earlier by Tripp on her own and was used to help convince Attorney General Janet Reno and a three-judge panel to authorize a new investigation into Clinton, according to sources. to sources.

The week before she was confronted by the FBI, Lewinsky had provided a sworn affidavit denying a sexual liaison with Clinton in the Paula Jones sexual harassment case. It is not known what she said to the FBI when confronted with the existence of the tapes, but there is no indication that she backed away from her sworn statement.

A source familiar with her legal strategy, however, said Wednesday that when Lewinsky is interviewed under oath by Jones’ attorneys on Friday, she plans to refuse to testify, citing her Fifth Amendment protections against self-incrimination.

After Tripp provided tapes of her conversations with Lewinsky, Starr began an investigation into whether Clinton or his close friend Vernon Jordan were involved in suborning perjury or obstruction of justice by encouraging Lewinsky to lie to Jones’ attorneys. Among other things, sources said, Starr is searching for gifts that might show whether there was a relationship, including reports that Clinton gave Lewinsky a dress. He also is seeking evidence that Clinton or Jordan tried to help Lewinsky find a job at the same time they allegedly were urging her silence.

Clinton in interviews Wednesday denied having a sexual relationship with Lewinsky, just as he did in secret sworn testimony provided last weekend to Jones’s lawyers. However, sources familiar with his testimony said Wednesday that Clinton in his deposition Saturday did acknowledge giving personal gifts to Lewinsky.

During the nearly six-hour deposition, Clinton also acknowledged for the first time that he had an affair with Gennifer Flowers during the 1970s, according to the sources. Clinton, during one of the most memorable moments of the 1992 presidential campaign, categorically denied Flowers’ allegation that they had been romantically involved. Jones’ lawyers are trying to prove a pattern of sexual behavior by Clinton to lend credibility to their client’s lawsuit alleging that he sexually harassed her in a Little Rock, Ark., hotel suite in 1991.

White House special counsel Lanny J. Davis declined to comment Wednesday about the Flowers testimony, citing a “gag” order imposed by the judge in the Jones case.

The FBI tape could prove critical to Starr’s investigation because unlike the 17 tapes of Lewinsky provided by Tripp, there could be no doubt about the authenticity of the government’s recording. Tripp, another former White House aide who later worked at the Pentagon with Lewinsky, provided her tapes to Starr on Jan. 12. She also told Starr’s staff she has heard tapes from a telephone answering machine containing a voice that sounds like Clinton’s placing calls to Lewinsky, one source said. The contents of those tapes is unknown and authorities have not confirmed their existence.

Tripp is a central player in the investigation and a person close to the investigation said she has been granted immunity from prosecution for her cooperation.

Tripp had emerged as a potential witness in the Jones case last summer when she said publicly that she saw another White House aide, Kathleen Willey, emerge from the Oval Office after a romantic encounter with Clinton. The president’s attorney, Robert S. Bennett, said she was not believable.

While talking with Lewinsky about her purported involvement with the president, Tripp began recording the conversations, concerned that she would be attacked and lose her job if she were ever subpoenaed in the Jones case, those familiar with her story said.

Lewinsky indicated on the tapes that after a sexual relationship that lasted about 18 months, Clinton cooled on it when there was negative publicity over the Willey incident, sources said. They said that in conversations throughout the fall, Lewinsky was often sad or in tears over the new distance in her relationship with the president, but eventually she became bitter, realizing she was likely to become caught up in the Jones case. She began referring to Clinton as “the creep.”

At one point in recent weeks, sources said, Lewinsky pleaded with Tripp on tape to tell Jones’ lawyers under oath that Lewinsky had not had an intimate relationship with Clinton and to disavow her previous account in the Willey matter, the sources said.

Lewinsky even provided Tripp with a set of written “talking points” to guide her testimony in the Jones case, a source said. Newsweek magazine reported Wednesday that the talking points urged Tripp to say she thinks Willey manufactured the appearance of a liaison with Clinton, smearing her own lipstick and untucking her own blouse.