Little reaction among U. students as Clinton testimony hits airwaves

The president appeared angry and embarrassed during parts of the tape. The Associated Press WASHINGTON -- Congress laid before a wary nation yesterday the raw footage of President Clinton's grand jury testimony and 3,183 pages of evidence chronicling his relationship with Monica Lewinsky in explicit detail. "It's an embarrassing and personally painful thing," Clinton told the grand jurors. The videotape of Clinton's testimony began playing unedited on television sets across America shortly before 9:30 a.m.. White House press secretary Mike McCurry blamed its release on "rank partisanship" and dismissed most of the new material as irrelevant. The tape portrayed Clinton as sometimes angry at prosecutors' questions and other times expressing bitterness at how the Paula Jones lawsuit precipitated Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr's criminal investigation of the Lewinsky matter. "I deplored what they were doing," Clinton said of the Jones lawsuit. Jabbing his hand at prosecutors for emphasis, he insisted that in his January testimony in the Jones case, he was "determined to walk through the minefield of this deposition without violating the law, and I believe I did." "I deplored the innocent people they were tormenting and traumatizing. I deplored their illegal leaking," Clinton said. The two-volume set of evidence made public yesterday includes Lewinsky's own account to prosecutors and the grand jury, in which she calls the president her "sexual soulmate" and testifies about her frustration that the president hadn't taken their sexual activity further. "Maybe that was his way of being able to feel OK about it, his way of being able to justify it or rationalize it," she testified. Away from the spectacle, the president was at the United Nations in New York. His speech on combating terrorism got a standing ovation -- "the warmest and most enthusiastic reception" he has received in six U.N. speeches, said White House spokesman Joe Lockhart. He said Clinton didn't watch the video. Hillary Rodham Clinton, appearing at a New York University forum, made no mention of the Lewinsky matter in her opening remarks. McCurry said the videotape shows "repeated efforts by Mr. Starr and his prosecutors to browbeat and badger" Clinton into discussing intimate details of his relationship. The materials released yesterday provide one side of the story: the evidence that Starr said supports his case for 11 possible impeachable offenses against the president. McCurry's response: "That the president's conduct does not rise to the level of an impeachable offense should now be clear to everyone." With the House not in session, few lawmakers were on hand at the Capitol. Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.), said it was "unfortunate" that Republicans insisted on releasing the tape over Democrats' objections. As for its impact, he said, "how damaging is not something anybody can assess right now." Rep. John Conyers Jr., the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, decried the release of "irrelevant, unnecessary disclosure of salacious and lurid details" meant to embarrass the president. But Republican members of the committee said the videotape revealed Clinton's legal maneuvering. Committing perjury before the grand jury would be grounds for impeachment, said Rep. Charles Canady (R-Fla.). The president "understands the obligation to tell the truth and the whole truth," Canady said. "And we'll have to make a judgment about whether he has done that." Lewinsky's testimony contradicted the president's on several key aspects. She insisted he did touch her body during their sexual encounters and that they were alone at times in the Oval Office. She dates their first sexual encounter to November 1995 while she was still an intern; he said the contacts began in January 1996 after she had a paid White House job. At the request of one grand juror, Lewinsky recounted her conversations with Clinton about concealing or denying their sexual relationship, discussions that prosecutors allege amounted to obstruction of justice. "I told him I could always -- I would always deny it. I would always protect him," Lewinsky said. She was then asked by a juror to recount what the president said. "I'm seeing him smile and I'm hearing him saying 'that's good,' or -- something affirmative. You know. Not -- not -- 'don't deny it.' " Clinton said he "absolutely never asked her to lie." And he said there was nothing improper in their conversations about turning gifts that he had given to Lewinsky over to Oval Office secretary Betty Currie after they were subpoenaed. The handoff of the gifts was cited by prosecutors as evidence that Clinton obstructed justice. Lewinsky "may have been worried about this gift business but it didn't bother me," Clinton testified. Americans watching on TVs and computers across the country saw their president taking the oath before a grand jury, wrestling with difficult and graphic questions and trying to fall back on a technical, legal defense. "I am not going to answer your trick questions," the president snapped at prosecutors at one point. The president testified in the Map Room under bright light that contrasted with the warm muted glow bathing the same room when he gave his TV address to the nation later that day. The formality and legalism of his testimony contrasts starkly with that of the youthful Lewinsky, who spoke of a "mushy note" and scolded prosecutors during tough questions by saying, "Oh, you really want to embarrass me, don't you?" Clinton read a statement early on describing his relationship with Lewinsky as involving "sexual banter" and "inappropriate intimate contact." He then refused to describe the relationship further when prosecutors pressed for more. "I think it is clear what inappropriately intimate is. I have said what it did not include. I -- it did not include sexual intercourse -- and I do not believe it included conduct which falls within the definition I was given in the Jones deposition," Clinton says in one exchange. "And I would like to stay with that characterization."