Prosecutors may call Lewinsky to testify in Senate

House trial managers interviewed the former White House intern for two hours yesterday. The Associated Press WASHINGTON -- At a critical juncture in President Clinton's impeachment trial, House prosecutors interviewed Monica Lewinsky for almost two hours yesterday and asserted her testimony would help the Senate "determine the truth." The House team focused on issues at the heart of the obstruction-of-justice allegations against Clinton, according to a source familiar with the interview -- the job search for Lewinsky and retrieval of presidential gifts from the former intern by Oval Office secretary Betty Currie. Lewinsky also disclosed new information to prosecutors -- that Currie made calls from the White House to Lewinsky prior to going to Lewinsky's apartment later in the day to pick up the subpoenaed presents, another source said. The calls apparently were not logged. The former intern and Currie disagree over which of them initiated the pickup and, before yesterday, House prosecutors only had a record of a one-minute cellular call from Currie to Lewinsky to substantiate Lewinsky's account. Presidential lawyers have suggested that the one-minute call was too short a time to have arranged the pickup. The interview triggered partisan convulsions even before it was held and by yesterday morning, three Republican senators said they wanted a swift end to the case. Two of them expressed hope for a conclusion this week. When the interview ended, Lewinsky's lawyer, Plato Cacheris, said she "added nothing to the record that is already sitting before the Senate right now." Yet all three House managers who participated in the interview called the session productive. "I believe she would be a witness that would help them determine the truth, and that's what we are all endeavoring to do during this process," Rep. Asa Hutchinson (R-Ark.) said. Rep. Bill McCollum (R-Fla.) said Lewinsky "might be a very helpful witness to the Senate if called." And Rep. Ed Bryant (R-Tenn.) characterized the former White House intern as "impressive." Cacheris said his client "was candid, forthright and extremely truthful" but he insisted that anything she would tell the Senate would cover familiar ground. He urged the managers to tell their colleagues that it is unnecessary to call Lewinsky as a witness, so that her "long nightmare" could end. The three members of Congress were especially interested in presidential friend Vernon Jordan's effort to find a job for Lewinsky and in Currie's retrieval of Clinton's gifts to Lewinsky, said the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity. Prosecutors contend the job search and the gift retrieval were undertaken to thwart lawyers for Paula Jones, who wanted Lewinsky to testify in the Jones civil lawsuit and also subpoenaed the presidential gifts. The White House denies any connection between the Jones case on the one hand and the job hunt and the gift transfer on the other. Those issues involve some of the most contested evidence before the Senate. Lewinsky testified that Currie initiated the transfer of the presents, and the House prosecutors concluded that Clinton put her up to it. Currie could not recall who initiated it. In another key conflict, Lewinsky testified on one occasion that when she asked Clinton what to do with the gifts, he asked her to "Let me think about it." On some nine other occasions, she couldn't recall any reaction from the president to her question. On the job search, the House team insisted that the effort by Jordan became intense within a week after Lewinsky appeared on the Jones witness list. Jordan has denied there was any connection. The House team was able to question Lewinsky directly, while lawyers working for Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr watched, said Hutchinson spokesperson Christopher Battle. A source with knowledge of the interview said Lewinsky did not become emotional and that the entire session was conducted in a professional manner. The House prosecutors were set to meet today, the deadline for submitting a witness list to the Senate. Senators will debate whether to call witnesses before taking two votes: first on a motion to dismiss the case and then on the decision to take depositions of witnesses.