WASHINGTON, February 6: A frail, religious woman in her late 50s, President Clinton's personal secretary Bettie Currie delivered a body blow to the White House by telling investigators that the President did spend time alone with Monica Lewinsky and turning over to them gifts he gave the intern.Currie told investigators that the President called her over to the White House on a Sunday, the day after he was deposed in the Paula Jones suit and ``went over'' his version of his relationship with Monica Lewinsky, in what prosecutors feel was an exercise in coaching her (Currie) what to say if she was examined.
Clinton is said to have asked her several leading questions like ``We were never alone together, right?'' and also suggested that he had resisted sexual advances from the young girl.
The White House however angrily denied that the President had told Currie to lie or coached her and said there was nothing sinister about the episode. The President was merely trying to refresh his memory about Lewinsky.Currie's attorney also vehemently denied that the implication that the President had sought to tutor his secretary. White House officials suggested that the story, reported first in The New York Times and followed by cable networks, was leaked by Starr's office to ``warp'' a press conference President Clinton is to hold later today along with visiting British Prime Minister Tony Blair.
Clinton was asked about his relationship with Monica Lewinsky when he was deposed in the Paula Jones case on Saturday, January 10, and was apparently surprised when Jones's attorney asked him about Monica Lewinsky.
He called Currie to the White House the next day to help his recollection of the young intern, White House officials suggested.
Meanwhile, Monica Lewinsky is understood to have returned most of the gifts she got from the President, probably because it would escape scrutiny if she was questioned. Currie, who collected the gifts, handed them over to Ken Starr's team. The gifts include a dress, a hat pinand a brooch. Besides testifying before the Grand Jury, Currie has also been secretly questioned by FBI agents and prosecutors from Ken Starr's office. Currie, who sits outside the President's Oval office, authorized many of the 37 White House visits for which Lewinsky received clearance after she left to work at the Pentagon.
She has told investigators that she does not know whether Lewinsky and President Clinton had a sexual relationship but they did spend time alone together.
An African-American employee, Currie is said to be a deeply religious woman who is a reluctant but truthful witness torn between loyalty to her boss and the legal system. She emerged from her January 27 deposition before Starr looking terrified and was hustled into a waiting car by her lawyer. Like Monica Lewinsky, she too has not spoken to journalists.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
