THE STARR INVESTIGATION March 3, 1998 The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer Transcript

---

Vernon Jordan, President Clinton's close friend and confidant, testified before the federal grand jury. Mararet Warner discusses his testimony and other developments in the Starr investigation with Dan Balz of The Washington Post.

---

A RealAudio version of this segment is available. NEWSHOUR LINKS: February 27, 1998: Shields and Gigot discuss criticism of Starr's investigation . February 26, 1998 First Amendment implications of the Starr investigation. February 24, 1998: Clinton aide Sidney Blumenthal is called before the grand jury. February 18, 1998: Washington Post reporter Dan Balz discusses presidential adviser Bruce Lindsey's testimony before the grand jury. February 6, 1998: Perspectives on the Starr investigation from beyond the beltway. January 26, 1998: Experts debate the role of the independent counsel. January 22, 1998: Presidential historians and experts put the brewing crisis in perspective. May 27, 1997: A discussion on the ramifications of the Paula Jones case on the office of the Presidency. Browse the NewsHour's coverage of the White House and legal issues The Shields and Gigot index page. OUTSIDE LINKS The Washingtonpost.com's coverage of the crisis.

MARGARET WARNER: Today, Vernon Jordan, one of the president's closest friends in Washington, came before the federal grand jury investigating the Monica Lewinsky matter.

Who is Vernon Jordan?

A former civil rights activist, Jordan is today one of Washington's most influential lawyers, deal makers, and Democratic Party insiders. Jordan was born in Atlanta, Georgia, 62 years ago, the son of a postal worker. He earned a college degree from DePauw University, and his law degree from Howard University. He served as Georgia field director for the NAACP in the early 60's, executive director of the United Negro College Fund in 1970 and '71, and president of the National Urban League from 1972 to 1981. In 1982, Jordan joined the Washington office of a powerhouse Texas law firm, Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer, and Feld.

Today he's a senior partner of the firm and also serves on 11 corporate boards. Jordan and the president have known each other for more than 20 years. After his election in 1992, Mr. Clinton asked Jordan to be co-chairman of his transition team. That same month, Jordan and his wife Ann held a dinner party at their Georgetown home to introduce the Clintons to leading members of the city's social and political elite. Jordan has not held any official position in the Clinton administration. But over the past six years, Mr. Clinton has turned to his friend frequently for advice and counsel, particularly at times of crisis. The two men also spend a great deal of time together outside the White House in golf games at courses around Washington and during summertime visits to Martha's Vineyard in Massachusetts. Jordan's name was associated with the Monica Lewinsky saga almost from the beginning. On January 22nd, just days after the story broke, Jordan publicly acknowledged that he had tried to help the former White House intern after she left government.

VERNON JORDAN: I did two things for Ms. Monica Lewinsky: I assisted her in trying to find employment in the private sector in New York City. Secondly, when she was served with the subpoena and, at her request, I recommended a very competent Washington lawyer, Mr. Frank Carter. I actually took her to Mr. Carter's office, I introduced them, and I returned to my office. I want to say to you, absolutely and unequivocally that Ms. Lewinsky told me in no uncertain terms that she did not have a sexual relationship with the president. At no time did I ever say, suggest, or intimate to her that she should lie.

MARGARET WARNER: Late this afternoon, after a full day of testimony, Jordan spoke briefly to reporters.

VERNON JORDAN: I answered all of their questions truthfully and completely to the best of my ability. I shall return on Thursday for more questions. As to those of you who cast doubt on my friendship with President Clinton. Let me reassure you that ours is an enduring friendship, an enduring friendship based on mutual respect, trust, and admiration. That was true yesterday. That is true today, and it will be true tomorrow.

MARGARET WARNER: For more on this aspect of the Starr investigation we return once again to the Washington Post's newsroom. Joining is Dan Balz, a correspondent on the Post's national staff. Dan, what is the importance of Vernon Jordan to the case that Ken Starr is trying to build?

Dan Balz: "Vernon Jordan is obviously a central figure in this case."

DAN BALZ, Washington Post: Margaret, Vernon Jordan is obviously a central figure in this case. And one could say in many ways he was "the" central figure at the beginning of this case. If you recall the history of how this whole investigation started when Ken Starr went to the Justice Department and asked for expanded authority to investigate this whole matter, he was focused much more on Vernon Jordan at that time than the president. The request that he provided that the Justice Department look at talked more about Vernon Jordan's role. And at that time it was a basic question of whether Vernon Jordan had participated in obstructing justice in the Paula Jones case. 

MARGARET WARNER: Why was Ken Starr particularly interested in Vernon Jordan that early on?

DAN BALZ: At the time he had tapes--as you know--the tapes that involved Monica Lewinsky and Linda Tripp indicated that Vernon Jordan had asked Monica Lewinsky to lie in the Paula Jones deposition that she was about to give.

MARGARET WARNER: That is, Monica Lewinsky supposedly has said that on the tape.

DAN BALZ: That's correct. That's according to people who were familiar with those tapes. They believe that that's what she was saying.

MARGARET WARNER: And also, though, explain the--explain why Ken Starr was already quite familiar with Vernon Jordan from the larger Whitewater investigation.

DAN BALZ: Well, there's been a history of involving Mr. Jordan that Ken Starr has been interested in. In the Whitewater investigation Ken Starr has been investigating whether Vernon Jordan, among others, had helped Web Hubble, a former Justice Department official at the beginning of the Clinton administration, whether he had helped Mr. Hubble obtain some lucrative contracts as a way to buy his silence in the Whitewater investigation. So what he had here was a second example in his own mind of a possibility of Vernon Jordan participating in and in some way or another obstructing justice, both with the Whitewater investigation and now with the Paula Jones case.

MARGARET WARNER: And how had he supposedly--what was Ken Starr looking at that Vernon Jordan had done on behalf of Web Hubble?

DAN BALZ: He had done a similar thing. He had helped him find a consulting contract with the Revlon Company, the same company that he helped Monica Lewinsky find a job in January.

MARGARET WARNER: Now, is Vernon Jordan an official target of this Monica Lewinsky part of the investigation? While I'm asking you that, maybe explain what's the significance of being a target.

To be a "target."

DAN BALZ: Well, to be a target is simply to be informed by a prosecutor that you are in jeopardy of being indicted and if you have not been before a grand jury, I think you have the right to go in and tell your version of events, if you prefer to. At this point, from the best we can tell, Vernon Jordan has not been officially informed that he is a target in this investigation. He has not received a formal letter suggesting to him that he his a target. I think he would have to say that among the handful of people who might be targets in here that Vernon Jordan certainly would be one. But he's not been officially informed of that.

MARGARET WARNER: So, what is it--I mean, Vernon Jordan was in there a very long time today. What is it that Ken Starr most needs to know from Vernon Jordan?

DAN BALZ: I think that Ken Starr basically wants to know everything he can find out about what Vernon Jordan did on behalf of Monica Lewinsky and why. As you recall, when he gave his statement on January 22nd, he said he'd been asked to help Monica Lewinsky by Betty Currie, who is the president's personal secretary. Later, it was suggested through friends of Vernon Jordan that he interpreted that to be a request directly from the president. And so Ken Starr's prosecutors no doubt were taking Vernon Jordan step by step through everything he did from that point forward until the middle of January when he had actually succeeded in getting her a job with the Revlon Corporation, although that job was later rescinded.

MARGARET WARNER: So, in other words, he's--Vernon Jordan is in a position to, one, let the grand jury know whether or not he was part of any sort of attempt to buy Monica Lewinsky's silence, and/or also whether the president was.

DAN BALZ: Well, he's one of just a small handful of people who actually knows what happened. And he's had conversations with the other two principal people--Monica Lewinsky and the president. And so his knowledge of events is more detailed and more significant than almost anybody else Ken Starr could get them from. And it's attempted, in essence, to triangulate this story to find out who is or who isn't telling the truth, depending on the other evidence that Ken Starr has been able to obtain so far.

MARGARET WARNER: Now, under the rules of the grand jury, could Ken Starr also ask Vernon Jordan about other conversations he's had with the president about other allegations or other alleged relationships, or anything that really he wants to?

DAN BALZ: Well, as far as I know, that's certainly within bounds in a grand jury. As you know, there's not a judge present. The prosecutors really are in control, along with the grand jury. Almost anything is within bounds. The rules of evidence are far different than in a courtroom, so it would certainly be within their right to ask him about his conversations with the president. And unlike the president's senior officials and senior advisers, I don't believe he could attempt to invoke executive privilege; it would not be privileged conversations. He was not acting as the president's attorney in this case, and he's not a member of the senior staff.

MARGARET WARNER: Mr. Jordan hasn't said anything publicly about the facts of the case since that January 22nd statement that we ran, but what do you, from your reporting, what do you at the Post know about Vernon Jordan's version of events?

DAN BALZ: We learned a good deal more subsequent to Mr. Jordan's statement in January. We know that there were four meetings between him and Monica Lewinsky. We know that there were a number of phone calls, anywhere from seven to ten phone calls. We know also that at the time he was first asked by Betty Currie to help Monica Lewinsky that he did not know that her name had shown up on a witness list to be a witness in the Paula Jones case. According to a version of events that was put out by someone who is familiar with his story, he did not know that until later at the point when she was subpoenaed to testify in that case. At that point, according to those who know his story, he went to both the president and to Monica Lewinsky and asked them specifically about a sexual relationship. And, again, according to these sources, he was told by both people, no, there was no sexual relationship. And only on that basis did he continue to help Monica Lewinsky find a job.

MARGARET WARNER: And so if that's the case, ergo--

On the "up and up?"

DAN BALZ: Well, the conclusion from that is that everything he was doing was on the up and up, that in no way was he asking her to do something that would get her to try to lie because to the best of his knowledge, there was nothing she needed to lie about. So his role was purely as help to the president for Monica Lewinsky but not in any way to obstruct justice.

MARGARET WARNER: Now, this afternoon he also said a curious thing. He contradicted what he said, those who--among you who have cast doubt on my friendship with President Clinton--what was he referring to there?

DAN BALZ: A couple of things, Margaret. I think one is that about two weeks ago a version of events that I just went through was put out by people familiar with his story. That version of events was seen by some people as an indication that he felt he had been used by the president in this case and in other words, that the president had gotten him involved in this without forewarning him that there was a problem related to the Paula Jones case, and that he was perhaps angry at the president and might do something in the testimony that would put the president at risk. And in some of those same stories, including one in the Washington Post, he was quoted through a friend as saying, "I'm a loyal friend of the president, but I'm not a fool." And other people, again, felt that that might be an indication that he was not going to take the fall on this case, that the president was going to be on his own. Today's statement suggests that their friendship, as he said, is going to be enduring, and that the testimony he provided perhaps did not put the president at risk in any way.

MARGARET WARNER: So, on balance, how much would you say hinges on what Vernon Jordan was saying to that grand jury and what he'll come back and talk about Thursday?

DAN BALZ: Well, obviously, a lot hinges on it. As I say, he's most the significant figure who has testified so far. He's the first of the central figures who knows the story who has testified under oath. His version of events will now be used to compare with what Monica Lewinsky says when and if she testifies, and if the president is asked to testify exactly how the president characterizes it. So his version of events now becomes central in determining where this story goes.

MARGARET WARNER: All right. Dan, thanks very much again.

DAN BALZ: Thank you.

REGIONS TOPICS RECENT PROGRAMS ABOUT US FEEDBACK SUBSCRIPTIONS / FEEDS:

Support the kind of journalism done by the NewsHour...Become a member of your local PBS station.
PBS Online Privacy Policy Copyright ©1996- MacNeil/Lehrer Productions. All Rights Reserved.