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| "I did not have sexual relations with thatwoman, Miss Lewinsky. I never told anybody to lie, not a single time, never. "
|  On Jan 21, 1998 news organizations around the world reported that independent prosecutor Kenneth Starr was investigating claims that President Bill Clinton had an affair with a young White House intern and encouraged her to lie about it under oath. |
Click below to search the Dayton Daily News library for stories on the Clinton-Lewinsky allegations. | Websites:New York TimesNewsweek Time magazine Washington Post Yahoo news headlines |
Cast of characters: MONICA LEWINSKY: A graduate of Lewis and Clark College in Oregon, she went to workat the age of 21 as an unpaid intern in the office of Leon Panetta, then the White House chief ofstaff. After six months as an intern in 1995, Lewinsky landed a paid job handlingcorrespondence in the White House legislative affairs office. In April 1996, she moved to thePentagon and worked for press spokesman Kenneth Bacon until Dec. 27, 1997. Lewinsky was sought for questioning by lawyers for Paula Jones, who is pressing a sexualharassment lawsuit against President Clinton and is trying to establish a pattern of sexualmisconduct by Clinton. Now Starr is trying to determine whether Clinton and his friend, VernonJordan, tried to persuade Lewinsky to lie in an affidavit. Lewinsky reportedly has left thePentagon for a job in New York.LINDA TRIPP: A holdover from the Bush administration, she continued to work in the WhiteHouse after President Clinton was elected. She left in August 1994 to work in the Pentagonpress office. There she worked with Lewinsky. According to published reports, Tripp secretlytaped conversations in which Lewinsky described having a sexual affair with Clinton.  Tripp laterturned the audio tapes over to independent counsel Kenneth Starr and subsequently made othertapes of Lewinsky in conjuction with Starr's investigation.Tripp also played a role in charges that Clinton groped and fondled another aide, KathleenWilley, in a hideaway off the Oval Office in November 1993. Tripp's lawyer told theWashington Post that she had been subpoenaed to testify in Paula Jones's lawsuit.VERNON JORDAN: The former president of the National Urban League, he is a seniorpartner in the same law firm as longtime Democratic Party figure Robert Strauss and a friend ofClinton. KATHLEEN WILLEY: A former part-time White House aide, she has sworn in a secretdeposition in the Paula Jones case that Clinton made unsolicited sexual advances toward her in1993, according to Newsweek. Under oath, she said Clinton kissed and fondled her in ahideaway after she went into the Oval Office to seek a fulltime job, according to Newsweek.Robert Bennett, the president's lawyer, denied the account.Like Lewinsky, Willey is also a former colleague of Tripp and, at least in part, Tripp isresponsible for both of their stories gaining public attention. |
Other presidential dalliances* Andrew Jackson: In August 1791, Jackson married Mrs. Rachel DonelsonRobards, who was separated from her husband, Capt. Lewis Robards, an Armyofficer. She and Jackson married in August 1791. But in December 1793, theylearned that Robards had not been granted a divorce until September 1793. SoJackson and Rachel remarried Jan. 18, 1794. The confusion surrounding theirmarriage and remarriage made the couple targets of gossip that troubled theirlives for decades. Rachel died before Jackson was inaugurated as president.But that wasn't all. Scandal whirled around Peggy Eaton, who was married toone of Jackson's Cabinet members, and who was accused of numbering Jacksonamong her many lovers. * Grover Cleveland: In the 1884 contest between Republican James G. Blaineand Cleveland, a Democrat, Republicans pounced on Cleveland's having fatheredan illegitimate child years earlier. Cleveland admitted paternity andregularly paid child support. * Warren G. Harding: After Harding died in office in 1923, it was revealedthat he had kept a mistress, Nan Britton, within the White House. Her claimthat Harding had fathered a child was told to all the world in a ghostwrittenbook, The President's Daughter. * Franklin D. Roosevelt: It was no secret that Lucy Mercer was his``secret'' companion. Even his wife, Eleanor, knew about Mercer, who was withFDR when he died April 12, 1945. * Dwight D. Eisenhower: Kay Summersby, who had a close working relationshipwith Ike, wrote about their romantic involvement in Past Forgetting: My LoveAffair With Dwight D. Eisenhower. Despite the title, Summersby wrote that theynever consummated the relationship. * John F. Kennedy: Historians have assembled a list of confirmed JFK WhiteHouse paramours, ranging from two secretaries nicknamed Fiddle and Faddle toJudith Exner, who also was involved with Mafia kingpin Sam Giancana. TheMarilyn Monroe relationship remains theory, not proven fact. * Lyndon B. Johnson: LBJ biographer Robert Caro has stated that Johnsoncarried on innumerable affairs, but historians say it's unlikely that nameswill be named as long as Lady Bird Johnson, LBJ's widow, remains alive. * Ronald Reagan: During his presidency, it was noted in print that Reaganand second wife Nancy had been married significantly less than nine monthswhen their first child was born. And later, tabloid-style biographer KittyKelly hinted that Nancy Reagan conducted a White House affair with FrankSinatra. * George Bush: The name most frequently mentioned in connection with Bushwas Jennifer Fitzgerald, and although rumors circulated about a planned mediaexpose, it never materialized. So it wasn't really a ``scandal'' - just talk.For whatever reason, Bush didn't attack challenger Bill Clinton on moralgrounds when Clinton was accused of infidelty during the 1992 campaign,prompting some to speculate that it was because of the Fitzgerald talk. Source: Cox News Q&A, published in DDN 2-15-1998 |
