Sentimental and completely smitten, Monica Lewinsky testified in astonishing detail about her relationship with President Clinton in testimony published yesterday among the 3,183 pages released by the House of Representatives judiciary committee.
Lewinsky's testimony in appearances before a grand jury on August 6th and 20th and in an additional meeting with prosecutors on August 26th fills hundreds of pages in an annex to independent prosecutor Kenneth Starr's report on possible impeachable offenses by President Clinton.
Telling prosecutors that she was nervous and taking medication that could affect her short-term memory, Ms Lewinsky on August 6th was able to come up with even the most minor detail of what she considered a sexual affair with Mr Clinton. But she was sometimes reluctant to talk, and had to be reminded repeatedly to answer "yes" rather than "mm-hmm" when the questioning became too personal.
"No one asked or encouraged me to lie, but no one discouraged me either." This key passage comes towards the end of Ms Lewinsky's grand jury statement and hardly constitutes the lethal ammunition Mr Starr is seeking against the President. Ms Lewinsky gives her answer when she is asked to reconcile her grand jury testimony and previous statements on alleged attempts to cover up the relationship.
In her first statement to Mr Starr, Ms Lewinksy said she "had a physically intimate relationship with the President. Neither the President nor Mr Jordan or anyone on their behalf asked or encouraged Ms L to lie".
She was asked to reconcile that statement with conversations she had with the President on how to proceed in case she has to testify. She replied: "To me encouraging or asking me to lie would have - you know, if the President had said: `Now, listen. You better not say anything about this relationship, you better not tell them the truth, you better not.' For me, the best way to explain how I feel what happened was, you know, no one asked me or encouraged me to lie, but no one discouraged me either."
As described by Ms Lewinsky, now aged 25, her relationship with Mr Clinton began with a greeting on August 9th, 1995. She told how she met Mr Clinton's glance in a ceremony on the White House lawn.
"He's a charismatic person and so, just when he shook my hand and there was an intense connection," she said.
Then commenced a period of what Ms Lewinsky called intense flirting in which she re-introduced herself to the President when she could or exchanged a few words.
The first sexual contact came on November 15th, 1995, in a small study off the more public Oval Office. That day, she said, they did "everything up until oral sex".
Asked if they had sexual relations - key testimony since Mr Clinton used an extremely narrow definition of sex (in the Paula Jones case) to deny having had relations with her - Ms Lewinsky said she considered that they had.
Mr Clinton has said he did not have sex with Lewinsky since he did not touch her with the intent to give her pleasure - something required under the definition.
Ms Lewinsky described fondling and oral sex but said they never had sexual intercourse. "The President didn't want to," she said. "I wasn't happy with that."
Ms Lewinsky told her mother about the affair, an aunt, her psychologist and friends, including Linda Tripp, who tape-recorded many of the discussions.
She even showed Ms Tripp the now-famous blue dress, and told Ms Tripp she planned to wear it once she lost some weight and had it cleaned. Ms Lewinsky said that she had told Ms Tripp about the semen-stained dress, "as a kind of this funny, gross thing. . . And then the next time she was at my house I still couldn't fit into the dress and believe that I said to her, `oh, look, you want to see this?'."
She maintained that the dress was not kept as a souvenir. "I was going to wear it on Thanksgiving (with) my cousins, who I always try to look skinny for because they are all skinny," she said.