Title: Bill Clinton 15 Years Ago: 'I Did Not Have Sexual Relations With That Woman' | National News | US News
Headings: Bill Clinton 15 Years Ago: 'I Did Not Have Sexual Relations With That Woman'
Bill Clinton 15 Years Ago: 'I Did Not Have Sexual Relations With That Woman'
The "girl"
The floater
The fixer
The prosecutor

Content: Her lawyer, Los Angeles attorney William H. Ginsburg, said that she stood by her statement "at this time." Even some of Clinton's initial denials seemed phrased with unusual, lawyerly precision. Asked by National Public Radio if he had "any conversations" with Lewinsky about her testimony, Clinton did not respond with a blanket denial. Instead, he said that "given the state of the investigation, it would be inappropriate" for him to expand on his earlier assertions that he didn't ask anyone "to tell anything other than the truth." So careful were Clinton's responses, and so high were the stakes, that analysts scrutinized his remarks with rabbinical care. When Clinton initially said there "is" no sexual relationship between him and Lewinsky, reporters wondered whether that included previous sexual contact; Clinton later denied a sexual relationship in the past tense, too. It was a sign of the fevered atmosphere that some in Washington even seized on Clinton's use of the phrase "sexual relationship." On Friday, in his National Journal column, noted legal writer Stuart Taylor questioned whether Clinton chose that construction to artfully allow the possibility that he had engaged in oral sex with Lewinsky. ( In similar scandals, other politicians have claimed that extramarital oral sex did not constitute adultery—a distinction that some allege Clinton has made as well.)