1/19/01 3:50 p.m.
Clinton (Doesn’t) Come Clean
Only now does he realize that he lied under oath.

By Byron York, NR’s White House correspondent

ike every other statement he made or legal position he took during the Monica Lewinsky scandal, Bill Clinton's words in Friday's investigation-ending deal with independent counsel Robert Ray require a careful reading. The headline, of course, is that the president now admits he knowingly gave false answers to questions about Monica Lewinsky during his under-oath deposition in the Paula Jones case. But Clinton, who has never admitted that he had sexual contact of any sort with Lewinsky — he has always preferred the word "inappropriate" — appears to be making a critical distinction between his actions at the time of the January 1998 deposition and now.

"I tried to walk a fine line between acting lawfully and testifying falsely," the president said in a statement, "but I now recognize that I did not fully accomplish this goal and that certain of my responses to questions about Ms. Lewinsky were false." The statement, released three years after the Jones deposition, seems to suggest that at the time he gave the answers, Clinton believed he was testifying truthfully. Only now, in January 2001, does he realize that he gave false answers.

White House spokesman Jake Siewert seemed to confirm that interpretation at the news conference in which he read the president's statement. "The president feels that looking back now, some of the statements he gave in that deposition were false," Siewert told reporters. "At the time, he was trying to be truthful."

The distinction appears to be important to the president because his lawyers steadfastly maintained throughout House and Senate impeachment proceedings that he believed he testified truthfully — while not volunteering any information — at all times in the Lewinsky matter. With his new admission that he only now realizes the falsity of his testimony in the Jones deposition, Clinton will likely continue to maintain that he told the truth during impeachment.

Another remarkable aspect of Clinton's statement is that it did not make any reference to a key portion of the deal: that the president had, in the words of prosecutor Ray, admitted that his conduct was "prejudicial to the administration of justice." While this appears to be a major breakthrough for Ray — Clinton has never admitted anything of the sort — it still gives the president a certain amount of wiggle room. During impeachment proceedings, Clinton strongly maintained that he never obstructed justice, and he will no doubt continue to do so now. Since the deal did not involve criminal charges, it appears that Ray did not insist on legal wording that might appear in an indictment, settling instead for the phrase "prejudicial to the administration of justice."

But the admission still might be a problem for the president's Democratic defenders in the House and Senate. Even they might concede that engaging in conduct "prejudicial to the administration of justice" might well constitute an impeachable offense. Would they still vote to acquit the president today, knowing what he now admits? No one need be naive about the answer — of course they would — but Clinton's admission might nevertheless allow congressional Democrats to criticize the ex-president more openly in the future.

Much analysis of the Clinton deal will focus on the big picture; it was certainly an extraordinary event for a president to spend his last day in office announcing a bargain to avoid indictment. But even when his presidency was most in peril, Bill Clinton refused to come clean about his actions in the Lewinsky matter. He still hasn't.