All Eyes Turn To Lewinsky Dress

As independent prosecutor Kenneth Starr turns up the heat on his criminal investigation of President Clinton, all eyes have turned to a dress that was allegedly stained by a sexual encounter between Mr. Clinton and former White House intern Monica Lewinsky. CBS News Correspondent Sharyl Attkisson reports.

Starr's ongoing grand jury investigation is looking into whether Mr. Clinton had a sexual relationship with Lewinsky, then tried to cover it up by lying about it under oath and by encouraging Lewinsky to do the same.

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While Lewinsky spent time this weekend preparing for her upcoming grand jury appearance, newly-found video shows Lewinsky and President Clinton together at a 1996 fundraiser where she once again found a spot front and center along the president's so-called "rope line."

Linda Tripp, whose secretly recorded conversations lead to the obstruction of justice investigation, was reportedly familiar with the dress. Joseph Murtha, an attorney for Tripp, told CBS 'Face The Nation' Anchor Bob Schieffer that his client had seen the dress three times.

Investigators had been looking for the dress from the start. They learned of it from Tripp, who said Lewinsky once showed her a dress and boasted it was stained with the president's semen.

The president has denied, both in public statements and in testimony in the Paula Jones sexual harassment case against him, having had a sexual relationship with Lewinsky. He will be asked again on Aug. 17, when he must testify for Starr.

CBS News has learned that the president will do so on a live television feed, not on videotape as his lawyer said earlier this week.

Lewinsky, 25, also has denied having sex with the president, but last week received immunity from prosecution and reportedly will acknowledge a sexual relationship when she appears before Starr's grand jury.

Meanwhile, new information emerged about a conversation between Tripp and White House presidential confidant Bruce Lindsey.

Murtha, said that in 1994, when Tripp moved from the White House to a Pentagon job and was a potential witness in other controversies such as Clinton aide Vincent Foster's death, Lindsey advised her to keep quiet.

"In a non-menacing fashion, Mr. Lindsey told Linda that if she didn't keep quiet that she would be destroyed," Murtha said.

But Murtha added that Tripp did not take the satement as a threat.

William Murphy, a lawyer for Lindsey, said, "Any implication that Bruce Lindsey threatened to destroy anyone, including Mrs. Tripp, is false."

Murtha and another Tripp lawyer, Anthony Zaccagnini, also denied reports that Tripp once had considered stealing Lewinsky's dress.

As President Clinton returned to Washington from a weekend in New York, his senior advisers at the White House recognized that the growing sentiment for some sort of conciliatory statement, even among Starr supporters, presented new opportunities.

"We're cognizant of a number of outside voices, both Republican and Democrat, urging some sort of public statement," said one senior adviser, speaking only on condition of anonymity. The adviser said it was too early to assess what Mr. Clinton's next move might be.

In other developments:

• Mr. Clinton received some good news in a new CBS News poll. By a margin of more than two to one, Americans describe the whole Lewinsky situation as a private matter having to do with President Clinton's personal life—not as a public matter having to do with his job as president. The president's approval rating also remained high at 63 percent.
• Special prosecutor Starr eliminated one of the criticisms against him by taking an unpaid leave of absence from his private law firm. He had juggled both jobs for nearly four years.
• Paula Jones, the former Arkansas state employee whose now-dismissed sexual harassment charges against Clinton sparked the Lewinsky investigation, pleaded with a federal appeals court in St. Louis to reinstate her suit. In legal papers, Mrs. Jones' lawyers argued, "Mr. Clinton's behavior toward Ms. Lewinsky is evidence of his habit of making aggressive sexual advances to young, low-ranking employees."