U.S.

Lewinsky's Dress Tests Clean

By CBSNews.com staff CBSNews.com staff

January 30, 1998 / 9:15 AM EST / CBS

CBS News has learned that no DNA evidence or stains have been found on a dress that belonged to Monica Lewinsky.

The dress and other clothes were seized by the FBI after Lewinsky, a former White House intern, reportedly told a friend that they might contain evidence linking her to the President Clinton.

Also today, the woman whose secret tape-recordings led to a criminal investigation of the president broke her silence and fired another salvo at the White House.

Linda Tripp, a former White House and Pentagon employee, says she overheard Lewinsky on a late-night phone call from the president.

Questions have been raised in recent days about Tripp's intentions in prompting an obstruction of justice investigation by Whitewater prosecutor Kenneth Starr.

Her disclosures follow a decision Thursday by an Arkansas judge who ruled that evidence concerning Lewinsky will be excluded from the trial in the Paula Jones sexual harassment case against the president.

In Washington, meanwhile, negotiations reached an impasse in the effort of Lewinsky's lawyer to obtain immunity from prosecution for his client in exchange for testimony in Starr's investigation.

Lewinsky and her attorney worked late into the night after they were forced to change their strategy from trying to gain immunity to preparing a defense.

A grand jury in Washington will continue today to hear from witnesses in its investigation of whether the president and Lewinsky tried to obstruct justice.

Tripp's attorney released a two-page statement this morning in which Tripp said Lewinsky described "every detail" of the alleged relationship with Mr. Clinton during hundreds of hours of conversations over the past 15 months.

"In addition, I was present when she received a late night phone call from the president. I have also seen numerous gifts they exchanged and heard several tapes of her tapes of him," Tripp said.

She said she "was also present when Monica made and received numerous phone calls that were of a volatile and contentious nature directly relating to her relationship with the president."

Her attorney, Jim Moody, said in an interview that Tripp had been staying overnight in the guest bedroom at Lewinsky's apartment in the Watergate complex when she was awakened by a ringing telephone.

"Linda did hear parts of" Lewinsky's side of "the conversation; I'm not going to characterize them, but the call lasted about 20 minutes," Moody said.

"After the phone call was over," Moody said, "the two women sat down together, Monica explained that it had been the president calling and the two women discussed the matter in detail.

"I'm not going to comment on their discussion. All of this is headed for the grand jury investigating the president," Moody added.

Mr. Clinton says he never had sex with Lewinsky and never told her to lie.

White House spokesman Bary Toiv had no immediate comment regarding Tripp's counterattack on the Clinton administration, which followed a court ruling by US District Judge Susan Webber Wright in Little Rock, Ark.

Starr had requested that Wright halt evidence gathering in the Paula Jones lawsuit because lawyers in the civil case were interfering with his criminal investigation by pursuing the same witnesses and evidence.

The Lewinsky affair would not be worth a delay in the Jones trial, which is scheduled for late May, because it is "not essential to the core issues in this case," Wright ruled. "This weighing process compels the conclusion that evidence concerning Monica Lewinsky should be excluded from the trial of this matter."

Jones' attorneys, hoping to prove a pattern of improper sexual behavior by Mr. Clinton, promised an immediate appeal.

Attorney William Ginsburg, who represents Lewinsky, met face-to-face with Starr's staff for less than 45 minutes, and emerged expressing frustration with the negotiations.

"If you asked if we made any progress, we are making progress today on preparing Monica a defense," Ginsburg said.

Stanley Brand, a onetime chief counsel for the House, said the pause in immunity talks shows that Starr "doesn't like the testimony" Lewinsky would provide in return for the immunity she is seeking. "It's not about truth, it's about squeezing witnesses to say what the government wants them to say."

Tripp spoke out for the first time since the furor broke a little more than a week ago. Dozens of surreptitious tape recordings of Tripp's conversations now in the hands of Whitewater prosecutors capture the 24 year old Lewinsky asserting that she had a sexual relationship with Mr. Clinton beginning in late 1995 when she was a White House intern. Shortly after the alleged affair began, Lewinsky became a paid White House staffer.

Lewinsky says on the tapes that the president was going to deny they had an affair, that Lewinsky was going to deny it and that Tripp should too, according to sources who have listened to the tapes.

In her statement today, Tripp said "Because I have chosen the path of truth, I have been vilified by spokesmen for the administration I proudly serve as a political appointee."

As for Lewinsky, Tripp described her as "a bright, caring, generous soul - one who has made poor choices. She was not a stalker, she was invited; she did not embellish, the truth is sensational enough."