A slightly surreal encounter between Americans who prob didn’t intend to be famous.
12How do I know him? Where have I seen him? The Man in the Hat looked familiar, I thought, as I peered over at him a second time.
It was Christmas Eve 2017. My family and I were about to be seated at a quaint restaurant in Manhattan’s West Village. We had just come from Gramercy Park—on the one night each year when the exclusive park (accessible only to nearby residents with special keys) opens its gates to outsiders. There had been carols. People had sung with abandon. In short, it was a magical night. I was happy.
Amid the glow of candles and soft lighting, I strained to look again at the Man in the Hat. He was part of a small group that had just exited the main dining room. They were now gathering their belongings, likely vacating what was to be our table. And then it clicked. He looks just like . . . no, couldn’t be. Could it?
A student of Karma, I found myself seizing the moment. Whereas a decade ago I would have turned and fled the restaurant at the prospect of being in the same place as this man, many years of personal-counseling work (both trauma-specific and spiritual) had led me to a place where I now embrace opportunities to move into spaces that allow me to break out of old patterns of retreat or denial.
At the same moment I stepped toward the Man in the Hat and began to ask, “You’re not . . . ?,” he stepped toward me with a warm, incongruous smile and said, “Let me introduce myself. I’m Ken Starr.” An introduction was indeed necessary. This was, in fact, the first time I had met him.
I found myself shaking his hand even as I struggled to decipher the warmth he evinced. After all, in 1998, this was the independent prosecutor who had investigated me, a former White House intern; the man whose staff, accompanied by a group of F.B.I. agents (Starr himself was not there), had hustled me into a hotel room near the Pentagon and informed me that unless I cooperated with them I could face 27 years in prison. This was the man who had turned my 24-year-old life into a living hell in his effort to investigate and prosecute President Bill Clinton on charges that would eventually include obstruction of justice and lying under oath—lying about having maintained a long-term extramarital relationship with me.
Ken Starr asked me several times if I was “doing O.K.” A stranger might have surmised from his tone that he had actually worried about me over the years. His demeanor, almost pastoral, was somewhere between avuncular and creepy. He kept touching my arm and elbow, which made me uncomfortable.
I turned and introduced him to my family. Bizarre as it may sound, I felt determined, then and there, to remind him that, 20 years before, he and his team of prosecutors hadn’t hounded and terrorized just me but also my family—threatening to prosecute my mom (if she didn’t disclose the private confidences I had shared with her), hinting that they would investigate my dad’s medical practice, and even deposing my aunt, with whom I was eating dinner that night. And all because the Man in the Hat, standing in front of me, had decided that a frightened young woman could be useful in his larger case against the president of the United States.
Understandably, I was a bit thrown. (It was also confusing for me to see “Ken Starr” as a human being. He was there, after all, with what appeared to be his family.) I finally gathered my wits about me—after an internal command of Get it together. “Though I wish I had made different choices back then,” I stammered, “I wish that you and your office had made different choices, too.” In hindsight, I later realized, I was paving the way for him to apologize. But he didn’t. He merely said, with the same inscrutable smile, “I know. It was unfortunate.”
It had been nearly 20 years since 1998. The next month would mark the 20th anniversary of the Starr investigation expanding to include me. The 20th anniversary of my name becoming public for the first time. And the 20th anniversary of an annus horribilis that would almost end Clinton’s presidency, consume the nation’s attention, and alter the course of my life.
If I have learned anything since then, it is that you cannot run away from who you are or from how you’ve been shaped by your experiences. Instead, you must integrate your past and present. As Salman Rushdie observed after the fatwa was issued against him, “Those who do not have power over the story that dominates their lives, power to retell it, rethink it, deconstruct it, joke about it, and change it as times change, truly are powerless, because they cannot think new thoughts.” I have been working toward this realization for years. I have been trying to find that power—a particularly Sisyphean task for a person who has been gaslighted.
…
This is the beginning of a Feb 2018 article in Vanity Fair, written by Monica Lewinsky, who is now, among other roles, active as an anti-cyberbullying activist. She goes on to reflect on where she’s been and where she is now.
She seems to have good hold of her capacities for personal dignity and personal insight.
The rest of the article is here:
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/02/monica-lewinsky-in-the-age-of-metoo
- 5 comments, 12 replies
- Comment
Clarification:
I hope no one will turn this topic into a flame-fest - or even a discussion - about either the Clinton presidency, or Pres Clinton’s personal conduct, or about Ken Starr and the actions of the Prosecutor’s office, or the choices of the Congress.
We prob all have strong thoughts on these topics.
I thought it was interesting to see that Lewinsky, who was often treated in the press (from all “sides”) as nothing more than a naive and infatuated college bimbo during the time of the scandal, is now quite thoughtful, self-possessed, and articulate.
@f00l It’s been 20 years, the only paths were either grow as a person or a bimbo.
@cranky1950
Indeed. She seems to have decided to walk away from the stupid path after that.
Plus, her name is now synonymous with a specific recreational activity, so she’s got that going for her, which is nice…
But in all seriousness, irrespective of the politics, good on her for surviving and growing through a personal hell that most of us couldn’t possibly imagine going through.
I’ve noticed how articiculate and thoughtful she’s become. I tend to think, as she suggests in her article, that the strong and purposeful woman we see today was shaped considerably by the maelstrom she endured back then, of course in combination with 40+ years of other life experience. But had infamy not found her, not only would she be unlikely to have had a platform from which to speak, she’d likely have had much less to say. Hardship is…well, hard. But if we withstand it, it forges strength and edge to cut through future obstacles.
I find it interesting that she thought he might apologize. Lawyers don’t apologize for doing their jobs, no matter how horrible their methods may seem to us mere mortals. I’m married to one, in the interest of disclosure.
@mtb002 - So, just out of curiosity, do you have any idea where that “unless I cooperated with them I could face 27 years in prison” idea would have come from? I understood that lying to a federal agent had a maximum sentence of 5 years in federal prison - unless she was being accused of making a false statement in an FHA mortgage application?
@aetris
I’m sure they embellished to frighten her. They don’t have to tell the truth. That’s why you nod, smile and politely inform them you won’t be discussing anything without your own counsel present.
@aetris @mtb002
If I remember, Lewinsky had been subpoenaed in the Paula Jones harassment lawsuit against Clinton as a supporting witness. Lewinsky had given either a statement under oath or a sworn affidavit that she (Lewinsjy) and Pres Clinton has no intimate relationship. Thus she had lied.
Linda Tripp had taped Lewinsky’s phone conversations without her knowledge or consent, and had given the tapes or copies of the tapes to the Starr investigation
So the Starr investigation threatened Lewinsky with a perjury indictment. The 27 years was prob just a scare tactic, but she didn’t know that at the time.
She held out against them tho. She would not let Starr’s threats make her take actions for which she could not have forgiven herself. . She turned out to have more honor and more guts that either Clinton or Starr.
In addition, the Starr office threatened her mother with various charges unless her mother testified about Lewinsky’s phone conversations, and threatened her father’s business and finances, and subpoenaed her elderly aunt.
To me, the Starr investigation’s conduct toward her was despicable. Clinton’s conduct toward her seems also only to have been in his own selfish interests.
She was one of the few non-predatory, protective-of-others, more-honorable-and-generous-than-not persons involved in the whole horrible mess.
@f00l @mtb002 - This is not my kind of conversation, but I have a very hard time seeing Lewinsky in any kind of positive light. It’s impossible to know the truth about some things (how do we know the Tripp tapes were made without her knowledge? How do we know exactly what she was thinking, or even what Starr said to her?) We do know that she was carrying on a casual affair with a man she knew was married, who she knew was in a position to advance her career, and she either knew that if the affair came to light it would be a huge scandal, or she was INCREDIBLY dumb (you kind of have to say that either way she was incredibly naive - unless she knew about Tripp’s tapes…) We do know she lied to federal investigators…
It was Starr’s job to get the truth; I don’t know what else he could have done. Inevitably he himself became a target as soon as the wagons started to circle Clinton, as inevitably they did, and as I’m sure he knew they would. I’m not a huge fan of lawyers, but I have some kind of grudging respect for Starr, who was in the worst kind of position, where he knew he would be, but SOMEONE had to do it, once people started lying about the whole silly business.
I don’t know why the whole thing is such an embarrassing memory to me, I mean, of course it was completely unnecessary and absurd, but I DO love absurd!
@aetris @mtb002
Both Lewinsky and Tripp affirm (at the time as and recently) that Lewinsky had no idea the phone conversations were being taped.
Tripp affirms that she got the idea of taping the calls from a NY literary agent - Tripp seems to have wanted to do a book about it all.
Lewinsky cut off all contact with Tripp as soon as she found out Tripp had shopped her private life to the Starr investigation and the FBI.
Lewinsky is not proud if having lied in the Paula Jones lawsuit. I believe she was quite ashamed of herself for doing that, at the time. She was in love and thought she had to protect the President, no matter what. Or so she rationalized it to herself.
Once Lewinsky was confronted by the Starr investigation with Tripp’s testimony and tapes, she knew she had to tell the truth.
However, the extraordinary threats and pressure Lewinsky. received from the Starr office were because the Starr investigation wanted her to wear a wire, and to meet with Clinton, and to participate in taped phone calls with Clinton and other WH personnel: to get them to lie or to contradict themselves on tape.
This she utterly refused to do, even if it meant jail instead.
She finally got immunity in exchange for testimony only, if I recall.
Starr’s conduct in running the investigation may have been strictly legal - or not. I have heard differing opinions from prosecutors and lawyers on this.
However, Starr was never a neutral fact-finder. He long had contempt for the Clintons, and saw it as a duty to “get Clinton”.
And even if his conduct during the Clinton investigation was legal, that doesn’t stop some of it from being despicable.
Starr is not someone who tends to understand other POV’s. He tends to believe he is absolutely right and justified in all things. He does have self-discipline about boundaries … To a degree.
His later career, long after Clinton, sometimes publicly demonstrated similar strengths and weaknesses.
As for Lewinsky’s character: I know only what is public and is common knowledge.
afaik, she has tried to do good, and tried to avoid doing harm, since she became a national and embarrassing joke, 20 years ago.
@f00l -
Admittedly, it can be fun, though!
@aetris
As for what the Starr investigation said to Lewinsky during the 11 hours when they first when they first confronted her: simultaneous notes were made by the lawyers and staff who were present from Starr’s investigation, and some of these persons have given later interviews about that day. Also, the hotel room was wired and recorded and other investigators listened from other hotel rooms down the hall.
For those lawyers and investigators who were present at the Lewinsky confrontation and have given interviews: their memories are similar to Lewinsky’s. Some of them have admitted in later interviews having misgivings at the time: to thinking that their office had gone too far with extreme pressure, and had been too brutal with Lewinsky.
The first known time that Lewinsky and Starr ever met or spoke to each other is the encounter in late 2017 that she discusses in the Vanity Fair piece quoted above.
Many involved, including Republican members of Congress, thought at the time that the Starr report went into brutal and unnecessary detail about the sexual encounters between Lewinsky and Pres Clinton; or so many of these persons claimed, in news interviews on the cable networks and on the Sunday AM shows from that era.
@f00l -
@aetris @f00l I haven’t read about the Tripp tapes and every state has different laws.
I wanted to tape a phone convo in PA and was confused when reading the law.
The lawyer we had cleared it up saying two people had to be aware of the taping meant that while I made the taped call another person had to be in the room with me and aware of the taping. I didn’t have to make the person on the other line of the phone aware of the taping.
Doing a quick wiki read it looks like Tripp illegally made the recordings in MD but received immunity.
@aetris @fjp999
Tripp has stated that her taping of phone calls with Lewinsky was against local law.
This became a legal issue for her, briefly.
I dont see anyone involved in a positive way. History will undoubtedly not be kind to WJC, and deservedly so. HOwver ‘busting’ him for lying about a consensual affair by terrorizing a young woman and her family didn’t sit well with most of the public who were upset by the original issue of his predatory behavior. Yes, she made a bad choice to enter an affair with a married man and at least notorious womanizer. Then she doubled down by talking about it. Dumb on top of dumb, but I think Fool’s point is that everything she did was out of naivete/lack of foresight, not malice. Unlike pretty much everyone else around her. Now, whether you consider the star teams handling of Lewinsky malicious is up for discussion, but the fact that they went after WJC for political reasons, not out of any real concern for women/potential victims is boldly spelled out in the handling of Lewinsky. They victimized her every bit as much as he did. There was no moral high ground to be had in the situation, which is what made everyone so damn uncomfortable, whether they realized it or not.