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It was needed because so many Americans were leaving the workforce early, through downsizing, layoffs, or choice, and couldnt find affordable insurance elsewhere after they lost their employer-based coverage In the second week of the month, I went to South Texas, one of my favorite places in America, to urge the largely Hispanic student body at Mission High School to help close the gap between the college-going rates of Hispanic young people and the rest of the student population by taking full advantage of the tremendous increase in college aid the Congress had authorized in 1997While there, I was informed of the collapse of Indonesias economy, and my economic team went to work on the next casualty of the Asian financial crisis; Deputy Treasury Secretary Larry Summers went to Indonesia to secure the governments agreement to implement the reforms necessary to receive assistance from the International Monetary Fund On the thirteenth, trouble broke out in Iraq again as Saddams government blocked an American-led UN inspection team from doing its job, the beginning of a protracted effort by Saddam to coerce the United Nations into lifting sanctions in return for continuing the weapons inspectionsThe same day, the Middle East moved toward crisis as Prime Minister Netanyahus government, which still had not completed the overdue opening of the Gaza airport or provided safe passage between Gaza and the West Bank, put the entire peace process in danger by voting to keep control of the West Bank indefinitelyThe only bright spot on the world horizon in January was the White House signing of a NATO partnership with the Baltic nations, which was replica chanel jewelry designed to formalize our security relationship and reassure them that the ultimate goal of all the NATO nations, including the United States, was the full integration of Estonia, Lithuania, and Latvia into NATO and other multilateral institutions On the fourteenth, I was in the East Room of the White House with Al Gore to announce our push for a Patients Bill of Rights, to provide Americans in managed care plans with some basic treatment guarantees that were being denied all too frequently, and Hillary was being questioned by Ken Starr for the fifth timeThe topic on this occasion was how the FBI files on Republicans got to the White House, something she knew nothing about My deposition in the Jones case came three days laterI had gone over a series of possible questions with my lawyers and thought I was reasonably well prepared, though I didnt feel well that day and certainly wasnt looking forward to my encounter with the Rutherford Institute lawyersThe presiding judge, Susan Webber Wright, had given Joness lawyers broad permission to delve into my private life, allegedly to see if there was a pattern of sexual harassment involving any women who had held or sought state employment when I was governor or federal employment when I was President, during a time period from five years before Joness alleged harassment to the present dayThe judge had also given the Jones lawyers strict instructions not to leak the contents of any deposition or other aspects of their investigation The stated objective could have been achieved less intrusively by simply directing me to answer yes or no to questions about whether I had ever been alone with black gucci bag women working for the government; then the lawyers could have asked the women whether I had ever harassed themHowever, that would have rendered the deposition uselessBy this time, everyone involved in the case knew there was no evidence of sexual harassmentI was certain that the lawyers wanted to force me to acknowledge any kind of involvement with one or more women that they could then leak to the press, in violation of the judges confidentiality orderAs it turned out, I didnt know the half of it After I was sworn in, the deposition began with a request from the Rutherford Institute lawyers that the judge accept a definition of sexual relations that they had purportedly found in a legal documentBasically, the definition covered most intimate contact beyond kissing by the person being asked the question, if it was done for gratification or arousalIt seemed to require both a specific act and a certain state of mind on my part, and did not include any act by another personThe lawyers said they were trying to spare me embarrassing questions I was there for several hours, only ten or fifteen minutes of which were devoted to Paula JonesThe rest of the time was spent on a variety of topics with no connection to Jones, including a great many questions about Monica Lewinsky, who had worked in the White House in the summer of 1995 as an intern and then in a staff job from December through early April, when she was transferred to the PentagonThe lawyers asked, among other things, how well I knew her, whether we had ever exchanged gifts, whether we had ever talked on the phone, and if I had had sexual relations with herI discussed our women's rolex watch conversations, acknowledged that I had given her gifts, and answered no to the sexual relations question The Rutherford Institute lawyers kept asking the same questions with slight variations over and over againWhen we took a break, my legal team was perplexed, because Lewinskys name had shown up on the plaintiffs list of potential witnesses only in early December, and she had been given a subpoena to appear as a witness two weeks laterI didnt tell them about my relationship with her, but I did say I was unsure of exactly what the curious definition of sexual relations meantAt the beginning of the deposition, my attorney, Bob Bennett, had invited the Rutherford Institute lawyers to ask specific and unambiguous questions about my contact with womenAt the end of the discussion of Lewinsky, I asked the lawyer who was questioning me if there wasnt something more specific he wanted to ask meOnce again he declined to do soInstead he said, Sir, I think this will come to light shortly, and youll understand I was relieved but somewhat concerned that the lawyer seemed not to want to ask specific questions, nor to want to get my answers to themIf he had asked such questions, I would have answered them truthfully, but I would have hated itDuring the government shutdown in late 1995, when very few people were allowed to come to work in the White House and those who were there were working late, Id had an inappropriate encounter with Monica Lewinsky and would do so again on other occasions between November and April, when she left the White House for the PentagonFor the next ten months, I didnt see her, although we talked on the phone from time to time In replica miu miu February 1997, Monica was among the guests at an evening taping of my weekly radio address, after which I met with her alone again for about fifteen minutesI was disgusted with myself for doing it, and in the spring, when I saw her again, I told her that it was wrong for me, wrong for my family, and wrong for her, and I couldnt do it anymoreI also told her that she was an intelligent, interesting person who could have a good life, and that if she wanted me to, I would try to be her friend and help her Monica continued to visit the White House, and I saw her on some of those occasions, but nothing improper occurredIn October, she asked me to help her get a job in New York, and I didShe had received two offers and accepted one, and late in December, she came to the White House to say good-byeBy then, she had received her subpoena in the Jones caseShe said she didnt want to be deposed, and I told her some women had avoided questioning by filing affidavits saying that I had not sexually harassed them What I had done with Monica Lewinsky was immoral and foolishI was deeply ashamed of it and I didnt want it to come outIn the deposition, I was trying to protect my family and myself from my selfish stupidityI believed that the contorted definition of sexual relations enabled me to do so, though I was worried enough about it to invite the lawyer interrogating me to ask specific questionsI didnt have to wait long to find out why he declined to do so On January 21, the Washington Post led with a story that I had had an affair with Monica Lewinsky, and that Kenneth Starr was investigating charges that I had encouraged her to lie about it under cambon chanel oa