isn't she? that's "fox report" for sunday, february 18, 2018. i'm eric shawn, thank you for watching. have a great week ahead. stay tuned on fox news channel for the two hour block of the terrific show "scandalous." it starts right now. jim and susan mcdougal, bill and hillary clinton. >> i did not testify fore the grand jury because i did not t e prosecutor >> the mcdougals and the governor of the state of arkansas, jim guy tucker, were convicted. >> today, the american people have spoken. >> there was this woman who used to work in the white house named linda tripp. >> linda tripp and monica lewinsky were friends. >> monica was in love with the president. >> she told me all sorts of things. >> linda tripp had been taping her phone calls. >> this is paula jones. >> it's just humiliating what he did to me. >> this case is going all the way up to the supreme court.

>> the president was going into the deposition in the jones case. >> he was going to be asked about monica lewinsky. >> by early january 1998, the investigations of the clinton administration by ken starr's office of the independent counsel appeared to be petering out. >> the whitewater investigation was slowing down. we had some things to finish up, but they were not very active. >> but suddenly, everything changed. >> something was abuzz in the office. jackie bennett and paul rosenzweig and various others were obviously involved in something. >> paul rosenzweig is a lawyer who was working on rose law firm issues. >> on january 8th, rosenzweig was invited to dinner with a former law-school classmate, jerome markus, along with attorneys richard porter and george conway.

>> all of whom, apparently, were part this group known as the elves that were assisting the legal team for paula jones. >> rosenzweig took the next train to philadelphia from d.c., and as the group dined at a french restaurant on that cold january night, markus got straight to the point. >> we have this woman named linda tripp, and she's recorded all these conversations of this young lady, and the president and his people tried to buy her off by getting her job. is this something that starr's office would be interested in? >> i had an urgent page in those days, pre-cellphones, from my colleague in washington, jackie bennett, and jackie said, "you need to get on the next airplane, and come to washington." >> the allegations were not shared extensively with the office. they were -- it was really just a very, very small group. >> bennett and starr decided that linda tripp would need to make contact with the office of the independent counsel herself. through the elves, the message was passed along.

the office of the independent counsel was quiet. most of the prosecutors had left for the night. stephen benhack stayed late. >> i went to jackie bennett's office, and jackie's phone rang. i started to get up from the desk, and jackie indicated with his finger. jackie hit the speaker phone, and that was the first time that i heard linda tripp. >> i wish there had been a rule book on how to do this. there wasn't, but i had made the decision that, come hell or high water, i was sharing this information with the public. >> tripp began to cryptically tell the story of the president's sexuafair with a former intern. >> the president a she had struck up a social and sexual relationship. subsequently, it became necessary to move her out of the white house, because she had become a distraction, and they found a paid job for her at the pentagon. >> he was the most powerful person on the planet, and she was an intern just out of college

with an emotional age of 14. >> tripp said she possessed tapes of phone conversations between herself and the intern. >> at that point, jackie and i picked up saul weisenberg, who was in the adjacent office, and an fbi agent named steve irons. >> jackie bennett said to me, "we have a tip about the president supposedly telling a potential witness in the paula jones case to lie and that they're arranging a job for her through vernon jordan." >> we got in saul's mini van and drove out to linda tripp's home. >> prosecutors jackie bennett, saul weisenberg, stephen benhack, and fbi agent steve irons departed the independent counsel's office in washington and headed toward suburban maryland. >> you would have thought, from other people's accounts, that we were licking our teeth to get to her house and hear this, but we were really not. >> we assumed that nothing would come of it. we were wrong. >> the quiet neighborhood was lit only by a few street lamps when the federal investigators arrived just past 11:00 p.m.

>> we went into her living room, and there, under her christmas tree, she told us the story from beginning to end of monica lewinsky and linda tripp. >> i don't believe any of us were expecting that the information would be as breathtaking as was and that linda tripp would be as credib as she was. >> the prosecutors sat on linda tripp's couch that night silent and in sheer disbelief. tripp did not hold back as she divulged the details of a torrid affair and the ensuing lies to keep it a secret. >> i simply felt compelled to bring this information forward. i believe in right and wrong. the narrative that i was just an interfering busybody, and they were just having a nice romance, and this was the farthest thing from a romance that you can imagine. if an adult were cognizant and completely aware of this despicable situation and didn't do something,

i'd be horrified and heartbroken. >> linda tripp told us that the president of the united states was trying to get monica lewinsky to sign an affidavit to be used in the paula jones case that was clearly not true. >> i was taking notes on her couch. it was really hard to believe what we were hearing, because, if it was true, the president was engaged in some pretty serious criminal activity. >> linda tripp told us that night that vernon jordan was involved in trying to find employment for monica lewinsky. >> linda tripp told us she had tapes of conversations with monica lewinsky that would confirm what she said. >> it was tough making the decision to manipulate her at the end, because i had to have her recreate all i had hear for

a year and a half, and it was enough to curl your hair. i literally had to lead her down the garden path and get her to sort of reiterate everything that had come before, and that was tough, and it was hard to do that knowing that it was going to break her heart, burst the bubble, destroy the fantasy of their growing old together. >> tripp informed us that she was already scheduled to meet with monica lewinsky the next day, and so we discussed whether or not the fbi could wire up ms. tripp. >> the prosecutors left tripp's house that night with a plan to secretly record her meeting with lewinsky the following day. >> we got back in the car,

and we were completely quiet, "a," because we were tired, and, "b," because we were taking in the enormity of what we had just heard. >> we were blown away by what we heard, and we were excited because we knew linda tripp was going to be wired up, and we would get instant word on whether or not she would be corroborated. >> at the ritz-carlton in the pentagon city mall, linda tripp and monica lewinsky met for lunch. only one of them knew that undercover fbi agents were just a few feet away. >> they discussed the subpoenas that both of them had received to testify at a deposition in the jones matter. >> when you do it under oath, the scary thing is, is that is your sworn testimony. >> what if -- i don't know. i don't know. let's just say, what if someone -- >> [ speaks indistinctly ] >> ...someone could have listened by the window?

>> someone could have listened by the window? i don't know. >> the paula jones lawyers would be questioning the president in just four days. so here's the thing. i'm actually closer to my retirement days than i am my college days. i just want kno am i gonna be okay? i know people who specialize in "am i going to bokay." i like that. you may need glasses though. schedule a complimentary goal planning session with td ameritrade. if you have moderate to severe plaque psoriasis, little things can be a big deal. that's why there's otezla.

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>> the indendent counsel prosecutors needed to quickly and quietly review the tapes linda tripp had given them

and request jurisdiction from the department of justice all before the president's deposition. >> we have information that the president of the united states is already involved in an endeavor to obstruct justice in a civil-right's case. we don't want the president to know that we know all about that. >> the prosecutors were about to be forced to move even faster. >> i get a phone call from a source. you're not going to believe what's going on. linda tripp had gone to ken starr. ken starr's office had opened up a secret criminal investigation into obstruction. >> michael isikoff ofnewsweek came in, and it turned out he knew a great deal. in some ways, he seemed to know more than we did. he'd been in touch with linda tripp for a long time. >> suddenly, all this stuff seemed to be in sort of this murky netherworld that might never become

an actual news story was transformed instantly. >> he was giving us a very short time, just a day or two, before he was going to start making calls to people who were involved in the story. >> if ken starr, who had been named to investigate whitewater, had veered off in this direction, that was a bombshell. >> isikoff wanted corroboration and told them that at some point, he would need to reach out to the white house and bill clinton for a response. >> if this comes out befe he goes in to testify at his deposition in the paula jones case, then he's warned, and he's going to protect himself. >> faced with a new avenue of investigation and concerned that the story might go public, the prosecutors rush to the justice department. >> under the independent counsel act, we did not have jurisdiction to investigate monica lewinsky

or the president for his affair. >> we didn't want eric holder and attorney general reno to read about this innewsweek before anything in detail from us. >> we ran to inform the attorney general of what information had come to us. we did not begin an investigation without clear authorization. >> if the justice department didn't agree to expand our mandate, they would probably have come under heavy criticism for basically trying to sweep this matter under the rug. >> a change in direction would also give critics of the independent counsel more ammunition to say the investigation had gotten out of control. >> it turned out that the most consequential thing the independent counsel discovered was not about whitewater but was, of course, to stumble across the lewinsky scandal. >> we had a special prosecutor for whitewater. now we're looking at vince foster and eventually monica lewinsky. i mean, at what point do you stop? >> this is what special counsels do because they have no limits

on what they can look into, and that's why every president hates them. >> we said to the justice department, "what do you want us to do? do you want to appoint another independent counsel?" >> they got their answer the next day after the justice department ran it by a three-judge panel. >> the word came back, "no. you need to do it." >> on january 16th, linda tripp and monica lewinsky were set to meet again at the pentagon city mall. prosecutors and fbi agents would be waiting there, as well. >> linda kind of moves into the background, and monica is approached by two fbi agents, pat fallons and steve irons, urging her to come up and talk to a couple of our prosecutors. >> they brought monica lewinsky and linda tripp to two adjacent hotel rooms in the ritz-carlton. >> their hope was to flip her, get her cooperation, and then go up the chain towards the president. >> we were seeking the truth,

and we were using the appropriate tool of the possibility of immunity. >> when she first came to the hotel room, monica was very distraught screaming at linda tripp for betraying her. >> i think she was just taking in the enormity of the situation that she was in. >> i think i or somebody else suggested we might want to get linda tripp out of the room. >> monica lewinsky told the prosecutors that they should get in touch with the attorney who drafted her affidavit, francis carter. >> we didn't know if he himself could've been involved in improper conduct, so we suggested that maybe she might want to get another lawyer. that was a very dicey area for us, and it's been much criticized. >> they denied a young 22-year-old her constituonal right to an attorney while they browbeat her into giving the lascivious details about an affair. i mean, and that was just the beginning of it. >> the justice department did an inquiry into all this, but in each instance that we were accused throughout

the years of wrongdoing, in not a single instance did those accusations hold up. >> our office suffered great criticism for the way we treated poor monica. listen, poor monica knew exactly what she was doing. she didn't give us anything. >> for the next several hours, they tried to convince monica to cooperate. >> i could hear her crying. i could hear her wailing from down the hall. >> as the hours passed, it seemed as though the prosecutors would never be able to calm monica down. >> they offered her the opportunity to cooperate in exchange for immunity. monica lewinsky said she would not have any discussions with the office unless her mother was present. >> she was allowed to call her mother. >> her mother either couldn't fly or didn't want to fly, so we had to wait for her to come down on the train. so we were in a hotel room with monica lewinsky for several hours while her mom was taking amtrak. >> we ended up spending 10 hours, you know, waiting for the mother. >> and to say that that is an uncomfortable situation is

the understatement of the century. >> we say to monica, "go and do whatever you want." you know, "go and take a walk." >> when we got down to the lobby, i said to her, "i'm leaving. you're on your own." but i watched her, and she went over to the pay phone. >> investigators later pull the records for the pay phone. >> and, in fact, she called the white house. >> she called betty currie and tried to convey what was going on, but she couldn't say anything direly, anso she kept saying to ms. currie, "hoover. hoover." and she was trying to, obviously, refer to j. edgar hoover, who had been dead for many years, and betty didn't figure it out. >> lewinsky's mother, marsha lewis, finally arrived at the ritz-carlton late that evening. >> they went out into the hallway to talk together alone. >> her mother wanted her to cooperate, and it was monica's decision that she would not cooperate. >> they stopped outside the door of the room. they had a heated conversation. >> monica's mother said, "monica, you're going to tell these people what they want to

know, and we're going to end this thing right now." and monica said to her mother, "don't be so naive. i'm not going to be the person who brings down the president of the united states." >> monica's mother called her ex-husband, monica's father, seeking immediate legal counsel. moments later, the phone rang. it was attorney bill ginsberg. >> monica's father is a malpractice lawyer. ginsberg said he was not going to negotiate on the phone. he had to be there. mike emmick said to him, "we're offering complete immunity to her. it is expiring tonight. unless you make this deal right now, she won't have the opportunity for that." >> her lawyer, william ginsberg, had virtually no criminal experience. he didn't understand the importance of getting an arrangement made right away. >> monica lewinsky decided that she was not going to cooperate. she was not going to take immunity. >> immunity is a very important weapon that prosecutors have, but the witness still has an option.

>> bill clinton's deposition in the jones case was a few hours away, and the prosecutors had not been able to talk monica into an immunity agreement, but they had managed to do one thing -- keep the president in the dark. could michaela deprince use the chase mobile app to pay practically anyone, at any bank, all while performing the grandest grand jeté? she could... but in real life she pays her sister, for that sweater she stained. (phone buzzes) chase. make more of what's yours. there areand the best.s... we like cage free, and which ones are more flavorful? only eggland's best. we prefer organic, and which have more vitamins and less saturated fat? only eggland's best. better taste, better nutrition, better eggs.

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about safety this week as student survivors of florida's deadliest school shooting announce a march for their lives. monsions in an efforto stop the country's gun violence. set for march 24th in the nation's capitol and other cities across the nation. hearing more about accused shooter nikolas cruz, the couple who took him in saw no warning signs before wednesday's shooting that left 17 people dead despite the claims from others. one of the passenger planes crashed into a mountain killing 65 people on board. that happened 500 miles south of tehran. decades of sanctions left that country with an aging fleet. i'm eric shawn, now back to the terrific documentary "scandalous" here on the fox news channel. keep moving. keep going. >> what do you intend to accomplish here, ms. jones? >> along with judge susan webber wright, paula jones flew in from arkansas

for bill clinton's deposition. >> it was mob city. there must have been 600 people from the media. steve, paula's husband, just looked like he was a deer in the headlights, and paula didn't know what to do. so i finally got out, and i just start pushing people aside. move. move. move. move. >> looking overwhelmed as she pushed through a sea of reports and cameras, she was hustled into the building. >> as i started to go in, the man shut the door in my face, so here i am, outside with the press the whole day, which, when you look back at it, was kind of a stupid thing on their part. paula hasn't really cared, you know, what the rest of the country thinks. paula has to be worried about what 12 jurors in little rock, arkansas, are going to think. >> at the white house, president clinton and his lawyers aded up in the presidential motorcade for the 1/4-mile drive. they knew the na monic lewinsky might come up but were confident that monica's affidavit denying the affair would be enough to squash the

issue. as the presidential limo drove past the press and into an underground garage in the basement of the skadden arps law firm, they did not know that paula's lawyers had just been briefed by linda tripp. >> he was so excited, and i said, "what's going on?" "i can't tell you until after the deposition." the lawyers kept that even from me. >> for six hours, the president was hit with questions about specifics that he thought nobody knew. >> the jones people had incredible detail. >> at any time, were you and monica lewinsky together alone in the oval office? >> i don't recall, but as i said -- >> blindsided by the questions, president clinton was evasive with his answers. >> but you have no specific recollection of it ever happening? >> yeah. that's right. it's possible that she, while she was working there, brought something to me, and at the time she brought it to me, she was the only person there.

that's possible. >> he basically says, "oh, gosh. i can't remember. i don't think i was ever alone with her. might have been alone when we had pizza," but he clearly states he doesn't think he was alone with her. >> returning to the white house, president clinton was extremely concerned about the line of questioning. >> he knows he's in big trouble. what does judge susan webber wright remind him when the deposition is over? "don't talk about your testimony with any potential witnesses." >> betty currie does not normal work ekends. >> what does the president do? he calls betty currie over. >> so she went into the office that sunday, and then he proceeded to walk her through several statements. >> "betty, when monica was over here, you could see and hear everything, right?" >> "we were never alone, right?" "she was only here because you were here, right, betty?"

>> he not only is violating what judge susan webber wright told him to do, he is coaching a witness and telling that witness to lie. >> currie would then place numerous pages and phone calls to lewinsky that went unanswered. >> she was the chief facilitator. and the protectors literally tried to protect him from himself. they were loyal to the nth degree, but they knew that this was wrong, that it would be armageddon if it ever came out. >> the president had entangled himself and his staff in a cover-up that would jeopardize the presidency. >> he had never had to be careful before. it was generally understood in washington that a person's private sexual life wasn't appropriate for public discussion in the public arena. >> those days were over. atnewsweek'sheadquarters, michael isikoff's

edits had been hesitant to publish his bombshell article knowing that not everything had been verified and that it could jeopardize an ongoing investigation, but the elves were getting restless and wanted the story out. >> matt drudge got a hold of the fact thatnewsweek's editors were sitting on it. >> he pioneered this new form of media that became the drudge report. >> i don't just necessarily discern just because someone has a degree on the wall that they're telling me the truth. >> isikoff let us know at some point that weekend thatnewsweekwas not going forward with the story. >> they were afraid to go with it. >> and they said, "we're going to spend more time investigating this." >> it just was a strange circumstance where reporters in washington were afraid to report the story. >> conway just e-mailed drudge, "it's been spiked." >> so matt drudge got the scoop on that. >> isikoff still had his deeply reported story, but he had been instantly scooped with simple black text and a spinning red light. the biggest political story in american history broke.

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>> as the sun set over washington d.c. on january 17, 1998, president clinton was inside the white house following several hours of dositn in the paula jones case. gone well for the president,ot but they were not allowed to tell anyone. >> paula came out, and she said, "just know there's a gag order." >> so they would have to find another way to get their message out. >> i said, "fine. there's a certain restaurant in washington that has this huge picture glass window," and i said, "we cannot say a word, but this is what we're going to do." we ordered a big bottle of champagne. all the media was going by and snapping pictures. the headlines the next day read, "jones camp toasts with champagne. clinton's camp cancels dinner reservations." >> but there were more explosive

headlines, at first, seen only by folks who were up late surfing the web in those early days of the internet. just after midnight, the drudge report dropped the world's biggest exclusive, "newsweekkills story on white house intern." >> it was the beginning of the importance of the internet. >> the internet was not what it was today. even though there'd been a drudge headline, which today would produce an instant twitter eruption, didn't get much attention. >> but the story was out, and it began to spread quickly. >> it was pretty clear within a couple days of the drudge report that this was an enormous story. >> this is a big deal. presidents don't survive things like this. >> i was shocked. i mean, look. rumors had followed president clinton for a long time, but nonetheless, this was really troubling. >> i was, you know, horrified that it might be true. >> the dam broke on january 21st, when thewashington post reported the allegations that president clinton had urged monica lewinsky to lie

and possibly tried to buy her silence with a job offer set up by his good friend, vernon jordan. >> i said, "watch the house republicans try to make this an impeachable offense." >> a lot of learned opinion was clinton will resign if any of this is true. >> the media frenzy had begun. independent counsel ken starr knew he had to face reporters but could hardly make it to the microphones. >> down, everybody! >> we said, "well, we are just going to have to slog through this. it's our vietnam quagmire." we are acting promptly within our jurisdiction, which is -- which is -- >> how could that be? how is this whitewater? >> how is this whitewater? >> i can't -- i can't comment on the specifics. it wasn't pleasant, and we tried to say, to one another, "try to shield yourself from the media. the media doing what they need to do. that's not our playing field. our playing field are the courts." >> the pressure on everyone

increased as the press coverage got more and more hostile. >> president clinton's private life erupted noxiously into the public domain. >> someone found a video film of the president and monica lewinsky at a rope line that was played over and over and over on television. >> it was an uncontainable situation that rolled across the country like a giant boulder, crushing all other news in its path just days away from the state of the union. >> npr and two other news organizations had been given pre-state of the union interviews. we woke up the morning of our interview and read the front and looked at each other and went, like, hat? i guess we have to ask him about this." looking back on it, it seems so silly and quaint. i said, "gee, mr. president, was there some kind of relationship with this woman that might have been misconstrued?" >> tomorrow, i'm going to do my best to cooperate with the investigation. i want to know what they want to know from me. i think it's more important for me to tell the american people that there wasn't improper relations. i didn't ask anybody to lie,

and i intend to cooperate. >> bill clinton has a mind like a steel trap. he's incredible in interviews. he's a great talker, but i think, at some point, he seemed to kind of lose his train of thought for a second, and his jaw muscle was pulsating, like, bulging from, i guess, stress. >> ken starr, independent counsel, is investigating allegations that you suborned perjury by encouraging a 24-year-old woman, former white house intern, to lie under oath. >> that is not true. i did not ask anyone to tell anything other than the truth. there is no improper relationship. >> the president, once again, turned to political strategist and advisor dick morris. >> i said, "so what happened?" and he said, "i think i screwed up with this girl. you know, i didn't do what they said i did, but i think i did so much that i can't prove my innocence." >> morris secretly took a poll of american voters. the results suggested americans would be willing to overlook the adultery but not the perjury.

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>> dick morris' gradual admittance suggestion would go unheeded. one day before the state of the union address, the president made a bold move. following 23 minutes of remarks about childcare at an event devoted to after-school programs, the president suddenly changed the subject. >> i want you to listen to me. i'm going to say this again. i did not have sexual relations with that woman, miss lewinsky. i never told anybody to lie, not a single time, never. >> when we heard that statement, wagging his finger, you know, it was not believable. >> a lot of people thought he was toast. you couldn't survive a scandal like this. >> if the president thought his denial would dampen interest in the story, he was very wron >> on the day that he wagged his finger, he set up a lie that the entire investigativ machinery of the media set out to prove was false. that set up a battle not just between bill clinton and ken starr, between bill clinton and the forces of the mainstream media. >> did the president mean to say to the american people that he

had no sexual intercourse? >> i think the president was very straightforward in his comment, and i'm not going to dignify the question. he didn't leave any ambiguity whatsoever. abel? >> like, he meant no sexual encounter whatsoever? >> he said, "i did not have any sexual relations with that woman." he couldn't have been clearer. >> it seemed that all of washington was at a standstill. >> it was a very bizarre mood in the house of representatives. on the republican side, speaker gingrich correctly told republicans, "don't gloat. don't try to make an issue of this." among my democratic colleagues, there were a lot of people that were just apoplectic about this. >> i mean, i was massively disappointed and angry, because you put a lot of risk when you do something like that. it's not like, you know, you're running a hot dog stand here. you're running the country. >> one thing was for certain. this could lead the president down a hole that he would be unable to dig out of. the first lady upped the ante the next morning on "the today show." >> she felt that this was all of her enemies kind of ganging up on her. >> the great story here for

anybody willing to find it and write about it and explain it is this vast right-wing conspiracy that has been conspiring against my husband since the day he announced for president. >> it wasn't vast. it wasn't much of a conspiracy, but it was a brilliant phrasing that they came up with, and it was basically an attempt to stigmatize people who were critical of the clintons. >> it was a vast right-wing body of opinion which didn't like bill clinton and which was hell-bent to go after him. the claim that this was, you know, fiction and just a figment of the right wing's imagination was crazy. >> i thought this was really kind of funny that mrs. clinton is blaming all of us. it had nothing to do with the right wing. it had everything to do with bill clinton's personal activities. >> even the clintons' most ardent supporters had to admit that the president's actions seemed to be pouring fuel on the conspiracy fires. >> hillary clinton was absolutely right. there was a vast right-wing

conspiracy out to get bill clinton. but when you know there's a vast right-wing conspiracy, you don't play into their hands. you do not have sex in the oval office with a young intern. >> i think it was george will at the time, said, "you know, mrs. clinton, there's a way to find out, which is when you're having breakfast with your husband, say, 'dear, pass the marmalade, and by the way, were you having sex with this woman?'" >> the first lady's comments got a swift rebuke from the office of the independent counsel. >> the clinton camp thinks independent counsel kenneth starr is the darth vader of clinton haters. starr released a statement ridiculing the first lady's assertion that his office is part of a vast right-wing conspiracy. >> the white house strategy seems simple -- dig in and get ready for a fight. >> very early on, we realized that this was like an election where bill clinton was running against kenneth starr, and negatives on him were just as admissible as defenses of bill clinton. >> there's something about the clintons that you have to understand. they lie, and those in their

personal orbit swear to it. without truth under oath, it is impossible to find justice. >> despite the political thermometer about to burst, president clinton knew he still had a job to do. amid the media frenzy, he preparehis sixth state of the union address. >> tremendous amount of expectation for what will be really unrivaled political theater for a state of the union speech. there will be a tremendous amount of very close scrutiny as to the body language, not just the body language from the president as he delivers tonight's state of the union, but the members and hillary clinton, who will be in the hall watching. >> the speech would provide a brief respite from the chaos, and hour and 15 minutes with no mention of scandal or interns. >> he comes in just like nothing is going on, and, you know, we give the president of the united states the appropriate standing applause, but republicans, by then, were a little divided on whether or not we were going to stand for what he was having to say. >> an america that is continuing

to rise through every age against every challenge. >> it was a typical state of the union address, and he got the applause lines where you'd expect it. you got silence from the republicans on issue and substantive matters where you'd expect. >> he would show no signs that the presidency was in jeopardy. >> president clinton was a charmer, no question about it, and he had a unique ability to compartmentalize, no matter what was going on in his life privately. >> god bless you, and god bless the united states. >> by attempting to change the conversation back to policy, the white house felt they escaped the turmoil, if only for a few hours. two people who were not watching the 1998 state of the union address were jim and susan mcdougal. >> jim mcdougal was found guilty on 18 different charges. susan mcdougal was found guilty on four counts. >> the former whitewater business partners were in solitary confinement

in separate prisons in two different states. jim mcdougal had cut a deal with ken starr, a shortened prison sentence on bank fraud charges in exchange for cooperating and implicating the clintons. susan mcdougal had refused to cooperate and was being held in criminal contempt. >> susan has got to get the all-time award for loyalty. >> still refusing to talk, susan was constantly shuttled between prisons. >> one of the things they do to weaken the resolve of people who are in for contempt is tmove the different prisons. >> they call it the diesel therapy. they put you on this diesel van, and they move you around, and you're in shackles and handcuffs and waist chains. it's meant to be a torture. >> it's amazing that she didn't crack under that. >> jim's time was supposed to be easier. after all, he had cooperated with prosecutors. >> sure. i'm going to go -- go through that gate and try my best to do exactly what these folks tell me to, and i'm going try to get along with everybody in there

and hope to see y'all again. >> the thing that i kept thinking is, he's going to come out of this and say, "the whole thing with the clintons was made up to save myself from this, and they didn't do a thing wrong." >> the prison was even tougher than jim had feared, both mentally and physically. >> i was at the metropolitan detention center. the catholic priest called me to his office. he said, "jim has died." >> jim died at the age of 57, and i think he honestly was a very good man with a very good heart who did some bad things. i view it as a terrible tragedy, because he had a premonition that if he went to prison, he would die in prison. >> i felt sick, and, of course, i befriended him. >> he made this deal to save his life, and it killed him. it killed him. they had him locked up and didn't give him his medicine, and he died. >> he died just several months

before he probably would have been released. >> and all the promises that the independent counsel made him were lies, every one of them after he'd sold his soul to them. >> hickman ewing, one of the prosecutors who sent jim to prison, asked to speak at the funeral in arkadelphia, arkansas. >> at the funeral, i said, "he made a lot of mistakes, but i think jim was rit with god." >> about an hour north of arkadelphia, where jim was laid to rest, was the federal courthouse in little rock. it was there that judge susan webber wright poured over legal briefs in the paula jones lawsuit. shortly after the monica lewinsky story broke, judge wright had excluded all evidence related to the former intern because of the "inevitable effect of disrupting ken starr's investigation." now, less than two months later, she would make a decision that would shock the world. >> a big legal victory for president clinton and his lawyers today in the paula jones case. td ameritrade lets you trade select securities 24 hours a day, 5 days a week. so i can trade all night long?

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jones' sexual harassment lawsuit was dismissed, seemingly ending three years of embarrassment and distractions for the white house. >> i was shocked because i believe that what mr. clinton did to me was wrong. >> judge wright ruled that jones had not shown that she had suffered severe emotional anguish or any harm to her career. >> my view was that this must be correct. the lawsuit had no merit. >> president clinton, traveling in africa, was seen celebrating with an unlit cigar and bongo drums. but if the president hoped that this would also end the investigation, he would be disappointed. >> the issue was in that lawsuit, even one without merit, had perjury been committed? >> paula's lawyers rushed to file their appeal in little rock's federal court. a few blocks from the courthouse, deputy independent counsel hickman ewing was working overtime. while the rest of his team was in washington focused on monica lewinsky, ewing remained in arkansas

sifting through years of whitewater remnants. he wrote drafts of possible indictments the president and first lady could face in the whitewater and madison guaranty investigations. >> the one that i think everybody got excited about had to do with billing records, removal of documents from foster's office. he hadn't circulated to anybody. he's not ever presented it to a grand jury, but i've got it in a notebook. >> the document explored the possible charges regarding legal work that was done by the first lady at the rose law firm, the disappearance and reappearance of the billing records, and the first lady's frequent lapse in memory when questioned. >> young lawyer comes in, says, "well, how are we going to write this final report?" so i reach up and grab this folder. i said, "here's my final report right here," and it says, "u.s. versus a, b, c, hillary rodham clinton, d, e, f, g." >> the existence of the draft indictment wasn't publicly known in 1998 and, over the next two decades, was largely forgotten

in the annals of history -- that is, until renewed interest brought it to light once again in another hotly contested election. on the next episode of "scandalous"... >> talks broke down between monica lewinsky's attorneys and kenneth starr. >> never calls me, never writes me. >> the investigation was in fact a fishing expedition. they were looking for anything to try to pin on him. >> it was an insatiable media appetite for this story. >> monica, look over here! >> we as counsel for monica lewinsky have reached an agreement today. >> the navy blue dress. i would rather you had that in your possession. i told her it was her insurance policy. >> the president's lawyer called me and said, "i want to work out a deal." >> this afternoon in this room, i testified before the office of independent counsel. >> the speech was not believable. >> i was heartbroken. >> ken starr decided we're going to submit the referral on

september 9th. he said, "that's it." >> and it was then up to the political process to say, "what do we do with the truth?" >> previously on "scandalous"... >> we had this woman named linda tripp, and she's recorded all these conversations of this young lady that had an affair with the president. >> this was the farthest thing from a romance that you can imagine. come hell or high water, i was sharing this information with the public. >> i don't believe any of us were expecting that the information would be as breathtaking as it was. >> if it was true, the president was engaged in some pretty serious criminal activity.>>indo ken starr. ken starr's office had opened up a secret criminal investigation into obstruction. >> we did not begin an investigation without clear authorization. >> i did not have sexual relations with that woman...