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... >> it's the lying that will get

you in trouble. >> i said, "watch the house republicans try to make this an impeachable offense." >> the great story here for anybody willing to find it and write about it and explain it is this vast right-wing conspiracy. >> a lot of people thought he was toast. he couldn't survive a scandal like this. ♪ ♪ ♪ >> the spring of 1998 saw the nation's capital sucked into an all-consuming vortex of political and media chaos. inside the u.s. district courthouse on constitution avenue, a grand jury investigating the president had heard from witness after witness. president clinton's assistant, betty currie, testified, as well as his friend vernon jordan, who was accused of buying monica lewinsky's silence with a job offer. after questioning from

deputy independent counsel sol wisenberg, monica's mother, marcia lewis, left the grand jury room in tears. >> not a scintilla of guilt. there's no mother-daughter privilege. there's no father-son privilege. there's no brother-and-brother ivilege. >> monica, look over here! >> as for monica herself, negotiations between her eccentric, tv-friendly attorney and the independent counsel's office had gone nowhere. >> the issue of immunity is always at the discretion of the prosecutor. >> but as the lewinsky investigation intensified, deputy independent counsel hickman ewing had remained in little rock, arkansas, trying to wrap up what began as an investigation into the whitewater land deal. along the way, ewing had drafted some possible indictments to potentially be used depending on how the investigation progressed. one draft centered on the first lady of the united states and the mystery surrounding missing billing records from the

rose law firm. >> didn't circulate it to anybody, it was not ever presented to a grand jury, but i've got it in a notebook, and it's sitting on my shelf. and it says, "u.s. versus 'a,' 'b', 'c,' hillary rodham clinton, 'd,' 'e,' 'f,' 'g.'" ♪ >> on april 27, 1998, ken starr's prosecutors gathered in a large conference room at their headquarters in washington, d.c. >> the independent counsel convenes a final meeting. we're gonna decide whether we should go forward with an indictment of mrs. clinton and others or should we drop it. >> hickman ewing took the floor and presented the contents of his notebook. >> i'm basically going through various events -- you know, the disappearance of the billing records, what the billing records show. >> we spent a very long, long day building, of course, on all

the work that had been done over the years and came to the conclusion that we should not present charges to the grand jury at that time. >> it was decided, including me, we don't have enough to charge her. and i might say, at this point, there were six main people... that would have had information about this. vince foster's dead. jim mcdougal just died. two are in jail -- webb hubbell and susan mcdougal. two are in the white house. >> the creation of a draft indictment is not only ordinary, it's necessary. not to have a draft indictment would have been irresponsible. >> but we were obligated to follow justice department policy, and one of those policies is before you go to the grand jury federal prosecutor and present a proposed indictment, you have to be able to look the grand jurors in the eye and say, "we are satisfied

that we have admissible evidence that can prove each element of this crime beyond a reasonable doubt." >> the investigation into whitewater and madison guaranty was out of steam. >> at this point, within the independent counsel, you have two arguments shaping up that are saying, basically, "hey, we have a live perjury-trap case on the president based on his statements regarding paula jones and monica lewinsky, or we have a decades-old, very complicated finaial-frd case which we're not re we n win because mrs. clinton is a rather sympathetic character, so what do we do? finally, it was decided we were not going to indict mrs. clinton and others, but we're gonna go forward on the president. and the rest is history. how do you win at business? stay at la quinta. where we're changing with stylish make-overs. then at your next meeting, set your seat height to its maximum level.

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we all want to know about the new thing. you. with xfinity's retail stores, you can now see the test. want to test drive the latest devices? be our guest. want to save on mobile? just ask. want to demo the latest innovations and technology? do it here. come see how we're making things simple, easy, and awesome. plus come in today and ask about xfinity mobile, a new kind of network designed to save you money. visit your local xfinity store today. >> look, the president has made a statement that has expressed his outrage at allegations. i've made it very clear i'm not gonna go beyond that statement. >> as the media circus grew bigger each day, white house press secretary mike mccurry was tasked with fielding the hard questions while still trying to maintain a diplomatic relationship with reporters. >> mike mccurry did a terrific job, given that he had a boss who was not telling the truth about monica lewinsky. mccurry also was a guy who would talk to reporters on background,

off the record. he let reporters know that he wasn't necessarily buying all the denials, and for that reason, he commanded a lot of respect. >> he also did what he could to keep himself in the dark. >> will it concern you if there's a story, a lot of stories, that say you're stonewalled? >> not if we are rallying around the arkansan the way the confederacy rallied around the virginians at bull run. >> the confederacy lost. [ laughter ] >> at that battle, sam, they did not. >> in the first weeks of the scandal, the white house press' plan was to divert attention to other issues of national interest. >> the president has said that he will remain focused on the work that he was elected to do by the american people. >> the whole strategy of the clinton white house was to show that bill clinton was still fighting for the issues most americans cared about and to put this scandal in a box. >> one thing that the clinton administration did figure out how to do and they did it pretty well, and the trump administration has taken a page out of their book, is they tried to compartmentale th.

>> the spin didn't stop at the white house gates. the presidents' defenders saturated the media, publicly toeing the line, even if some privately grumbled. >> i remember distinctly talking about this with democrats, and i would go on a panel and i would be the guy who is critical of clinton. they would be the people defending. and then when we were leaving and going out of the greenroom, they'd turn to me and they'd say, "oh, you know, you're absolutely right. i mean, you're totally right." >> people were struck at the time how feminists would champion the causes of women attacked the women who were made accusations against bill clinton. >> but no amount of spin or other news stories could compete with the unfolding drama and barrage of negative headlines. so the clinton team tried to change the subject to media leaks and the office of the independent counsel. >> well, it was an ongoing struggle that you were accustomed to seeing during these investigations -- accusations of leaks, accusations of unfairness, accusations of lying by the

party of investigation, and the rest of it. >> ken starr was widely regarded, at least by democrats, as a partisan. >> if you have the facts, emphasize the facts. if you have the law, emphasize the law. if you don't have the law or the facts, then attack the prosecutor. >> ken starr was a respected judge. he was doing his job. but i knew that he would have little chance against the clintons. they went into full-on attack mode, and look how successful that was. they threatened his reputati, his credibility. he was castigated for being a puritan who, had an agenda. >> mike, you did say that the president has to proceed cautiously. why, if he's done nothing wrong, does he have to proceed cautiously? >> he is in a very hostile proceeding in which his lawyers recommend that he proceed in that fashion. >> you're saying ken starr has hostile intent?

>> ken starr's office was very leaky, as well, and this became a major controversy. >> the president's attorney lashed out and blamed independent counsel kenneth starr for the leaks. >> we've seen leak after leak. these leaks make a mockery of the traditional rules of grand jury secrecy. >> there was this feeling that investigators and lawyers were talking to the press. in my experience, that just wasn't the case. >> i can't say for certain that we had nobody who leaked information. some information that you leak is okay to leak if you are being pummeled with untrue stories by the administration, which we were, and you want to correct the record, either publicly or privately, as long as you don't leak something you shouldn't be leaking, right? >> prosecutors and their staffs and the investigators and the grand jurors who get information in secret in a grand jury are bound to grand jury secrecy. if you violate that rule, you can be held in criminal

>> a conoversy erupted aftered. ken starr gan intervieto journalist steven brill. brill's article implied that secret grand jury testimony had been leaked. >> the problem with ken is that he thinks everybody else is as honorable as he is, and he's like a babe in the woods. >> i answered his questions, i think, truthfully. there were numerous accusations that, um, i had personally leaked grand jury information. >> ken starr has a different view of what was said, and i believe it was a put-up job. >> i was very careful in that interview. the federal rules of criminal procedure and our professional ethics are absolutely clear. what happens in the grand jury is sacrosanct. >> but the media had a new story. >> independent counsel ken starr is under attack today. a new magazine reports he admits leaking information to reporters covering the lewinsky sex scandal. is it time to investigate the

investigator? >> there was a very full investigation, and that process ended in, if i may say so, complete vindication of the integrity of our office, including my own integrity. >> look what it did to ken starr. it derailed his investigation. he became the sex police, he became the bad guy and bill clinton, once again, the victim. >> starr's team was taking fire on another front, as well. what had begun four years earlr as the whitewater investigation had morphed into something very different. >> we got all involved talking about sexuality and sex and blowing up issues that really had very little to do with him being president. >> it was sort of a game-changer in terms of the investigation. you know, that's the way these independent counsel, special counsel, things work. you're appointed to do "a," and you wind up to "z." >> the investigation into president clinton was, in fact,

a fishing expedition, but the people involved were looking for anything to try to pin on him. >> how does an investigation into a $40,000 land deal in arkansas 12 years ago all of a sudden become a look at president clinton's personal life, his sex life, if you will? >> what we see here are patterns of behavior that go back to his days as governor abusing the power of an office for personal gain or personal satisfaction. >> what they were really investigating was bill clinton's sex life. what they were claiming to investigate in order to give it credibility was did he encourage her to lie, did he obstruct justice? >> once the case started with monica lewinsky, the world was in cacophony at all times. we were working seven days a week, and our case was on the front page of the washington post, the new york times, and thewall street journal every single day. it was constantly on tv. >> cable news really kind of came into its own driven by the scandal, the revelations,

the sex. there was an insatiable media appete for this y. >> and in additiono th president and monica, the ess set their sights on the story's other major player. >> the portrayal of kenneth starr, this soft-spoken former appellate judge, deeply religious man, and a very fine man as some kind of partisan monster succeeded. it was an absolute caricature. >> ken starr was a casualty of the truth, as i was. and it's hard to fight that. i'm not sure you ever get your reputation back. but in the case of judge starr, he deserved to get his back. >> starr and his team had little time to deal with the media, however. they were still busy trying to to work out an immunity deal with monica lewinsky and her media-hungry lawyer. >> never calls me. never writes me. he doesn't do anything. he's ignoring me. i don't think he likes me, for some reason.

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live from america's news headquarters, ike eric shawn. president trump will hold a listening committee in week. ken paxton tells fox news if need be armed guards should be placed a the schools to protect

our students. students are organizing a rally in washington, d.c. on march 24th called march for our lives and they hope it's a turning point in the national debate on gun control. a passenger plane crash into if mountain killing all 65 people on board, happened 500 miles south of tehran. no word on tonight what happened aim eric shawn in new york fox news. now back to the documentary "sanscandalous" and the latest. >> the independent counsel's office tried cutting an immunity deal with monica lewinsky when they first confronted her at the ritz-carlton back in january. it had not gone well. >> republicans at that time were up talking about the importance of the rule of law. but they denied a young 22-year-old her constitutional right to an attorney for 11 hours while they browbeat her into giving the lascivious details about the affair.

>> things didn't go much better after her lawyer, family friend and medical-malpractice attorney william ginsberg, got involved. >> monica's then counsel is not a criminal-defense lawyer. >> he was going on tv, i think five times on one sunday, saying preposterous things. and when you're in the situation we're in, you want to negotiate with somebody who actually knows the territory. >> and the news from [chuckles] lewinsky headquarters was, "we're never going to cooperate," et cetera. >> the prosecutors grew frustrated. the independent counsel thought it crucial to interview monica in person before coming to an agreement. >> ginsberg said, "look, we'll give you a written proffer, and, ultimately, we made the decision, after much shouting and screaming and name-calling, not to accept it. at talks indeed broke down between monica lewinsky's attorneys and also the office of independent counsel kenneth starr. >> eventually, the family

decided that their lawyer was perhaps not serving monica as ably as was wise. >> so by early june 1998, ginsberg was out. >> there never would have been an in-person proffer with monica lewinsky if she hadn't got new attorneys. >> less than two months later, on july 27th, prosecutors secretly met with monica and her legal team at the new york city apartment of ken starr's mother-in-law. >> the purpose of the meeting in new york was really twofold -- first, to determine whether or not monica was going to be truthful. >> the second purpose was to determine how far she would go, because she could be truthful but not tell us everything that she knew. >> monica was nervous. you know, this -- this had been a very rough time after a number of false starts and with the whole world glaring down on her. >> monica, during that session, was, uh... cooperative...

scared... worried, truthful. >> we knew, and it became very clear during the meeting in new york, that she still cared for the president very much. >> that session went precisely the way we would have expected it to go. >> the next morning, an immunity agreement was signed. >> we,s counsel for monica lewinsky, have reached an agreement today that for her full and truthful testimony, she will receive transactional immunity. >> this was a pivotal moment for all of us because you have the principal witness against the president of the united states. >> as part of that agreement, the office required her to do two things -- one, come in and have an interview and tell the truth, and the second was to produce the dress. >> the dress was the single most incriminating piece of evidence that the president had lied. >> linda tripp told me that monica lewinsky had a dress with

the president's semen on it. i really couldn't believe that. it seemed to me extraordinarily odd in the extreme that anyone would save something like that. >> when this story first hit, the white house-orchestrated campaign was that she was a stalker, she was a lunatic. hillary is quoted as referring to her as "a narcissistic loony toon." the girl was not a loony toon. she was a mixed-up kid. but she would have been destroyed by them with no recourse -- nothing. >> the navy blue dress was worn by lewinsky during a february 1997 sexual encounter in the white house. >> monica said that she didn't take the dress to dry-clean because it didn't fit her anymore, and she just kind of threw it in the back of her closet. >> linda tripp then urged her to hold on to it. >> i told her it was her insurance policy.

i knew that not only he would lie, he would destroy anyone in his path. and i wanted to have the proof. >> our charter from the attorney general said, "you are to determine whether perjury was committed and possibly other offenses, as well." and so the blue dress was simply one part of the evidence that tended to point in that direction. >> it was going to prove, one way or another, the end of the case. >> a year and a half after monica tossed the dress in the back of her closet and the day after her immunity deal was signed, it arrived at the office of the independent counsel. >> but there it is it's hanging up on a coat hanger in the conference room and everybody's going down there seeing if they can see the little white stain on there. >> if the president's genetic

material is on that dress, there would be no denying that the president had not been telling the truth to the point, and if it had been something else, we were gonna look like major idiots. >> just above the belt, in the center of the dress, was a small stain. >> it was sent to the lab at quantico, virginia, and the people that dealt with the dress didn't even know what they were dealing with. they just tested it. >> word quickly came back that there was enough dna to do a comparison test. meeting to discuss issuing a grand jury subpoena to the psint for the production of his blood. >> wasked kendall for a blood sample from the president. it's very significant that you ask the chief executive of the united states of america for a blood sample. it was necessary to get the president's blood because he forced federal law inforcement officials into this position. it wasn't their fault. the indignity that occured clinton's fault. >> on august 3, 1998, under the

cover of darkness, bob bittman quietly headed to the white house map room and supervised the drawing of the president's blood. we were told to go to a specific gate, and, sure enough, the secret service was waiting for us, and, by cart, go to the white house. >> bob bittman went over with a nurse and an fbi agent. >> we walked in to the map room before we took his blood. i think he was tense, but he was very outwardly cordial. >> the mood soon soured. >> i think it demeaned the presidency and the president to take his blood to compare it to the dress. >> the agent asked me afterwards -- had noticed his red face -- and asked me if i thought it was sunburn, and i said, "that was no sunburn. that was, i believe, anger." >> bittman and the fbi agent watched closely to ensure the integrity of the procedure. the dna characteristics tested were unique to 1 in about 8 trillion people. if the results were positive,

there would be no denying a relationship. the lies told behind closed doors at the paula jones deposition were now close to being exposed. >> it could have all been stopped in its tracks had the president done what he should have done -- refused the test and settled the case. >> but it was too late for that now, as it became clear to the president that he was careening towards a very public reckoning that could alter history. thanks man. imagine if the things you bought every day... earned you miles to get to the places you really want to go. with the united mileageplus explorer card, you'll get a free checked bag. two united club passes. priority boarding. and earn fif thousand bonus miles after you spend three thousand dollars on purchases in the first three months from account opening plus, zero-dollar intro annual fee for the first year, then ninety-five dollars. learn more at theexplorercard.com

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including 12 americans, and 4,500 more were seriously wounded. >> we will do whatever we can to bring the murderers to justice. >> it would be the first time many americans would hear the names "al-qaeda" and "osama bin laden." >> when the fbi was focused on examining monica lewinsky's dress, guess what -- there were a couple of dozen residents of saudi arabia and other gulf states learning how to take off in an airplane but not to land. shouldn't we, with the benefit of hindsight, say to ourselves, "what's important?" >> throughout the summer of 1998, ken starr's prosecutors were under immense pressure to complete their report and send it to congress. >> judge starr wanted to move forward with the referral as early as the end of july, and i was very concerned, as were several others, that we didn't yet have the type of evidence that we needed. >> most notably, they had not

yet heard from president clinton. >> the last person to talk to is the main participant, and that is president clinton. and he's not going to appear voluntarily. >> we got the brush-off, and so, ultimately, we subpoenaed him. >> david kendall, the president's lawyer, called me and said, "i want to work out a deal." >> the two sides would agree that president clinton would testify for four hours on august 17, 1998. ♪ >> it'go at a bee white house, but it's gonna be live. it's gonna be piped in to the grand jury. >> it was very clear, obviously, this was a historic event, where a sitting president of the united states is testifying under oath about a criminal matter that he is the subject of. >> we just hoped that what we would be met with was the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. >> we did a mocking examination of president clinton. obviously, he couldn't come

participate in that, so we used hickman ewing. >> well, they got me to come up from little rock to play the president. i watched the video of his deposition in the jones case. even the mannerisms, you know, when he would do this or he'd drink water -- i mean, i was gonna really try to play the role. >> we knew that part of his strategy was going to be to try to run out the clock. >> hick's an old southern boy, and he did a very good job of the long-winded, narrative answer. >> bob bittman questioned me. "did you ever give any gifts to monica?" "well, now, mr. bittman, down south, you know, we give presents. you know, i remember my mama at christmastime -- she'd have a bunch of extra presents in there on the washing machine, and somebody'd come by and visit. i'd give it to her." but i'd take about five minutes. "did you ever touch monica lewinsky?" [ chuckles ] "now, mr. bittman, down south, we hug. you know, i mean, you always go up and hug people. whether it's a man or woman,

you -- you hug. could i have ever touched her? well, yeah, i guess that's possible." >>ly on august 17, a mia swarm enveloped the white house, anously awaiting the drama that was sure to unfold inside. just before noon, the independent counsel team arrived. once inside, ken starr was approached by david kendall, the president's lawyer, and given a stark warning about what would happen if the president was asked humiliating questions. >> "we're only gonna answer certain things, and if you try to get us to do more, we'll fight you to the knife." >> my reaction was, "this is one great defense lawyer, but we have a job to do." >> by the time we went in and spoke to the president, we had a lot of information, and the picture that we had was not a pretty one. >> they now knew that monica lewinsky's blue dress could be conclusively linked to the president by dna. >> the blue dress obviously made it impossible for the president to deny that he had had some

sexual contact with monica lewinsky. >> just before the president was going to give his grand jury testimony, ken starr decided that they had to tell the president and his lawyers that they had the dress. no prosecutor worth his salt would have ever told a target that they had a conclusive piece of evidence that, if he lied about it, would refute everything he said. >> everybody talks about how ken starr -- out to get the president. uh, it's totally untrue. i don't want to hear that ken starr was out to do anything but "gotcha" with the president, because the president was fully aware that he shouldn't have been lying before went into the grand jury. >> once he was presented with the existence of the dress, it really left him no choice but to admit the relationship in front of the grand jury. >> how he handles that testimony may determine the future of his presidency -- the likelihood of impeachment proceedings, as well as his credibility as the nation's leader.

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>> on a sweltering day in washington, the president sat in the map room of the white house, trying to explain away the false answers he had given in the paula jones deposition. it was a job that proved tough, even for him. the prosecutors' practice sessions seemed to have paid

off. >> paul rosenzweig was actually in the grand jury, and some of our other guys were watching it live, and paul, at one point, stepped out, and, on the phone, he said, "it's just like we predicted." i mean, we had it. >> but the four hours of grueling testimony was easy compared to what the president had to do next -- come clean with the american people. >> good evening. this afternoon in this room, from this chair, i testified before the office of independent counsel and the grand jury. >> people felt it was suicient and that was sohostilsort of thinking he was right and he was just the victim and not the perpetrator. >> i answered their questions truthfully, including questions about my private life, questions no american citizen would ever want to answer. >> i thought it was the worst political speech i had ever heard -- that it was not gonna be effective, that it was the

wrong note, that it was unreasonable and intemperate and unattractive. >> as you know, in a deposition in january, i was asked questions about my relationship with monica lewinsky. while my answers were legally accurate, i did not volunteer information. indeed, i did have a relationship with ms. lewinsky that was not appropriate. in fact, it was wrong. >> the speech was, uh, not believable in many respects. lying to the american people, then coming back and saying, "well, you know, i did have an inappropriate relationship" -- i knew he was in real trouble. >> now this matter is between me, the two people i love most -- my wife and our daughter -- and our god. i must put it right, and i am prepared to do whatever it takes to do so. >> this seemed to me to be just part of a continuing effort to keep the public on his side. >> at no time did i ask anyone

to lie, to hide or destroy evidence, or to take any other unlawful action. >> i was heartbroken. i suppose i should also add i was angry at him because he had already shown extraordinary skills as president. i was one of his earliest supporters. i felt like i was still one of his strongest supporters, and yet he had done something totally unacceptable. >> the next morning, bill and hillary clinton, their daughter, chelsea, and dog, buddy, attempted a tense show of solidarity as they departed for a brief and chilly vacation on martha's vineyard. >> i do remember talking to mike mccurry on that day and finding out from him that hillary had just been told. every reporter who talked to mike that day was just dumbfounded. "you mean she didn't know before?" >> alan dershowitz was an informal adviser to the president. >> i had dinner with the president on martha's vineyard, and it was, obviously, a very

tense dinner. he had, obvisly, publicly humiliated his -- his wife by acknowledging an extramarital at least encounter. >> two days later, he would be back in the oval office, announcing that dozens of cruise missiles had been launched into afghanistan and sudan in response to the bombings of u.s. embassies in east africa two weeks prior. ♪ >> our target was terror. our mission was clear -- to strike at the network of radical groups affiliated with and funded by osama bin laden. >> but launched in the midst of a domestic political firestorm, it would be viewed by some with a bit of suspicion. >> we viewed that, fairly or unfairly, as a total dodge to try to redirect the press' attention from a potentially very embarrassing story. we were all very mindful of the movie "wag the dog."

>> there's a crisis in the white house. >> what's the crisis? >> and the president's top advisers have been called together. >> ah, geez. >> in late 1997, just weeks before the world would hear the name "monica lewinsky," new line cinema had released the robert de niro/dustin hoffman movie "wag the dog." in the film, the fictional white house staff staged a fake war with albania to distract from a presidential sex scandal. >> a lot of republican members suspected that the president was doing something to divert the attention of the public away from his problems with the monica lewinsky matter. >> i can't remember any republicans, at least behind the scenes, taking seriously that there was any kind of national-security threat. >> there were those already in the news media calling it "wag the dog." i didn't want to look at it that way. >> i served on the house intelligence committee during that time. i was well aware of radical islamic terrorism, and my thinking was the president's probably just fulfilling what his military commanders asked

him to do. >> the allegations that the strikes were an attempt to distract from the lewinsky scandal would eventually make it all the way to the 9/11 commission. >> i'd like to say for the record, under no circumstances did president clinton ever call upon the military in order to rve a political purpose. >> i didn't find those calculing allegations about president clinton's motivation to be credible. it was the beginning of a response to al-qaeda and radical islamist terrorism that we hadn't seen enough of. they had to know that they would pay a price for striking us. >> i wish he had just bombed better and bombed, you know, osama bin laden. >> as president clinton spoke from the oval office, four blocks down pennsylvania avenue, work was continuing late into the night. inside the office of the independent counsel, the staff was working around the clock to complete what would be known as "the starr report." >> we were working constantly, on the weekend, in the middle of the night.

>> the report was being focused around 11 counts of alleged wrongdoing by the president. >> every person was encouraged, "master the facts. those are the facts. now here's the law. do we believe that impeachable offenses may have been committed?" and every single person said, "yes." >> each of the counts detailed allegations that the president obstructed justice by committing perjury and trying to cover up evidence of his affair.

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>> with president clinton's grand jury testimony complete, the independent counsel was under even greater pressure to wrap up their investigation. >> if you have substantial and credible evidence that may constitute grounds for an impeachment, you shall refer that to the house. >> to us, it did seem clear that there was substantial and credible information. >> we knew that under the law, we had to submit a referral to congress.

but what the statute was not clear on was what had to be included in there. >> and then there was the debate as to what form it should take. there were some people who thought all that should be done was provide all of the data, the hundred bankers' boxes of documents and you make of it what you will, house of representatives. >> there was a sentiment that we should summarize the evidence and explain the importance of it, presenting the evidence in terms of one count or one allegation of criminality or wrongdoing after another. so there began what became known as "the starr report." >> i made it absolutely clear, "i want this referral to be absolutely invulnerable. you will not prove one fact wrong." that was our standard -- 100% accuracy. >> ken starr decided we're gonna submit the referral on september 9th. he just gave us a date and said, "that's it." >> with the media firestorm

growg,luan anxious congress and restless public waiting, the independent counsel's office turned into a 24-hour operation. >> the last few days before the report was getting ready to go up are just a blur. we were all working around the clock. it did not let up. and there wasn't a lot of free time. so we made our own social life in the office. >> debate raged inside the office about just how graphic the report should be. >> to be honest, we struggled about the level of detail, and we did not want there to be anything gratuitous. >> certainly, that was something that individuals in the office kind of argued about. >> if we omitted certain facts, including some very personal facts relating to sexual activity, then we were making the decision ourselves, and that was not our job. our job was to submit the facts to the congress and let it

decide. >> the report ended up laying out grounds for impeachment -- perjury in the deposition with respect to sexual conduct, perjury in his grand jury testimony, obstruction of justice, and the most controversial count, abuse of executive power. >> we set a very high informal working standard, and so that's why the referral went into the elaborate detail that it did -- airtight. and to my knowledge, to this day, not one sentence in the referral has been drawn into question in terms of its truthfulness. >> with the delivery of "the sta report" looming, tensions on capitol hill were at an all-time high, and prominent democrats in particular were feeling the pressure. >> if you're a democrat, the expectation is you support the democratic president, period, and if you're not going to, you'd better have a very good reason. >> senator joseph lieberman of connecticut became the latest member of the president's own party to condemn mr. clinton's affair and deception. >> such behavior is not just

inappropriate, it is immoral. and it is harmful. deciding to give that speech was really one of the hardest decisions i've made in my political career. why? because bill clinton is my friend, and, um, i have tremendous respect for him, and i thought he was doing a great job as president. and yet...he had done something just so wrong. >> as the connecticut senator spoke, the office of the independent counsel buzzed with activity. in their rented office space halfway between capitol hill and the white house, last-minute edits were being made on the long-awaited "starr report." >> a lot of people didn't go home to even sleep during that time. >> the next morning, along with hundreds of supporting documents, it would be loaded into boxes and delivered to congress. at long last it was ready to go and i remember them bringing the trolleys kind of

up the elevator and loading it in and going away. >> and it was then up to the political process -- our 435 representative our 100 senators -- to decide, "what do we do with the truth?" >> on the next episode of "scandalous"... >> ken starr's office has finally delivered a report to congress, a report that could pose the most serious impeachment threat to a president since the days of watergate. >> the entire media establishment was on red alert constantly. what would this report say? >> the 455-page report reads more like something you'd find inpenthousemagazine than a grand jury investigation. >> this is probably gonna go to an impeachment proceeding. >> i don't think there is a fancy way to say that i have sinned. >> the american people watch a politician do what he was best known for, and that was conniving and lying. >> the president betrayed his wife! he did not betray the country!

>> we must make this determination, or else forever sacrifice our heritage that no person is above the law. breaking tonight, the white house says president trump is backing a push to improve the federal background checks system in the wake of the florida school shooting. evening everyone. welcome to "the next revolution." i'm steve hilton. word coming in late this evening from white house press secretary, the president is supporting efforts by john coree cornyn and others. he spoke to him on friday to improve federal compliance with background check evaluation. the president ispo