Sole Trial Linked to Lewinsky Case Opens

ALEXANDRIA, Va. — The only person charged so far in connection with the Monica S. Lewinsky investigation went on trial here Monday, as prosecutors sought to show that money and loyalty drove Julie Hiatt Steele to cover up President Clinton’s alleged groping of a White House volunteer.

But defense attorneys for Steele said independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr simply doesn’t want to believe the truth--that the 52-year-old Virginia woman knew nothing about Clinton’s alleged advances toward her onetime friend, Kathleen Willey.

“She just got in the way of a runaway train,” defense attorney Nancy Luque told a jury of six men and six women on the first day of trial in U.S. district court.

Steele is charged with obstructing justice and making false statements to authorities in allegedly hiding what she knew about Willey’s accusations that Clinton had fondled her in the Oval Office in 1993.

Initially, Steele told a Newsweek reporter in 1997 that a distraught Willey confided the details of the groping incident to her immediately after it happened. But Steele later said she made that story up at Willey’s request. And she told the FBI and attorneys for Paula Corbin Jones in a deposition that, in fact, she knew nothing about the episode.

Starr’s office maintains that Steele’s recantation was a lie, and they say she cashed in on her newfound notoriety by peddling a photo of Willey and Clinton for more than $15,000 to the National Enquirer and other news organizations, selling out her friend.

“Miss Steele betrayed not only her friends, but the rule of law,” lead prosecutor David Barger told the jury in his opening statement.

The Willey allegations became intertwined with Jones’ harassment lawsuit during efforts by Clinton’s critics to show a pattern of sexual conduct, and Starr’s interest in the matter intensified last year after news of the Lewinsky affair broke. Now, Steele’s trial threatens to drag discussion of Clinton’s conduct back into public view, at least for a few days, at a time when the president has shown signs of finally putting the saga behind him.

Judge Claude Hilton has said in past rulings in the Steele case--and reaffirmed from the bench Monday--that he does not want to try the issue of whether Clinton actually groped Willey. The question at hand, he said, is whether Steele lied in recounting what Willey told her about the incident. But the episode was central to much of Monday’s initial testimony.

The judge took just an hour to seat a jury in the case Monday morning, and Steele then quickly confronted several faces from her past, witnesses whom prosecutors used to chip away at elements of her defense.

Mary Earl Highsmith, who was a neighbor of Steele’s in Richmond for 18 years and said the two had been best friends, recounted several conversations with Steele that could both help and hurt her case.

In one 1997 phone call after Highsmith had moved to Colorado, Highsmith said, Steele told her that a Newsweek reporter was on his way to Steele’s home to corroborate Willey’s account of the alleged groping, and “Julie told me that [Willey] had asked her to lie to the reporter.”

In a later phone call, however, Highsmith said Steele told her she was “afraid it would be to her detriment” to take a position against Clinton. Highsmith did not explain what was meant by the remark, but prosecutors promised in their opening statement to show that Steele wanted Clinton as an ally.

Highsmith, who testified before the grand jury investigating the Lewinsky matter last August, said that Steele called her repeatedly before and after that appearance to find out about her testimony. The calls became so frequent and unwelcome that, Highsmith said, she stopped answering her phone.

But under cross-examination, she said that Steele never tried to influence or change her testimony. The defense also pointed up several contradictions in Highsmith’s account regarding the sequence of prior conversations.

Steele, leaving the courtroom at the end of the day, said Highsmith’s testimony had been particularly difficult. “All of it just hurts my feelings,” she said.

She also faced testimony from a Richmond TV producer whom she had dated briefly, who alleged that Steele told him in a 1997 conversation that Willey told her of being “fondled” by the president. “This is a secret. Do not repeat this to anyone,” Bill Poveromo said Steele told him.

Defense attorneys said in their opening statement that they will challenge these and other accounts from prosecution witnesses, demonstrating that Steele showed poor judgment at times but never broke the law. “It’s not a crime to lie to a reporter. It’s not a crime to sell a photograph,” Luque said.