What exactly did Bill Clinton say in his August 17, 1998 grand jury testimony about Monica Lewinsky?
Executive summary
On August 17, 1998, President Bill Clinton gave a videotaped grand-jury testimony in which he acknowledged having a relationship with Monica Lewinsky that he called “not appropriate” or “improper,” explained how he understood the phrase “sexual relations,” and asserted he had answered grand-jury questions truthfully; his roughly four-hour session was later used by the independent counsel to allege perjury and obstruction [1] [2] [3] [4] [5]. The testimony combined direct admissions about conduct with careful qualifiers about definitions and recollection, and it became the factual center of Kenneth Starr’s perjury and obstruction allegations and the subsequent impeachment process [6] [7].
1. What Clinton admitted, in his own words, about the relationship
Clinton told the grand jury that “I did have a relationship with Ms. Lewinsky that was not appropriate,” language repeatedly reported in contemporary accounts and in his public prepared remarks, and some outlets and summaries describe the content as an admission of an “improper physical relationship” [8] [9] [2]. He framed the conduct as “wrong” on certain occasions when alone with Lewinsky in early 1996 and once in 1997, a formulation included in prepared statements of his testimony that emphasized the encounters “did not consist of sexual intercourse” [1].
2. How Clinton qualified “sexual relations” and defended earlier statements
A central facet of his August 17 testimony was an explanation of prior deposition answers: Clinton told the grand jury he understood the term “sexual relations” in his January 17 deposition to mean intercourse, and he said that if Lewinsky’s affidavit used that same definition, her denial would have been “accurate” under that meaning—an effort to explain what he described as legally accurate but not fully volunteered earlier answers [6] [8]. In shorthand, he argued that definitions and understandings of phrases mattered to whether earlier statements were truthful, echoing the infamous “it depends on what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is” media discussion of his prior testimony [6].
3. His claim about truthfulness before the grand jury and to the public
Clinton repeatedly asserted that during his grand-jury appearance he “answered their questions truthfully, including questions about my private life,” language he used in his televised remarks after the testimony and in statements released by the White House, and he told the public he had taken responsibility for his actions [3] [8]. C-SPAN’s contemporaneous summary of his address notes he acknowledged the relationship was inappropriate and denied having asked others to lie under oath—an explicit public denial of witness-intimidation or direction to give false testimony [10].
4. The form, duration, and public handling of the testimony
Clinton’s session was videotaped and lasted more than four hours under questioning by prosecutors from the Office of Independent Counsel, then shown on closed-circuit television to members of the grand jury and later released in transcript and video form as part of the congressional inquiry and public record [4] [11] [12]. The videotaped format and the detailed questioning—down to gifts, dates, and definitions—made the testimony unusually granular for a sitting president and provided Starr’s office with material they later cited in charging documents [4] [5].
5. How prosecutors and later reports used his words
Kenneth Starr’s office treated the grand-jury testimony and Clinton’s prior deposition answers as the basis for charging the president with perjury and obstruction of justice, asserting that his carefully worded qualifiers nevertheless amounted to false testimony under oath; that prosecution and the House Judiciary Committee’s articles relied heavily on the admissions and definitions Clinton offered in August [5] [7]. The Office of Independent Counsel’s later report and related records also referenced Lewinsky’s testimony, the physical evidence (notably the dress), and the contrast between Lewinsky’s and Clinton’s earlier statements as part of the investigative record [13] [7].
6. Where the public record ends and reporting limitations begin
The sources provided include Clinton’s own prepared statements and journalistic summaries of his testimony and its consequences, and they supply specific quoted lines about “not appropriate,” “did not consist of sexual intercourse,” and his claim of truthful answers [1] [8] [3]. If one seeks the full, verbatim grand-jury transcript, the present reporting points to released videotape and committee publications but the snippets here are selective; this account does not substitute for reading the full transcript or the Starr Report for every line and contextual exchange [12] [13].