Senators view tapes of `poised' Lewinsky

PRESIDENT CLINTON'S long-time lawyer-friend, Vernon Jordan, was questioned yesterday by a House of Representatives "prosecutor" seeking to establish his role in Monica Lewinsky's job search. Mr Jordan was seen entering the Capitol shortly before 9am, and he was escorted to a secure room which is reserved for especially confidential meetings.

His arrival coincided with the release to senators of the earliest transcripts and videotapes of Ms Lewinsky's testimony from the previous day, giving the senator-jurors in Mr Clinton's impeachment trial their first opportunity to judge Ms Lewinsky's veracity for themselves. The tapes are not to be made public unless the Senate so votes, perhaps tomorrow, but it had taken only a couple of hours for the first information about her evidence to leak out.

She was reported to have been confident, polished and poised - not surprising, perhaps, for someone who was testifying under oath for the 23rd time - and to have stuck closely to her previous account. But the session, which took place in the Mayflower Hotel, produced one surprise. The White House lawyers decided to forgo their questioning; instead, the deputy White House counsel, Nicole Seligman, read a short statement of regret "on behalf of the President" for what Ms Lewinsky had had to endure over the past year.

In September, Mr Clinton had said that he wanted Ms Lewinsky and his family to know that his "sorrow" over what had happened was genuine, but this was the closest he had come to offering her a direct apology. The olive branch could be seen in part as acknowledgement that she had not incriminated him further; in part, as a way of discouraging her from taking vengeance in future. The Senate has still to vote on whether to call Ms Lewinsky and the other witnesses to testify in person.

Yesterday's questioning of Mr Jordan was expected to focus on how much he knew about the true nature of Ms Lewinsky's relationship with Mr Clinton and his reason for so assiduously helping her job search. House prosecutors claim he was well aware that she had been sexually involved with the President and that the job search was "intensified" after Ms Lewinsky was named as a witness in the sexual harassment suit brought against Mr Clinton by Paula Jones.

Even at the mid-point of the witness testimony - the White House aide, Sidney Blumenthal will be questioned today - the Senate was stepping up its search for what has become known as an "exit strategy". The timetable envisages a vote on Mr Clinton's guilt or innocence on 12 February, as long as no further witnesses are called.

Many Republicans, however, have misgivings about leaving everything to the vote; they know there is no chance of conviction, because they lack the 67 votes needed, but fear the consequences of acquittal, which they feel would be treated by the White House as a vindication.

One group favours a formal statement, "findings of fact" that would place on record much of the prosecution case. Yesterday, another solution was broached by Orrin Hatch, the Utah senator who tried before to save Mr Clinton's presidency, in an article for The New York Times. He proposed adjourning the Senate trial without a vote, thereby depriving Mr Clinton of an acquittal and conveying the message that he did not "get away with it".