Monica Lewinsky’s Ordeal: A Threat of 27 Years in Prison

Monica Lewinsky, the former intern involved in a scandal with President Bill Clinton, revealed yesterday that she was repeatedly threatened with a 27-year jail term if she did not cooperate with Kenneth Starr's prosecutors.

While Ms. Lewinsky's account mainly focused on her relationship with President Clinton, the most significant revelations came from her detailed description of her initial confrontation with Mr. Starr's investigators.

These revelations stand out among the flood of mostly trivial information about Lewinsky.

Now that President Clinton has been acquitted in his impeachment trial, it is expected that Ms. Lewinsky's book and television interviews will provide entertainment value and financial gains for her, rather than fuel any political or legal controversy.

However, the exception lies in her narrative of being interrogated at the Ritz-Carlton hotel in Arlington, Virginia, on January 16, 1998 – five days before the world discovered her affair with President Clinton and one day before the president was scheduled to testify in the Paula Jones case.

During this interrogation, Ms. Lewinsky claims that prosecutors threatened her with charges of perjury, obstruction of justice, subornation of perjury, witness tampering, and conspiracy unless she cooperated with Mr. Starr's investigation.

They demanded that she wear a body wire and record conversations with President Clinton, his secretary Betty Currie, and his friend Vernon Jordan.

Additionally, they warned that they would press charges against Ms. Lewinsky's mother to compel her cooperation.

Notably, Ms. Lewinsky was held for ten hours in a room at the Ritz-Carlton by “as many as nine armed FBI agents and Starr's deputies,” as disclosed in Andrew Morton's book, Monica's Story.

She even believed that there was a sniper positioned in a nearby building, ready to shoot her if she made any threatening moves.

Ms. Lewinsky revealed some of these details in an interview with Jon Snow on Channel Four, which was not aired in the United States.

She even confessed to considering jumping out of the 10th-floor window of the hotel.

Although various accounts of what occurred at the Ritz-Carlton have circulated without clear sources, Ms. Lewinsky's grand jury testimony last summer provided some insights.

However, her account is the first and only sourced version of events and could potentially be part of a future investigation by the US Department of Justice into Mr. Starr.

Interestingly, Mr. Starr did not include any details of this episode in his report to Congress in September 1998, which formed the basis of the impeachment proceedings against President Clinton.

His report also barely mentioned Linda Tripp's role in coercing Ms. Lewinsky to reveal details of her relationship with the president.

When granting permission for Ms. Lewinsky's recent interviews, Mr. Starr stipulated that she could not discuss the events of January 16.

During her ABC interview on Wednesday, Ms. Lewinsky declined to answer questions about the Ritz-Carlton confrontation, stating that she was too afraid to respond.

According to Mr. Morton's book, Monica's Story, Monica still lives in fear of the Special Prosecutor.

The book delves deeper into the alleged conspiracy surrounding January 16, providing information beyond the sometimes unreliable accounts of Mr. Starr's actions.

Ms. Lewinsky discloses that she was repeatedly told she could not contact a lawyer after FBI agents, working under Mr. Starr's authority, entrapped her with the assistance of Ms. Tripp at the hotel near the Pentagon where they all worked.

Despite Ms. Lewinsky's requests, the investigators refused to allow her to contact Frank Carter, a lawyer arranged for her by Mr. Jordan.

They claimed the case was “time-sensitive,” presumably referring to the Jones case, although Mr. Starr denies this.

Additionally, Ms. Lewinsky reveals that Ms. Tripp was present during the initial stages of the interrogation.

Ms. Lewinsky instructed the prosecutors to make Ms. Tripp stay and watch, expressing her desire for Ms. Tripp to witness the consequences of her treachery.

Later, when Ms. Lewinsky was allowed to take a walk under FBI surveillance, she unexpectedly ran into Ms. Tripp.

If she had known the extent of Ms. Tripp's betrayal at that time, she confesses to Mr. Morton that she would have attempted to harm her