The American Spectator

TAS Live

Slick Billy

By Byron York on 11.15.98 @ 10:25AM

(Page 5 of 14)

"Now if you notice, in terms of these eleven calls, all of them are from or to the 4402 extension, which is the one that comes back to Isabelle Watkins' name. Do you see that, sir?

"Yeah."

"And I will represent to you that we have looked over all the phone records we have, and we did not see any records during this time frame, namely between after the call on the 21st until the 30th, we did not see any other calls from the 4404 extension. Okay, sir?"

"Yeah."

"Now do you know why...in your mind is there any rhyme or reason to when Ms. Watkins would choose to use your extension versus her own?"

"She frequently uses my extension, you know. That's all I can tell you."

A few weeks later, when Starr's prosecutors questioned Watkins, she also testified that she used her own 4402 line and Richardson's 4404 line interchangeably. She did not remember making the call to Lewinsky -- but seemed absolutely certain it was not made by Richardson.

"Do you know if you made a call to Monica Lewinsky for five minutes and 42 seconds on that day?" Bienert asked.

"Well, it has to be me," Watkins answered.

"Okay," Bienert said. "Tell me about the first conversation you had with Ms. Lewinsky."

"I really don't remember exactly, other than I was trying to schedule a meeting for her with the ambassador."

"How sure are you that you were the person who even would have made the call on that date?"

"Well, I mean, maybe someone else in the office made the call. It wasn't the ambassador if it wasn't me. I mean, it would have been me."

"Okay. When you say it wasn't the ambassador, how do you know?"

"Because he just doesn't. He doesn't place his own calls."

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