Hillary: Bill lied to me about Monica

Published on Thursday 5 June 2003 01:00

HILLARY CLINTON has said her husband lied to her about his relationship with Monica Lewinsky until the weekend before he admitted it to a grand jury.

The former First Lady, now a Democrat senator from New York, vividly describes her pain over Bill Clinton’s betrayal in Living History, her new memoir covering her eight years in the White House.

"The most difficult decisions I have made in my life were to stay married to Bill and to run for the Senate from New York," she writes.

She says she accepted her husband’s story at first - that he had befriended White House intern, Monica Lewinsky, when she asked for job-hunting help, "had talked to her a few times" - and that the relationship had been horribly misconstrued.

"For me, the Lewinsky imbroglio seemed like just another vicious scandal manufactured by political opponents."

More than six months later, with the president preparing to testify before a grand jury, Mrs Clinton was still adamant that her husband was innocent.

Then, on the morning of Saturday, August 15, 1998, he woke her, paced at the bedside, and "told me for the first time that the situation was much more serious than he had previously acknowledged".

"He now realised he would have to testify that there had been an inappropriate intimacy. He told me that what happened between them had been brief and sporadic." He was ashamed and knew she would be angry, she recounts.

"I could hardly breathe. Gulping for air, I started crying and yelling at him ‘What do you mean? What are you saying? Why did you lie to me?’

"I was furious and getting more so by the second. He just stood there saying over and over again, ‘I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I was trying to protect you and Chelsea’."

Mrs Clinton’s 562-page book has been highly anticipated. Publisher Simon & Schuster, expecting large sales, ordered an extraordinary first printing of one million copies.

She was paid a 1.9 million advance toward the 5.3 million book deal.