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My name is Julie Hiatt Steele. I have lived in Richmond, Virginia for the past twenty-one years. Next month I will be fifty-three years old. I am the mother of four children, three surviving, and the grandmother of two, Divorced, in 1984,1 became the single-parent of my youngest child, Adam, when I adopted him in Romania in 1990. He was ten weeks old when I found him, we recently celebrated his ninth birthday.
I have never committed a crime -- 1 have never even been cited for a traffic violation. had no political history, connections, or agenda in 1997. I voted for George Bush in 1992 and did not vote in 1996, a mistake I have no intention of repeating. I have never met, nor have I spoken with, the President, Mrs. Clinton, Paula Jones, Monica Lewinsky, Linda Tripp, or Ken Starr, I have no friends working in the White House and I have never been employed by the government. 1 have never been to the White House, even as a tourist. I certainly have never been threatened by the White House or by anyone associated with the White House.
My family and I have learned that this is not the country we thought we lived in. I have been humiliated and bullied; I have been persecuted and ultimately prosecuted, by Kenneth Starr and the OIC for refusing to corroborate Kathleen Willey's claim that President Clinton groped her. I also have been financially destroyed. I lost my iob, and have been unable to work. I am now losing a home I once owned free and clear.
Letters, email, and small defense fund conitibutions from across the country have been, and still are, a lifeline. Americans have been generous in their support and with their concern. Together we ponder how this could possibly have happened to me, privately they acknowledge it could have happened to any one of them. In our country? None of us thought so at one time...
I have thought a great deal about the day that changed my life forever, It must have been a normal day, a day filled with routine, pleasant, irritating, and joyous moments. Just an ordinary day, not recognized for the treasure it was, passed over in quest of some rare and perfect tomorrow.
I do recall one part of that day with absolute clarity, and with regret. Honoring her last minute request, I did a favor for Kathleen Willey and trusted a reporter, in opening the door to Michael Isikoff I literally stepped in front of a freight train. it was a train ultimately controlled by Kenneth Starr and loaded with all the power and financial resources of the United States Government, It became known as "Criminal No. 99-9A." I never even saw it coming...
That seemingly normal day in March 1997 changed my life forever. Rushed, and worried about running late to pick Adam up, with the reporter en route to my house, Kathy Willey asked me to lie to him. I was to say that she had told me that the President groped her. I made a big mistake by taking the path of least resistance, by lying for someone I thought was my friend. Although Willey and Isikoff had told me it would be "off-the-record," months later I learned he now wanted to print it. I called him and told him the truth -- a truth that earned me no favors,no fortune and no glory. Following his August 1997 article, with both the truth and Kathy's lie:
- On February 13, 1998, I provided an affidavit to President Clinton's attorneys in Jones v. Clinton. I explained what I had done. I did so believing then, as now, that it was the right thing to do. I was relieved that I could finally, in my own words, set the record straight.
- In late February my former attorneys were contacted by producers from Sixty Minutes. The producers claimed to have been told that my son's adoption was illegal. Much later we learned that Kathy Willey was the source of this despicable allegation. Adam was, in fact, legally adopted in Romania in 1990, and in the United States in 1991. And Kathy Willey knew that.
- On March 10, 1998, FBI agents with the, OIC appeared at my door, They announced that they needed to speak nth me for a few minutes about Willey, On the advice of counsel, we agreed to meet in my attorney's office later that same day. I willingly met with the OIC. I was not concerned when my attorney left me alone with federal agents for several hours. As my attorney pointed out, I was innocent of wrong doing, not accused of any crime, and of course, was telling the truth.
- I had no idea that the OIC had already met with Kathy Willey. I had no idea that the OIC had granted her transactional immunity before even talking to her, let alone talking to me. In fact, Willey was testifying in the grand jury as I was being questioned by Ken Starr's agents in Richmond. Telling the truth to agents would result in one count of "false statements" in my indictment; they alleged that I lied when I said that Willey never told me about the so-called grope.
- On June 11, 1998, I testified before the grand jury in the District of Columbia. I did so, with assurance, written and verbal, that I was there only as a witness I was told that I was not the subject of investigation, and that if I asserted the fifth amendment, it would be challenged because there was no basis for it. Four prosecutors were in the grand jury, including Jackie Bennett, whose role was simply to glare at me, The majority of questions related to Michael Isikoff; not Willey. Later my repeating to that grand jury at the OIC's request, that Willey had never told me about the so-called grope would become an obstruction of justice count in my indictment.
- I was excused at the end of the day. Believing that the matter was over for me, I publicly apologized to the First Family for lying for Willey and filed a lawsuit against Isikoff and Newsweek Magazine that same day.
- The OIC's pressure tactics began immediately. FBI agents made numerous visits to Richmond. The OIC subpoenaed my credit report ana reviewed documents relating to my 1984 divorce.
- In July, I was called to a different grand jury in Virginia and was lied to about the reason for the venue change, I was informed, again in writing and contrary to the previous OIC statement, that I was a subject of investigation and always had been. My new counsel told me to assert the fifth amendment but when I tried to do so, I was bullied into answering the same question I had been asked by the FBI agents and in front of the D.C, grand jury, and I gave' the same answer: that Willey had asked me to lie. That was the fourth count in the indictment, yet another count of obstruction of justice.
- The OIC examined every check 1 have ever written. They obtained copies of every possible financial transaction from original application to actual credit card account, they combed through all of my records.
- Nothing was sacred, nothing, was private, not even my lock box with my son's death certificate and Adams adoption paper work was out of bounds.
- They took Possession of any original tax records dating, back to 1991. My CPA was called before the Grand Jury on two occasions and was even questioned about our medical expenses, I later learned they began compiling records of all incoming and outgoing phone calls the same day FBI agents came to my door, March 1 1998 (even tough I was not then a subject of the investigation). Local and long distance calls were tracked thus providing the OIC with names and phone numbers of calls both made and received. My Long-distance phone records, dating as far back as possible, were subpoenaed and analyzed.
- Friends and former friends, acquaintances and strangers, were confronted by FBI Agents at their doors. In one case, a woman Kathy Willey swore was my best friend, Adam's baby-sitter, and my former employee, was terrorized for forty-five minutes before she was told why they had come to her house, She had never taken care of Adam, worked for me, been my best friend, or heard of me. We have, in fact, never met. Friends, family, acquaintances, former employers, and people I did not think I knew were paraded before the grand jury. In more than one case entire families , were brought to the grand jury.
- That I had never met some of these people seemed as irrelevant as the truth had become.
My family members were also called to the grand jury, My brother testified, as did one of my daughters. He was asked about Adam's adoption in the grand jury. My attorney told me that she has never in all of her years, as both a federal prosecutor and as a criminal defense attorney, witnessed these kind of abuses. For example, a neighbor, also called to testify because he had once dated my daughter, was asked if he had sex with me.
And always, always, sprinkled throughout their questioning in testimony and in their "home visits" the suggestion was made by the OIC that Adam's adoption might not be legal. Not surprisingly, friends who traditionally joined our family for Christmas dinner canceled for 1998. They feared Ken Starr and were afraid to be seen at my house. Other friends stopped me in crowded public places to express concern, to whisper their fears of Ken Starr, and to explain and to apologize for their lack of communication. Richmonders were afraid to call the house, afraid to invite us to their homes, afraid to ever send a note through the mail.
Adam, who lived through this nightmare with me, has endured assaults and despicable allegations about his adoption that no child should ever be called upon to tolerate. Nightmares became his norm and my own, Adam had not been invited to a birthday party since my indictment. At age eight. he has spent more than twenty-five percent of his life caught in a national drama that continues to be painful and to defy logic.
Where was justice? My lawyer wrote to Janet Reno several times - questioning Starr's jurisdiction to investigate me, his conflict of interest in investigating Jones v. Clinton, and his repeated failure to follow Department of Justice policy. She did not respond. My lawyer filed pleadings with the Chief Judge of the District of Columbia, challenging Ken Starr's Rule 6e violations. She did not rule.
And where was Congress? As ordinary citizens cowered in fear of an American: Gestapo. why did we not see outrage? Are partisan politics more important than right and wrong? Are partisan politics more important than the individual rights of the citizens you were elected to represent? This was not "rocket science," Ken Starr's abuse of authority was blatant and horrifying. Although I contacted both of my Senators last winter, To date, neither Senator Robb nor Senator Warner has returned my calls.
And where was the press? They say that we are "scandal weary" but they miss the point if they fail to understand that we never cared about Monica or her blue dress. We do care about privacy and individual rights, his, hers, and ours. We do care that a monster was unleashed and that some of us have learned how it feels to live in terror, We do care that our elected representatives remained on their opposite sides of the aisle, refusing to stop him.
My "crime" was my only calling a liar a liar, it was speaking out about what the OIC was doing to me. After going on Larry King Live, the pressure increased; the day Anthony Lewis wrote about me In the New York Times, I was told I was a target; and when the OIC wanted to keep all the information they were giving me a discovery secret, they said that they feared I would tell the press.
Ken Starr knew his star witness against President Clinton, Kathleen Willey, was a liar. Here's what he knew:
- Ken Starr knew that while claiming to be a reluctant witness, Willey had attempted to sell her ever-changing story and had contacted New York literary agents at least two months prior to her story becoming public in August 1997.
- Ken Starr know that Willey had attempted to market her ever-changing story to Michael Viner of Millennium Media for a book deal before testifying in the Paula Jones case. He also knew that she was attempting to sell her story to Gooding at The Star, her asking price was "well over $300,000" .
- Ken Starr knew that Willey had been secretly conferring with the Jones lawyers even as she assured the Clinton lawyers that she was a "friend of the administration." During this same period, on November 10, 1997, she wrote yet another letter to the White house, asking to be invited to their Christmas party.
- Ken Starr knew that Willey's allegations were inconsistent, that her story changed, every time she told it and that she had failed a lie detector test administered by the OIC.
- Ken Starr knew that Willey's allegations of a threatening jogger came long after it allegedly occurred, just as she was asked to explain the vast discrepancies in her sworn testimony. Her testimony had evolved from no White House problem on the day in question in Civil Court records, to sixty-three times that she said that she did "not remember" or did "not recall" in the Jones deposition, to, less than six weeks later "recalling" her alleged experience in great detail for Sixty Minutes and the nation.
- Ken Starr knew it would be difficult for any rational person to believe that Willey, predawn, in pouring rain, post surgery and with a neck brace, unable to sleep, took three dogs on leashes to walk on the road. To take it one step further and believe that an anonymous jogger was waiting in the predawn, pouring rain, hoping that having recently had surgery she would be unable to steep and decide to walk her dogs his way so that he could threaten her is astounding.
- Ken Starr know, as five witnesses who the OIC interviewed also knew, that Willey had, in fact, been seeking a relationship with the President and was enthralled with him. Linda Tripp even told him Willey said nothing about a grope, and was happy about whatever had happened...
- Ken Starr knew that Willey had called one person the night the incident had actually occurred and told that person she had met privately with the President and was thrilled.
- Ken Starr wanted me silenced so much that Willey was given a second, sweeping and unprecedented immunity agreement after she lied directly to the OIC and violated her original immunity agreement. Kenneth Starr was willing, at all costs, including sending me to prison for forty years, to protect and maintain the fiction that Willey was a credible wittness.
- Ken Starr knew that my sister received a threatening call on November 1, 1998, A male caller told her that she needed to tell her sister "if she knows what is good for her and her son, she will back Willey's story." This call and two later incidents were immediately reported to the Justice Dept., PBI, and local authorities. We went, in the case of the Phone call, from assurances of immediate answers to no answer at all. My sister finally involved a family friend, Congressman Bill McCullum, Mr. McCullum spoke at length with the Director of the FBI and was told that it would be investigated, We have recently learned, from the DOJ, that the OIC took the case and that a"highly placed individual" there ordered that no investigation be conducted, Despite the fact that David Barger specifically asked a female witness in the Grand Jury if she made the call, Barger and Starr both denied any knowledge of the call. Mr. McCullum has only recently learned that there was no investigation, he pledged his support to my sister and has assigned staff for follow-up. He has assured our family that we will get answers as to why there was never any investigation and who gave that order.
My crime was standing up to Ken Starr. My crime was speaking out against him and his Gestapo tactics. My crime was telling the truth, the real truth, and not the "Ken Starr amended and revised" version of truth provided to me during the last-chance "secret" meeting I had with him on November 9, 1998. I left that meeting in tears because we learned that my failure to endorse their version of truth would result in my indictment.
I was given several choices that day. I could say that the grope was consensual or that it was non-consensual; or I could choose my own day, week, month, and year to claim that I had been told about the grope. I could confirm the grope or be indicted. I could not confirm the grope. I had no such information. I only had the truth. I went home and waited to be indicted.
You have now heard at least part of what my defense would have been had we presented one. I trusted my lawyer when she said Starr had not proven his case. I also realized that there were witnesses who feared Willey. Other witnesses had families who would clearly be hurt by testimony. Absent the need to do otherwise, the right answer for me was to stop, It was time to draw the line.
The fact remains that a 53 year old single parent and grandmother from Virginia should not have had to face this kind of horror, not in this country. Not in America.
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