Another photograph has emerged showing President Clinton and a smiling former White House intern, Ms Monica Lewinsky, embracing. The photograph, published on the cover of Time magazine, shows the two in an embrace at a Democratic Party fundraising event in October 1996, the magazine says.
The photo is similar to a frequently played videotape of an event at the White House where Mr Clinton, as he greets members of a crowd, embraces Ms Lewinsky, the former White House intern with whom Mr Clinton allegedly had an affair.
Meanwhile, the literary agent behind the clandestinely taped conversations about sex with President Clinton said yesterday a plot to steal a key piece of evidence - a dress allegedly worn during an Oval Office tryst - was just "a fantasy". Ms Lucianne Goldberg told the Fox network that she and Ms Linda Tripp, who taped the former White House intern, Ms Lewinsky, and her discussions of her alleged presidential affair, "were just winging a fantasy on it". Ms Tripp "called me and said, `You are not going to be believe what this girl has, what she kept as a souvenir"', said Ms Goldberg, whose association with Ms Tripp began when the Pentagon employee planned to write a book on White House secrets.
"And she [Tripp] was right," Ms Goldberg continued. "I had a hard time believing it. And then because we spoke to each other every day at that period of time . . . we were just winging a fantasy on it."
The plan to steal the dress, which Ms Lewinsky turned over to the special prosecutor, Mr Kenneth Starr, for DNA testing by the FBI, was first reported in the latest issue of Newsweek magazine.
Newsweek says Ms Goldberg encouraged Ms Tripp, who formerly worked with Ms Lewinsky at the Pentagon, to steal the dress in order to have "irrefutable evidence" of the alleged liaison between Ms Lewinsky and Mr Clinton.
Mr Starr is investigating whether Mr Clinton lied under oath or tried to persuade Ms Lewinsky to lie about the alleged affair. Ms Goldberg told the Fox network Ms Tripp had been inside Ms Lewinsky's apartment in the Watergate complex and had observed "souvenirs, and gifts, and kind of a little shrine on a dresser, pictures and what have you" relating to Mr Clinton. She described the items as "all soap opera stuff". Ms Goldberg said "only 40 per cent" of Ms Tripp's recent testimony to Mr Starr's grand jury pertained to the Lewinsky matter, noting that Ms Tripp had worked for two senior officials in the Clinton administration before the sex-and-perjury scandal erupted in mid-January.
Appearing to be shielding Ms Tripp from blame in the scandal, Ms Goldberg reiterated that she had urged her former client to secretly tape-record Ms Lewinsky's confidences about Mr Clinton.
Ms Goldberg also said she had advised Ms Tripp it was legal for her to tape the calls. The literary agent did not explain whether she knew that in Maryland state, where Ms Tripp lives, such an act is illegal.