MSNBC

Sunday, Feb. 8

White House employee Ashley Raines leaves the federal courthouse after testifying before the grand jury Jan. 29

A second confidante
Newsweek, quoting anonymous sources, reports Sunday that a White House friend of Lewinsky, Ashley Raines, has spoken to Starr’s investigators and given them accounts of what Lewinsky told her of the alleged affair. The magazine says that in addition to talking to Raines, Lewinsky played for her tape-recorded telephone messages the president left on the former intern’s answering machine. Sources close to former White House staffer Linda Tripp say she has told investigators she heard recorded messages that Clinton left for Lewinsky. White House spokesman Joe Lockhart labels the leak that produced the Newsweek story part of “a campaign of misinformation and intimidation” by Starr.

Talk show duels
Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss., says on CBS’ “Face the Nation” that as long as the president refuses to give a full accounting of his relationship with Lewinsky, “the problem will hang out there.” Clinton political aide Paul Begala, on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” and former White House Chief of Staff Harold Ickes, on C-Span’s “Washington Journal,” accuse Starr of being corrupt and beholden to special interests. “If a common street mugger had been handled the way Monica Lewinsky was handled by Starr’s team there would have been an outcry by the civil-liberties union and others,” Ickes says.

President’s popularity up again
An NBC News-Wall Street Journal poll finds Clinton’s job-approval rating has hit another new high, with 79 percent of Americans praising his handling of his job. Americans also are saying “enough” when it comes to the White House sex crisis, with 58 percent saying they are satisfied that Clinton has said enough and just 38 percent said he “needs to provide more information.” Starr fares worse: 64 percent of those questioned say that he is “using the investigation for partisan, political purposes,” up from 57 percent the previous week.

White House aide comments

White House political aide Paul Begala, on “Meet The Press,” on why the president has been advised by attorneys to remain silent