Editing Starr Report (section)

==Background==
Initially chosen as [[United States Office of the Independent Counsel|Independent Counsel]] in 1994, and charged with investigating Bill and [[Hillary Clinton]]'s pre-presidency financial dealings with the [[Whitewater scandal|Whitewater Land Company]],<ref name=Kyvig2008USNWR>{{cite news| title=Past and Present: The Starr Report and Clinton Impeachment| url=https://www.usnews.com/opinion/articles/2008/09/11/past-and-present-the-starr-report-and-clinton-impeachment| last=Kyvig| first=David E.| date=September 11, 2008| work=U.S. News & World Report| access-date=June 9, 2019}}</ref> [[Ken Starr]], with the approval of [[Attorney General of the United States|Attorney General]] [[Janet Reno]], conducted a wide-ranging investigation of alleged abuses including [[White House travel office controversy|the firing of White House travel agents]], the alleged misuse of FBI files, and Clinton's conduct while he was a defendant in a [[sexual harassment]] lawsuit filed by a former [[Arkansas]] [[State governments of the United States|state government]] employee, [[Paula Jones]]. In the course of the investigation, [[Linda Tripp]] provided Starr with taped phone conversations in which [[Monica Lewinsky]], a former White House Intern, discussed having [[oral sex]] with the president. Clinton gave a [[Deposition (law)|sworn deposition]] in the Jones case on January 17, 1998, during which he denied having a "sexual relationship", "sexual affair" or "sexual relations" with Lewinsky. He also denied that he was ever alone with her. Seven months later, on August 17, Clinton faced a federal grand jury, convened by Ken Starr, to consider whether the president committed perjury in his January deposition, or otherwise obstructed justice, in the Jones case.<ref name="LinderUMKCSL">{{cite web| last=Linder| first=Douglas O.| title=The Impeachment Trial of President William Clinton: An Account| url=https://www.famous-trials.com/clinton/884-home| work=Famous Trials| publisher=University of Missouri–Kansas City School of Law| access-date=June 9, 2019}}</ref> A much-quoted statement from the deposition shows Clinton questioning the precise use of the word "is", saying, "It depends on what the meaning of the word 'is' is. If the—if he—if 'is' means is and never has been, that is not—that is one thing. If it means there is none, that was a completely true statement".<ref>{{cite web | title= Starr Report: Narrative | url= http://icreport.access.gpo.gov/report/6narrit.htm#N_1091_ | archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20001203073600/http://icreport.access.gpo.gov/report/6narrit.htm#N_1091_ | url-status= dead | archive-date= December 3, 2000 | work= Nature of President Clinton's Relationship with Monica Lewinsky | publisher= [[United States Government Printing Office|U.S. Government Printing Office]] | location= [[Washington, D.C.]] | date= May 19, 2004 | access-date= May 9, 2009 }}</ref> Clinton contended that his January statement that "there's nothing going on between us" had been truthful because he had no ongoing relationship with Lewinsky at the time he was questioned. He also stated that oral sex was not, in his opinion, "sexual relations" within the meaning of that term as adopted in the Jones case (i.e. [[vagina]]l [[Sexual intercourse|intercourse]]).<ref name="LinderUMKCSL" />

The Office of the Independent Counsel concluded its four-year-long investigation of the president soon after Clinton's grand jury testimony, and on September 9, 1998, delivered its report to the [[United States House Committee on the Judiciary|House Judiciary Committee]]. Republican House leaders argued for the report's immediate release via the internet, while Democrats appealed for delay in order to allow the White House time to prepare a response.<ref name=Kyvig2008USNWR/> After two days of debate, on September 11, the House voted 363–63 to release the report to the public.<ref name="Graham Murphy 2018">{{cite web | last1=Graham | first1=David A. | last2=Murphy | first2=Cullen | title=The Clinton Impeachment, as Told by the People Who Lived It | website=The Atlantic | date=November 15, 2018 | url=https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/12/clinton-impeachment/573940/ | access-date=February 3, 2019}}</ref> When the report, a 453-page document summarizing the evidence against the president,<ref name=LinderUMKCSL/> was uploaded to the internet, it became a sensation, with 20 million people (12% of adult Americans) accessing the document at least once. "It's probably the single highest number of people who have ever used the computer to access a single document," David Webber of the Frank Luntz polling company told CNN.<ref name="CNN 1998">{{cite web| title=20 million Americans see Starr's report on Internet| website=cnn.com| date=September 13, 1998| url=http://www.cnn.com/TECH/computing/9809/13/internet.starr/| access-date=February 3, 2019}}</ref>