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.
     I 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. I 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.
     I 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 with 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
    and 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 I 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" wasnot only my 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.