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| For Immediate Release | |
| May 19, 1999 | Contact: Press Office 202-646-5172 |
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Previously Found By Court to Have Lied and Ordered to Pay Attorneys' Fees and Costs for New Deposition Court Allows Questioning on Notes Stephanopoulos Took for Recent Book on Clinton White House (Washington, May 19). A federal court ordered George Stephanopoulos to appear for a continued deposition in Judicial Watch's Filegate lawsuit and to submit to questioning on previously undisclosed notes he had taken while working for the Clinton White House. The Court had previously found Stephanopoulos to have lied in an earlier Judicial Watch deposition about whether he had conducted a search for documents. As a result, the Court ordered Stephanopoulos to conduct a new search and to submit to a second deposition, in addition to paying Judicial Watch's attorneys' fees and costs (which Judicial Watch estimates will run close to $20,000). >When an unkempt Stephanopoulos appeared for his second Court-ordered deposition on February 16, 1999, it quickly became clear that, contrary to explicit Court orders, Stephanopoulos did not conduct a second search for documents. Additionally, it was learned that Stephanopoulos had tapes of classes relating to the Clinton presidency he taught at Columbia University - tapes which should have been searched in response to the Court's orders. Thus, there was questioning by Judicial Watch on the subject matters of the classes Stephanopoulos taught at Columbia to see if he talked about Filegate or related matters. Stephanopoulos unilaterally walked out of the deposition before Judicial Watch could uncover just what topics, especially Filegate, might have been on the tapes of his classes. Though the Court later ruled this line of questioning not relevant (Judicial Watch disagrees, but respects the Court's decision), Judicial Watch was given the opportunity to bring Stephanopoulos back again to question him a third time on his document search and new matters. In his March 9, 1998 Filegate deposition, Stephanopoulos denied under oath keeping notes on official matters at the White House, saying only he kept "some personal notes" which were "all about my private life..." Yet in his new book he admits that, contrary to his sworn testimony, he kept or used detailed notes and chronologies of official events at the White House. Judicial Watch alerted the Court to this and the Court ruled Monday that the issue of the notes and whether there was anything in them on Filegate were "valid issues." Stephanopoulos thus has a lot of explaining to do at his third deposition. |
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