President Clinton may have sealed his fate last summer when he took the ill-advised step of agreeing not only to testify before a federal grand jury but to have that testimony videotaped, according to leading defense attorneys. It is just the nature of the system.
Grand juries belong to the prosecutor.
Normally, no defense attorneys are permitted to be present, although in Clinton's unique case his personal attorney, David Kendall, was allowed to attend as Starr and his staff asked intimate questions about the president's extramarital affair with Monica Lewinsky. The president also appeared to be distinctly uncomfortable as he sought to explain how his responses in a January deposition denying a sexual relationship with Lewinsky were legally accurate. The last place the target of a criminal investigation wants to be is before a grand jury. There's no one there to protect you. Those warnings of legal doom usually work with the average criminal defendant, but the president of the United States is unlike any other client.