Bill Clinton: “Let me explain that, if I might. If you'll note that there was--I think the problem here, and this may go to the…”

“Let me explain that, if I might. If you'll note that there was--I think the problem here, and this may go to the questions that all of you are asking, including the question Helen [Helen Thomas, United Press International] asked, is that there was a certain--and your perception of it, I think, may be rooted in the fact that there was a certain kind of ad hoc quality to it. That is, what we should have had and what we now have is an organized firewall, so that an advance judgment would have to be made before every meeting and every telephone conversation by someone charged with the responsibility for making that judgment and someone with the requisite knowledge to make it. That, I think, is the problem, so that these things that don't just happen by happenstance in an area which is highly charged and of great public interest. I think that is the issue, is setting up a system. We believe we now have a system that will work. So that if in the future you come to us and say, ``Was there a meeting? Was there a conversation?'' we'll be able to say, ``No, there wasn't,'' or, ``Yes, there was. Here's what happened. Here's who approved it. Here's why it occurred.'' Boom. And instead of having what happened happen, where everybody tries to go back and reconstitute, in effect, a set of things that just sort of occurred in serial fashion where there was no organized dealing with this, I think we have dealt with it now in an appropriate way. I don't think we will have this problem again.”