High Crimes and Misdemeanors: The Case Against Bill Clinton

  25 Editorial, “Blame the Dead Guy,” Investor’s Business Daily, June 27, 1996.

  26 Richard L. Berke, “Travel Outfit Tied to Clinton Halts Work for White House,” New York Times, May 22, 1993.

  27 ABC’s 20/20, January 12, 1996.

  28 Thomas L. Friedman, “White House Rebukes 4 in Travel Office Shake-up,” New York Times, July 3, 1993.

  29 George Lardner, Jr., “White House Contradicted on FBI Files,” Washington Post, October 5, 1996.

  30 Mary Jacoby, “More FBI Files Traced to White House,” Chicago Tribune, June 26, 1996.

  31 Kim I. Eisler, “Fall Guy; Everyone Liked Billy Dale, But Clinton Pals Wanted His Job. In the End, Vince Foster Was Dead and Billy Dale Was Ruined. Here’s the Story Behind the Headlines,” Washingtonian, February 1996.

  32 Michael Isikoff, Ann Devroy, “FBI Says White House Invoked IRS,” Washington Post, June 11, 1993. Thomason had been encouraging the Cornelius-instigated rumors that UltrAir was paying kickbacks. Kim I. Eisler, “Fall Guy; Everyone Liked Billy Dale, But Clinton Pals Wanted His Job. In the End, Vince Foster Was Dead and Billy Dale Was Ruined. Here’s the Story Behind the Headlines,” Washingtonian, February 1996.

  33 An FBI memo summarizing this point in the conversation stated that Kennedy “commented that the matter had to be handled immediately or the matter will be referred to another agency, the IRS .” See, e.g., Michael Isikoff, Ann Devroy, “FBI Says White House Invoked IRS,” Washington Post, June 11, 1993. The White House’s own internal report on the matter states, “Kennedy said that he needed to hear from Bourke within the next fifteen minutes and that if the FBI were unable to provide guidance, Kennedy might have to seek guidance from another agency, such as the IRS,” citing the notes of Jim Bourke, the FBI Unit chief to whom Kennedy spoke. Thomas L. Friedman, “White House Rebukes 4 in Travel Office Shake-up,” New York Times, July 3, 1993.

  34 This was acknowledged in the White House’s internal report on the firings. Thomas L. Friedman, “White House Rebukes 4 in Travel Office Shake-up,” New York Times, July 3, 1993.

  35 Michael Isikoff, Ann Devroy, “FBI Says White House Invoked IRS,” Washington Post, June 11, 1993. (“An article this week in Tax Notes, a tax industry newsletter, raised questions about the propriety of the UltrAir audit, saying it appears to deviate in major ways from IRS rules. Such IRS audits, according to the article, generally are done after a tax return has been filed. In this case, UltrAir—formed in 1992—was audited before it had ever filed a tax return.”)

  36 Jeff A. Taylor, “Will Travelgate Affair Ever Die?” Investor’s Business Daily, May 29, 1996.

  37 House Report 104-849: “Investigation of the White House Travel Office Firings and Related Matters,” Report by the Committee on Government Reform and Oversight, September 26, 1996.The notes from a June 28, 1993, White House Management Review interview of Beth Nolan and Cliff Sloan of the White House Counsel’s Office revealed that Kennedy has said this. The notes read:

  “BK [Associate White House Counsel Bill Kennedy] said PR [IRS Commissioner Peggy Richardson] on top of it. She said at a party IRS on top of it and some reference to IRS agents aware or something like that.”

  38 Michael Isikoff, Ann Devroy, “FBI Says White House Invoked IRS,” Washington Post, June 11, 1993.

  39 Mitch Clarke, “Where Is Deep Throat Now? Watergate Reporter Wants ‘Credible’ Clinton Witness,” Macon Telegraph, May 13, 1998.

  40 They were: David Watkins, assistant to the president for management and administration; William Kennedy, an associate White House counsel; Jeff Eller, director of media affairs; and Catherine Cornelius, the current head of the Travel Office. Thomas L. Friedman, “White House Rebukes 4 in Travel Office Shake-up,” New York Times, July 3, 1993.

  CHAPTER 12

  1 Sandy Grady, “Clinton’s Klutzes Aren’t Crooked,” Denver Post, June 12, 1996.

  2 CNN’s Inside Politics Weekend, June 9, 1996.

  3 Sandy Grady, “Clinton’s Klutzes Aren’t Crooked,” Denver Post, June 12, 1996.

  4 John F. Harris, “White House Admits Having Background Files; Administration ‘Blunder’ Sets Off Rhetorical Firefight with Hill Republicans,” Washington Post, June 8, 1996.

  5 David A. Price, “More from the ‘Filegate’ Front; Livingstone Was Hired over More Qualified Woman,” Investor’s Business Daily, October 23, 1997.

  6 Investigators for the Senate Judiciary Committee, which held hearings on “Filegate” in 1996, discovered this.

  7 Editorial, “Phantom Appointment,” Washington Post, June 28, 1996.

  8 Former U.S. Attorney Joseph diGenova discussed the nature of FBI background files with the Scripps-Howard News Service. “Expert Says Filegate ‘Stinks to High Heaven,’” Patriot Ledger (Quincy, MA), June 19, 1996.

  9 George Lardner, Jr., “GOP Not Ready to Presume Innocence in FBI Files Fiasco,” Washington Post, September 9, 1996.

  10 David A. Price, “More from the ‘Filegate’ Front; Livingstone Was Hired over More Qualified Woman,” Investor’s Business Daily, October 23, 1997.

  11 William Safire, “Their Just Powers,” New York Times, July 4, 1996.

  12 In the letter, dated August 11, 1994, DeConcini referred to “operational inefficiencies” in White House security that had created the backlog in issuing permanent White House passes.

  13 David A. Price, “More from the ‘Filegate’ Front; Livingstone Was Hired over More Qualified Woman,” Investor’s Business Daily, October 23, 1997.

  14 Jane Crawford, “From Beaver County to White House: He Keeps Official Activities on Even Keel,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, May 22, 1994.

  15 Al Kamen, “The Livingstone Flip-Flop,” Washington Post, June 21, 1996.

  16 Rodino Report at 9.

  17 Sculimbrene’s notes were introduced as an exhibit at William Clinger’s House Government Reform and Oversight Committee hearings on August 1, 1996.

  18 Stuart Taylor, Jr., “Starr’s Newest Maneuver Works Against Him; Starr Subpoena Starts First Amendment Frenzy,” Texas Lawyer, March 9, 1998.

  19 David Brock, “Living with the Clintons,” The American Spectator, January 1994.

  20 Karen Gallo, “Candidate: Marceca Offered ‘Dirt’ on Arlen Specter,” Associated Press, July 10, 1996.

  21 George Lardner, Jr., “GOP Not Ready to Presume Innocence in FBI Files Fiasco,” Washington Post, September 9, 1996.

  22 Editorial, “The White House and the FBI,” New York Times, June 17, 1996.

  23 Juliet Eilperin, “Nearly Dozen Hill Staff Also Make FBI List,” Roll Call, June 13, 1996.

  24 Paul Johnson, Modern Times, 651 (1991).

  25 Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward, All the President’s Men, 313 (1974).

  26 Bernstein and Woodward at 314.

  27 Rodino Report at 9.

  CHAPTER 13

  1 Rodino Report at 9 (quoting James Iredell).

  2 Thomas L. Friedman, “White House Rebukes 4 in Travel Office Shake-up,” New York Times, July 3, 1993; See also Michael Isikoff, Ann Devroy, “FBI Says White House Invoked IRS,” Washington Post, June 11, 1993.

  3 House Report 104-849: “Investigation of the White House Travel Office Firings and Related Matters,” Report by the Committee on Government Reform and Oversight, September 26, 1996.

  4 Maureen Dowd, “Liberties: Something Sacred, After All,” New York Times, November 22, 1997.

  5 Federalist No. 70, at 428 (Alexander Hamilton).

  6 Rodino Report at 9.

  7 See e.g., Editorial, “White House Ethics Meltdown,” New York Times, March 4, 1994 (“It is, of course, long past time for Mr. Nussbaum to be dismissed.”).

  CHAPTER 14

  1 Walter Goodman, Television Review: “Tangled Tale of Friends, Partners, and Politicians,” New York Times, October 7, 1997.

  2 Michael Wines, “Whitewater Investigation’s Focus: Another Tangled Arkansas Deal,” New York Times, July 11, 1996.

  3 During an interview with Matt Lauer of NBC’s Today show on Tu
esday, January 27, 1998, for example, Mrs. Clinton said:This is what concerns me: This started out as an investigation of a failed land deal. I told everybody in 1992, we lost money. People said, it’s not true. You know, they made money. They have money in a Swiss bank account.

  As a certified member of the “politically motivated… right-wing opponents of [Mrs. Clinton’s] husband,” I have never heard anyone claim that the Clintons had ferreted away money in a Swiss bank account. In any event, Mrs. Clinton went on to answer her own straw man question:

  Well, it was true. It’s taken years, but it was true. We get a politically motivated prosecutor who is allied with the right-wing opponents of my husband, who has literally spent four years looking at every telephone….

  4 Editorial, “Whitewater Disinformation,” New York Times, July 26, 1994. (“It is possible that if Mr. McDougal engaged in such shenanigans, he did so without telling his partners. But at least one Resolution Trust Corporation investigator has said publicly that she finds it hard to believe that the Clintons never even tried to find out who was paying off their debts. [Clinton lawyer] Mr. Cutler seems also to have forgotten that Mrs. Clinton once represented Madison.”)

  5 The bill Mr. Clinton vetoed would have given small water companies—like the one at Castle Grande—the ability to raise their rates. See Special Committee, Investigation of Whitewater Development Corporation and Related Matters, S. REP. NO. 280, 104th Cong., 2d Sess., at 338 (1996).

  6 Special Committee, Investigation of Whitewater Development Corporation and Related Matters, S. REP. NO. 280, 104th Cong., 2d Sess., at 333-334, 338 (1996). A “couple years” earlier, on April 4, 1985, James McDougal held a fund-raiser for Governor Clinton to retire approximately $50,000 in personal debt Clinton had acquired in his 1984 gubernatorial race. More than $30,000 was raised, including three consecutively numbered Madison Guaranty cashier’s checks, each for $3,000. This and other evidence—individuals named on these checks denied having written them—suggested to investigators that Madison deposits had been laundered through phony contributors at the fund-raiser. Tucker, the future convicted governor of Arkansas, and his partner Randolph attended the fund-raising event.

  7 Michael Wines, “Whitewater Investigation’s Focus: Another Tangled Arkansas Deal,” New York Times, July 11, 1996.

  8 “Some buyers received loans that far exceeded the purchase price, but risked losing only the land if they defaulted. Some reaped sales commissions as rewards for playing the role of straw man in a deal. One loan was linked to other transactions that richly benefited the borrowers and others. Federal prosecutors say Mr. McDougal gave at least one buyer private assurances that he would not be liable for his debt. The biggest loan went to a corporation, putting the actual borrowers beyond the reach of any effort to collect on it.” Michael Wines, “Whitewater Investigation’s Focus: Another Tangled Arkansas Deal,” New York Times, July 11, 1996.

  9 Michael Wines, “Whitewater Investigation’s Focus: Another Tangled Arkansas Deal,” New York Times, July 11, 1996.

  10 Special Committee, Investigation of Whitewater Development Corporation and Related Matters, S. REP. NO. 280, 104th Cong., 2d Sess., at 357 and 355 (1996).

  11 Special Committee, Investigation of Whitewater Development Corporation and Related Matters, S. REP. NO. 280, 104th Cong., 2d Sess., at 356 (1996).

  12 Special Committee, Investigation of Whitewater Development Corporation and Related Matters, S. REP. NO. 280, 104th Cong., 2d Sess., at 357 (1996).

  13 David Maraniss and Susan Schmidt, “Hillary Clinton and the Whitewater Controversy: A Close-Up; Her Public Record Suggests Conflicts with Self-Portrait of Naivete,” Washington Post, June 2, 1996. (“And most of her work came in a concentrated period of those 15 months. What may be most significant about the billing records in any case was not the amount of time Hillary Clinton put into her Madison representation, but the nature of the work itself and when it took place. What was she actually doing during most of the hours she billed to the Madison account? According to the billing records, most of Hillary Clinton’s hours on the Madison account involved not the securities issue but a development in the swampland south of Little Rock [Castle Grande].”)

  14 Special Committee, Investigation of Whitewater Development Corporation and Related Matters, S. REP. NO. 280, 104th Cong., 2d Sess., at 356 (1996).

  15 Although the testimony of another Madison official initially supported Mrs. Clinton’s position by saying that “in his mind” Castle Grande referred solely to the trailer park, he admitted that he did not know whether that particular distinction existed in anyone else’s mind at Madison. His testimony was further undermined by a check made out to him that referred to the entire development as “Castle Grande.” David Maraniss and Susan Schmidt, “Hillary Clinton and the Whitewater Controversy: A Close-Up; Her Public Record Suggests Conflicts with Self-Portrait of Naivete,” Washington Post, June 2, 1996.

  16 The Madison loan officer was H. Don Denton, quoted in David Maraniss and Susan Schmidt, “Hillary Clinton and the Whitewater Controversy: A Close-Up; Her Public Record Suggests Conflicts with Self-Portrait of Naivete,” Washington Post, June 2, 1996.

  17 David Maraniss and Susan Schmidt, “Hillary Clinton and the Whitewater Controversy: A Close-Up; Her Public Record Suggests Conflicts with Self-Portrait of Naivete,” Washington Post, June 2, 1996.

  18 David Maraniss and Susan Schmidt, “Hillary Clinton and the Whitewater Controversy: A Close-Up; Her Public Record Suggests Conflicts with Self-Portrait of Naivete,” Washington Post, June 2, 1996 (“Articles in the Arkansas newspapers about that trial consistently referred to the entire property as Castle Grande.”).

  19 Special Committee, Investigation of Whitewater Development Corporation and Related Matters, S. REP. NO. 280, 104th Cong., 2d Sess., at 355-356 and n. 822 (1996).

  20 Special Committee, Investigation of Whitewater Development Corporation and Related Matters, S. REP. NO. 280, 104th Cong., 2d Sess., at 356 (1996).

  21 Michael Wines, “Whitewater Investigation’s Focus: Another Tangled Arkansas Deal,” New York Times, July 11, 1996.

  22 Bob Franken, “Hale Gives Loan Specifics in Arkansas Whitewater Trial,” CNN, April 2, 1996.

  23 Susan Schmidt, “Clinton Discussed Loan, Hale Testifies; Jury Is Told of Meeting in Trailer with Then-Governor and McDougal,” Washington Post, April 3, 1996.

  24 Michael Wines, “Whitewater Investigation’s Focus: Another Tangled Arkansas Deal,” New York Times, July 11, 1996.

  CHAPTER 15

  1 John Hanchette, “Questions on Land Deal, S&L Still Dog Clintons,” USA Today, January 1994.

  2 Senate Hearing 104-869: Hearings Before the Special Committee to Investigate Whitewater Development Corporation and Related Matters, Administered by the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, Vol. I, 313.

  3 Senate Hearing 104-869: Hearings Before the Special Committee to Investigate Whitewater Development Corporation and Related Matters, Administered by the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, Vol. I, 320.

  4 Senate Hearing 104-869: Hearings Before the Special Committee to Investigate Whitewater Development Corporation and Related Matters, Administered by the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, Vol. I, 334.

  5 Senate Hearing 104-869: Hearings Before the Special Committee to Investigate Whitewater Development Corporation and Related Matters, Administered by the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, Vol. I, 417.

  6 “Senate, House Committees Conclude Whitewater Hearings,” Facts on File World News Digest, August 17, 1995. Also on July 21, Bruce Abbott, a Secret Service agent, said he saw Livingstone and an unidentified man step off an elevator in the West Wing just below the White House Counsel’s Office, carrying a box and a briefcase. Susan Schmidt, “Probe Into Handling of Foster Files May Highlight Some Discrepancies; Papers Are Intact and ‘Innocuous,’” Washington Post, July 10, 1995. It is unknown whether this was a coincidence or if investigators have connected the box o
f papers and briefcase to papers being removed from Foster’s office.

  7 Special Committee to Investigate Whitewater Development Corporation and Related Matters, August 9, 1995 (Statement of Bernard W. Nussbaum) (“But I did not speak to the President or the First Lady about this matter. Nor did Susan Thomases, or anyone else, convey a message to me, from either of them. Susan Thomases did not discuss the First Lady’s views with me.”). Phone records clearly indicate that Thomases called Nussbaum moments after getting off the phone with the first lady.

  8 Bill Turque and Michael Isikoff, “Lost in Whitewater,” Newsweek, December 18, 1995.

  9 Bill Turque and Michael Isikoff, “Lost in Whitewater,” Newsweek, December 18, 1995.

  10 Senate Hearing 104-869: Hearings Before the Special Committee to Investigate Whitewater Development Corporation and Related Matters, Administered by the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, Vol. I, 762.

  11 “Senate Whitewater Hearings—Day 10—Part 7,” CNN, Transcript #1083-6, August 9, 1995.

  12 Senate Hearing 104-869: Hearings Before the Special Committee to Investigate Whitewater Development Corporation and Related Matters, Administered by the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, Vol. I, 417.

  13 Kim Isaac Eisler, “All the President’s Lawyers,” Washingtonian, August 1996.

  14 Sara Fritz, “First Lady’s Top Aide Said to Remove Foster Office Files,” Los Angeles Times, July 27, 1995.

  15 Sara Fritz, “First Lady’s Top Aide Said to Remove Foster Office Files,” Los Angeles Times, July 27, 1995.

  16 The two aides were Thomas Castleton, a Counsel’s Office clerk, and Carolyn Huber, a longtime aide to the Clintons.

  17 Bill Turque and Michael Isikoff, “Lost in Whitewater,” Newsweek, December 18, 1995.

  18 Editorial, “White House Ethics Meltdown,” New York Times, March 4, 1994.