Page after page of the Willey deposition reads like this:
Q: At any time during this meeting with Mr. Clinton did he physically do anything other than sit behind his desk….
A: No.
Q: Did you, during this meeting with Mr. Clinton, did you ever physically do anything other than sit in front of his desk?
A: No.
Q: How did the meeting with Mr. Clinton conclude?
A: I left.
Q: Is there anything that you said before you left that you haven’t told us here today?
A: I don’t think so.
Q: Is there anything that Mr. Clinton said to you during that meeting that you have not told us here today?
A: No.
Q: At any time during that meeting did Mr. Clinton approach you physically?
A: In the Oval Office?
Q: At any time in your meeting with him that day. In any meeting that day.
A: Yes.
Q: Please explain that situation.
A: Do you want to know—what do you want to know?
Even when Campbell had finally maneuvered Willey to the precise location of the presidential grope—“at the door in the private hallway leading back into the Oval Office”—Willey was not exactly forthcoming:
Q: And then what happened?
A: Then he hugged me again and said that they would try to help me.
Q: And was that at the door in the private hallway leading back into the Oval Office?
A: Yes.
Q: And please describe the exact physical nature of the hug.
A: It was a hug.
Q: Is that all? Just an embrace?
A: It was a hug.
Q: Can you describe it any more fully than that?
A: Just a big hug.
Q: Did you hug him back?
A: I think so. I mean, I think so. I mean, I don’t really recall if I did or not.
Q: After that hug, what happened after that?
A: Well, it continued.
Q: Okay, please describe exactly how it continued.
A: The hug just continued longer than I expected.
Q: Can you give us an estimation as to how long the hug continued?
A: No.
When Campbell asked point-blank about any kissing, Willey at first admitted only to “an attempt”:
Q: Please describe that as fully as you can.
A: He attempted to kiss me.
Q: Mr. Clinton did?
A: Yes.
Q: On the lips?
A: Yes.
Q: Anyplace else? On the neck?
A: No.
Q: And what was your response to that attempt?
A: Surprise.
Q: Did you allow him to kiss you?
A: I don’t think so.
Q: Was he successful in kissing you?
A: I can’t remember.
Willey’s obstinacy finally drew a rebuke from the court. When Willey claimed not to “recall” whether Clinton had touched any part of her body apart from the hug, the judge interjected:I think what Mr. Campbell wants to know is if there was any physical contact between you and the president which had a sexual connotation, and I think you can answer that.
Still Willey obfuscated. Later the court again instructed Willey to answer the questions, saying, “We’ve got to move along.”
Finally the “Simon Says” game paid off:
Q: Did Mr. Clinton ever place his hands on any part of your buttocks?
A: I don’t remember….
Q: You can’t categorically say he did not; is that correct?
A: Correct.
Q: Did Mr. Clinton ever seek to take either of your hands and place it on his body anyplace?
A: Yes.
Q: Please describe that….
A: He put his hands—he put my hands on his genitals.
Q: Which hand?
A: I don’t recall.
Q: And approximately how long did that last?
A: I don’t recall.
Q: What was your reaction?
A: It was very unexpected.
Q: Were you surprised?
A: Yes.
Q: Did you resist?
A: Yes.
Q: How?
A: I just resisted.
Q: Did you try to push him away?
A: Yes.
Q: Were you successful?
A: Yes.
Q: Immediately successful?
A: I don’t recall the time frame.
Q: Did you attempt to withdraw your hand from his genital area?
A: Yes.
Q: Promptly?
A: Yes.
Q: Were you successful?
A: As best I recall.
Q: Could you tell whether he was aroused?
A: Yes.
Q: And was he?
A: Yes.
Q: After you withdrew your hand from his genital area, what’s the next physical thing that happened during that encounter?
A: I left.
Q: Did you have to gain release from his embrace in order to leave the room?
A: Yes.
Q: Did Mr. Clinton attempt to touch your breasts?
A: I think so.
Q: And what’s the basis for your thinking so?
A: I have a recollection of that.
Q: Was he successful?
A: Yes.
Q: Can you tell us whether the touching of your breasts occurred before or after Mr. Clinton took your hand and put it on his genitals?
A: I don’t recall.
Q: Did you ask him to stop?
A: I don’t think I verbally did.
Q: Do you think you did nonverbally?
A: Yes.
Q: By what?
A: By resisting.
Q: At any time during—from the beginning of this hugging incident that you’re just now describing up through to the point in time that you broke away and left the room, did he say anything to you?
A: Yes.
Q: Please tell us what he said.
A: I recall him saying that he had wanted to do that for a long time.
Q: Was he referring to the physical contact?
A: I don’t know.
“I DID TO HER WHAT I HAVE DONE TO SCORES AND SCORES OF… WOMEN…”
About a week later, during his deposition in the Jones case on Saturday, January 17, 1998, Clinton said under oath that he “emphatically den[ied]” Willey’s account. But he contradicted his lawyer’s earlier statement that he had “no specific recollection of meeting [Willey] in the Oval Office.”
Q: Mr. President, did Kathleen Willey ever give you permission to touch her breasts?
A: No, I never asked, and I never did.
Q: Did she ever give you permission to kiss her on the lips?
A: No.
Q: Did you ever attempt to kiss her on the lips?
A: No.
Q: Did you ever attempt to touch her breasts?
A: No.
Q: Did Kathleen Willey ever give you permission to take her hand and place it on your genitals?
A: No, she didn’t.
Q: Did you at any time have any form of sexual relations with Kathleen Willey?
A: No, I didn’t.
In the midst of answering questions about his allegedly groping of a White House volunteer, Clinton was able to recall his moralistic opposition to the consumption of alcoholic beverages:
Q: What did you have to drink?
A: I don’t remember.
Q: Was it alcoholic?
A: Oh, no, no, I don’t serve alcohol there in the office of the White House.
Q: Not ever?
A: Never.
No, it might interfere with his sexual potency.
Q: All right. Having read a summary of her testimony, are you aware that she has testified that you kissed her in the hallway between the Oval Office and the private kitchen?
A: I am aware of that.
Q: And you’re aware that she testified tha
t you took her hand and put it on your penis?
A: I’m aware of that.
Q: All right, and you deny that testimony?
A: I emphatically deny it. It did not happen.
The president’s explanation for this fifth woman to accuse him of making sexual advances (Gennifer Flowers, Sally Perdue, Paula Jones, Dolly Kyle Browning)—falsely, he had said of all five, though moments later he would retract his Flowers denial—was that Willey was crazy. The other ones were gold-digging tramps, Willey was a looney bird and should properly be headed to the sanitarium. He repeatedly mentioned her husband’s suicide, fudging the timeline to bolster his claim that he was merely “trying to help her calm down and trying to reassure her.” In fact, Mr. Willey’s body wasn’t found until the day after Mrs. Willey’s little tête-à-tête with the president. No matter, she was crazy and he was being comforter-in-chief: “Her husband killed himself, she’s been through a terrible time…. She’s been through a terrible, terrible time in her life.” What a gallant.
Q: Do you know why she would tell a story like that if it weren’t true?
A: No, sir, I don’t. I don’t know. She’d been through a lot, and apparently the, the financial difficulties were even greater than she thought they were at the time she talked to me. Her husband killed himself, she’s been through a terrible time. I have—I can’t say. All I can tell you is, in the first place, when she came to see me she was clearly upset. I did to her what I have done to scores and scores of men and women who have worked for me or been my friends over the years. I embraced her, I put my arms around her, I may have even kissed her on the forehead. There was nothing sexual about it. I was trying to help her calm down and trying to reassure her. She was in difficult conditions. But I have no idea why she said what she did, or whether she now believes that actually happened. She’s been through a terrible, terrible time in her life, and I have nothing else to say. I don’t want to speculate about it.
Q: Has she ever asked you to pay her money in return for her not disclosing this story?
A: Not to my knowledge.
Q: Do you recall at any time in that meeting with Kathleen Willey saying to her, “I wanted to do that for a long time”?
A: No, sir. Let me remind you, Kathleen Willey asked for this meeting with me. I didn’t ask for the meeting with her. I didn’t say anything like that.
That question about whether Willey wanted money in exchange for her silence hinted at one of the more explosive allegations to come: in another month the independent counsel would be investigating Willey’s claims that the president’s men had attempted to buy her silence. It also demonstrates that even before the White House released what it thought would be exculpatory letters from Willey to the White House, Jones’s lawyers had guessed that Willey had reacted to the sexual harassment with a subtle form of blackmail—exactly what the letters revealed.
After November 29, 1993, the day Willey says she was groped by the president, she became a favorite for Clinton patronage jobs. She was not shy about asking for them either. Just a little more than a year after Willey’s encounter with Clinton, the former stewardess—who had no college degree or other accomplishment, and who had been an unpaid volunteer at the White House—wrote to the president of the United States to ask him for an ambassadorship.
Such jobs are often patronage positions. But Willey and her husband had not been major contributors—the couple had given only $4,000 in 1992.10 One wonders: Why was Clinton being Willey’s patron?
Chapter Six
The 60 Minutes Interview
Once it became clear that Willey’s ultimately truthful deposition in the Jones case was going to be made public when Jones’s lawyers filed their reply papers to Clinton’s motion for summary judgment,1 Willey agreed to appear on CBS’s 60 Minutes to tell her story to interviewer Ed Bradley. Presumably, Willey figured the best defense was a good offense. It would not be difficult to predict that Clinton’s attack dogs would soon be deployed against Willey.2
This time Willey described her encounter with the president unreservedly. Since Paula Jones’s account of Clinton’s assault had come out only in the crabbed legalisms of a formal complaint, Willey’s 60 Minutes interview provided the first clear picture of Clinton’s modus operandi.
Having had time to improve upon his opening gambit of “kiss it,” Clinton led off with, “Why don’t you come into my study?” As had eventually been dragged out of Willey during her deposition, she said the grope session began with a hug that “lasted a little longer than I thought necessary.”
She continued:
WILLEY: And then he—then he—and then he kissed me on—on my mouth, and—and pulled me closer to him. And—I remember thinking—I just remember thinking, “What in the world is he doing?” I—I just thought, “What is he doing?” And, I—I pushed back away from him, and—he—he—he—he—he’s a big man. And he—he had his arms—they were tight around me, and he—he—he touched me.
BRADLEY: Touched you how?
WILLEY: Well, he—he—he touched my breast with his hand, and, I—I—I—I was—I—I was just startled.
BRADLEY: This wasn’t an accidental grazing touch?
WILLEY: No. And—then he—whispered—he—he—said in—in my ear, he said “I’ve wanted to do this ever since I laid eyes on you.” And—I remember—I remember saying to him, “Aren’t you afraid that somebody’s going to walk in here?” The—and, he said—he said, “No. No, I’m—no, I’m not.” And—and then—and—and then he took my hand, and he—and he put it on him. And, that’s when I pushed away from him and—and decided it was time to get out of there.
BRADLEY: When you say he took your hand—
WILLEY: Right.
BRADLEY: and put it on him—
WILLEY: Uh-hum.
BRADLEY: Where on him?
WILLEY: On—on his genitals.
BRADLEY: Was he aroused?
WILLEY (sighing): Uh-hum.
BRADLEY: He was.
WILLEY: Uh-hum.
BRADLEY: What were you thinking?
WILLEY: I thought, “Well, maybe I ought to just give him a good slap across the face.” And then I thought, “Well, I don’t think you can slap the President of the United States like that.” And—and I just decided it was just time to get out of there.
As a soccer mom who had fallen for the White House spin that Paula Jones was a trailer-trash gold-digger, Willey was shocked. “I just could not believe that had happened in that office. I could not believe the recklessness of that act.” The sleaziness of what Clinton did to Willey does surpass the Jones assault in one way. As Willey noted, the president was a friend of her husband’s, too: “[H]e knew my husband also. I mean, he was my husband, and he was in trouble. And I was there, asking a friend who also happened to be the president of the United States, for help.” Of course, Ed Willey, Jr., would never learn of Clinton’s perfidy; he was committing suicide about the time the president was groping his wife.
Bob Bennett made a command performance on 60 Minutes following Willey. (Earlier in the week, Bennett had refused to appear on the program.) Bennett’s appearance was memorable principally for his incapacity to take his eyes off his shoes. The president’s reaction, he said, “in my presence was one of shock, bewilderment, outrage, that anything, any impropriety could be suggested.”
Once again, the president had been wronged by another lying woman. Willey, Bennett said, was simply not telling the truth. She was just like Paula Jones, Gennifer Flowers (his emphatic denial now inoperable), Monica Lewinsky (on tape), and other women not yet described here: Sally Perdue, Dolly Kyle Browning, and Elizabeth Ward Gracen (whose own emphatic denial was about to become inoperable) as well as all their corroborating witnesses—Pamela Blackard, Debbie Ballantine, Lydia Cathey (Paula Jones’s sister), three state troopers, Lauren Kirk (Flowers’s roommate—denial now inoperable), and Linda Tripp. Clinton just has lousy luck.
Gracen, incidentally, had publicly denied a sexua
l liaison with Clinton in 1992 at the request of Clinton’s then-campaign manager, Mickey Kantor.3 She recanted her denial in the midst of the Monica scandal in order to support the president. Gracen finally admitted she had had sex with the then-governor in 1983, when she was twenty-two. Gracen said she was coming clean in order to make it absolutely clear that Clinton had not used force on her. That’s gallantry in the era of Clinton. One can’t help imagining the conversation over breakfast in the White House residence that morning—Hillary: Oh look Bill! That sweet Elizabeth Ward has told the press you didn’t use force when you had sex with her while I was home taking care of little Chelsea in 1983. Isn’t that nice of her?
Even with Gracen’s helpful remarks, Kathleen Willey’s charges were devastating to Clinton. As former Clinton aide George Stephanopoulos said, the charges were “tough” for Clinton because Willey was a “credible person,” and the incident took place “right next to the Oval Office.”4
Chapter Seven
Blasting the Bimbos
Like a bear gnawing his leg off to escape from a trap, Clinton instinctively reverts to attack mode against any woman who admits, willingly or unwillingly, to a sexual encounter with him. Fortunately for his agents in the attack squad, Clinton rarely chose women like Hillary or Susan Thomases for his sexual conquests, so he didn’t have to worry about alienating his feminist loyalists when the conquests later had to be smeared as trailer-park trash. This must have been a great help when it came time to destroy the president’s women.