The Breach

by Peter Baker

  His assessment seemed on the mark on Sunday, August 30, when the first couple left Marthas Vineyard. At the airport, Hillary Clinton rushed to the plane, leaving the president behind as he bade farewell to onlookers. They only had a single night back in Washington before packing up for another out-of-town trip, this one an overseas mission to Russia, Ireland, and Northern Ireland. The weeklong excursion came at a crucial moment for their hostsMoscow was in economic and political upheaval following the devaluation of the ruble and President Boris Yeltsins dismissal of his prime minister, while the peace accord Clinton had helped negotiate in Northern Ireland was foundering after a terrorist attack. Adding to Clintons headaches as he departed Washington on Monday, August 31, the sky-high U.S. stock market took a serious tumble, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average plummeting 512 points, its second-worst point drop in history. Prosperity had been a major factor in keeping his poll numbers elevated through months of scandal, and if public support started to dip, the politicians in his own party would follow for sure. Perhaps worse, as Air Force One crossed the Atlantic, rumors were rampant back in Washington that Bob Woodward or some other investigative reporter was on the verge of breaking a story disclosing that Clinton had had a sexual relationship with a second intern. Even with no tangible evidence to back it up, the scare reinforced the deep anxiety among Democratic lawmakers. No one knew what might be in the next days newspaper. The president seemed just one sensational allegation away from self-destruction.

  Hillary Clinton accompanied the president on the trip to Russia as she normally did on foreign journeys, but for the most part kept a separate schedule. When she did appear with him in public, she remained aloof. At Moscows Elementary School No. 19, on Tuesday, September 1, she introduced him simply as Bill Clinton, President of the United States. When he approached the lectern, he touched her shoulder as she passed by him on the way back to her seat, but she simply kept walking, looking down without any gesture in return. Ive been getting along fine, she curtly told reporters.

  No one in Clintons traveling party was looking forward to the joint news conference with Yeltsin the next day. Although there were more than enough important questions about Russia and its financial and political future, White House aides knew the reporters would ask about Monica Lewinskyafter all, it would be their first shot at the president since his August 17 admission. Aides had discussed canceling the news conference, but that was problematic with a foreign host. Besides, they hoped it could rebound to Clintons benefit because reporters might appear unpatriotic for bringing up a scandal while a president was on foreign soil.

  As he entered the ornate St. Catherines Hall in the Kremlin to a spasm of camera-shutter clicking shortly after 1 P.M. on Wednesday, September 2, Clinton looked so glum he seemed to be barely breathing. There was none of the usual glimmer in his eyes as they swept the room, taking its measure. There were no smiles of recognition at the aides or reporters he saw, just a deep frown that the camera-conscious politician almost never displayed in public. The only one in the room who looked worse was the ailing Yeltsin, who appeared to border on the comatose. During the preliminaries, Clintons attention seemed to wander. He sat slumped in his chair, his fingers folded in front of his face, occasionally wiping the exhaustion from his eyes.

  The first question from an American reporter made no mention of Lewinsky and asked only about Russia and the stock market tumble back in the United States. The second U.S. reporter turned the subject to Lewinsky, asking whether the reaction to his admission had given you any cause for concern that you may not be as effective as you should be in leading the country.

  Clinton paused as if to collect his thoughts before answering. I have acknowledged that I made a mistake, said that I regretted it, asked to be forgiven, spent a lot of very valuable time with my family in the last couple of weeks, and said I was going back to work, he said, speaking softly and staring down rather than looking at the audience. I believe thats what the American people want me to do.

  The next U.S. reporter, Laurence McQuillan of Reuters, followed up by asking Yeltsin what he would do if Russian legislators refused to confirm his candidate for prime minister. Thinking that was the full question, Clinton looked over to McCurry and then Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright in apparent relief. But then McQuillan turned to Clinton: Mr. President, another Lewinsky question. Clintons face reddened. Gently and deferentially, McQuillan asked if the president felt the need to offer an apology and whether he worried that perhaps the tone of your speech was something that didnt quite convey the feelings that you have, particularly your comments in regards to Mr. Starr.

  Yeltsin answered his part of the two-pronged question with a single, incoherent sentence: Well, I must say, we will witness quite a few events for us to be able to achieve all those results. He then stopped as if he had blanked out. No one had a clue what he meant and assumed it was the lead-in to a convoluted answer. But Yeltsin remained silent. Thats all, he finally said.

  Clinton recovered a little of his sense of humor. Thats my answer too! he said, cracking a smile. That was pretty good.

  But Clinton could hardly duck the question, though he offered no explanation for the reaction to his speech. I read it the other day again, and I thought it was clear that I was expressing my profound regret to all who were hurt and to all who were involved, and my desire not to see any more people hurt by this process and caught up in it. And I was commenting that it seemed to be something that most reasonable people would think had consumed a disproportionate amount of Americas time, money, and resources, and attention, and now continued to involve more and more people. And thats what I tried to say.

  Despite his quiet demeanor during the news conference, Clinton was enraged as he left the room. This is chickenshit! This is all the press cares about! he screamed to his aides when he arrived back in their holding room. Two of the three questions from the American media had been about Lewinsky, even as the Russian economy was collapsing. Theres real things going on in the world, and look at this press corps. Its embarrassing. All they care about is this. Theyre obsessed with this. This is not where the American public is.

  Clinton was not the only one angry. Steny H. Hoyer, a Democratic congressman from Maryland who had accompanied the president to Moscow, found McQuillan later in a hallway and accosted the reporter. Speaking as an American, Im outraged! Hoyer shouted. The media should drop its obsession with Lewinsky because the public simply did not care, Hoyer lectured.

  Hoyer might not have cared, but some fellow Democrats back home certainly did. Several Democratic senators, including Bob Graham, Russ Feingold, and even Robert G. Torricelli, a staunch Clinton defender from New Jersey, watched Clintons answers at the televised news conference and grew more aggravated. In fact, Clinton had not moved much at all in his latest formulation. The media and politicians had become fixated on his failure to use words like sorry or apology, and yet he still stubbornly refused to do so. Instead, he merely recast the meaning of his previous statement to suggest it went beyond what it actually said. The president asserted that he had already expressed my profound regret to all who were hurt and to all who were involved, when actually on August 17 he had not explicitly apologized to anyone who was hurt. He had acknowledged a couple of weeks earlier that innocent people had been hurt, but attributed that to Starr and his intrusive investigation.

  Joe Lieberman, the Democratic senator from Connecticut, was also disheartened. Over the last few days, he had been working to polish thoughts he had written on his laptop on vacation into a fuller speech to deliver on the Senate floor. Lieberman, a fellow New Democrat who had worked with Clinton to push the party to the political center, planned to condemn the presidents actions as reprehensible and to call on Congress to censure him. But word quickly got around about his intentions, only in the rumor mills it had been inflated into a call for resignation, and the White House and fellow Democrats began pressing Lieberman to delay and tone it down.

  On Monday, August
31, Erskine Bowles had called from the White House. I understand youre thinking about giving a speech, he said. Its up to you to decide that. I hope it wont be that damaging. But Bowles appealed to Lieberman not to give it while Clinton was overseas, particularly while he was in Russia, where the presidents news conference with Yeltsin would be dominated by this question if a senator from his own party denounced him beforehand. Lieberman did not want to wait a week until Clinton returned to Washington, but agreed to hold off until he left Moscow for Northern Ireland. Tom Daschle called the same day. Weve got to work on this together, he implored Lieberman. If one person speaks out, then everyone will be under pressure to speak out. Whatever we do, we should do together. The next day, Daschle delivered the same message at a lunch meeting of the Senate Democrats, their first since Clintons admission. They had to hang together, he urged. If anybody did feel compelled to speak out, he added, at least they should not call for specific actions, such as resignation, impeachment, or censure.

  Lieberman took that last message to heart and rewrote his speech. He intended to give it Friday, but then heard that the Senate might not be in session that day and moved it up to Thursday, September 3, the day after the presidents Moscow news conference. When Lieberman took the floor, the chamber was as usual mostly empty. But as he spoke and word spread, one by one senators began trickling in to listen. Lieberman denounced Clintons actions as disgraceful and immoral, adding that his own outrage had not subsided since the August 17 national address but had evolved into a larger, graver sense of loss for our country and its moral foundations. He took direct issue with Clinton and his assertion that even presidents have private lives. Whether he or we think it fair or not, the reality is in 1998 that a presidents private life is public, Lieberman said, particularly a president who was given fair notice during his initial presidential campaign.

  Liebermans biggest concern, however, was the message Clinton had sent. Such behavior is not just inappropriate. It is immoral. And it is harmful, for it sends a message of what is acceptable behavior to the larger American family, particularly to our children, which is as influential as the negative messages communicated by the entertainment culture. Beyond that, the presidents lies to the nation and under oath were not understandable moments of panic in an embarrassing situation but an intentional and premeditated decision to deceive. Lieberman was walking on the edge of calling for punishment, but quickly retreated. Censure would be premature until the Starr report was delivered, he said, while talk of impeachment and resignation at this time is unjust and unwise. There was the consolation for the White House; he did not lay out a course of action for the president. The dam did not break.

  But it was leaking. Senator Bob Kerrey, the Nebraska Democrat who had lost the presidential nomination to Clinton in 1992 and had famously described him as an unusually good liar, saw Lieberman speaking on the television in his office and rushed to the floor to back him up. I wish to join him and say that the president has got to go far further than he did in his speech to the nation, Kerrey told his colleagues. This is not just inappropriate behavior. This is not a private matter. This is far more important for our country and threatens far more than his presidency unless we deal with it in a more honest and, as the senator from Connecticut has said, noncondemning fashion. Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, a New York Democrat who had had a long, awkward relationship with Clinton, stood and endorsed Liebermans comments as well, adding an ominous warning. In time, not distant time, a point of decision will come to the Congress, a decision will come to the Congress, and it will be for us to discharge our sworn duty, he said, an implicit reference to impeachment. We take an oath to . . . uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domesticforeign and domestic, sir, which acknowledges that we can be our own worst enemies if we do not hew to our best standards.

  Word of Liebermans speech reached the traveling White House party in Ireland, where Clinton was visiting to celebrate the Good Friday peace accord he had helped broker and to keep it from falling apart in the wake of a terrorist bombing that had killed twenty-eight people in the small dairy town of Omagh. Flying in from Moscow, the president had spent the day in Northern Ireland, meeting with both sides and comforting victims of the bombing, including a fourteen-year-old girl who had lost her sight. In a boost to his spirits, Clinton was greeted everywhere he went by large and enthusiastic crowds who saw him as a savior. Because of the time difference, Lieberman did not take the Senate floor until Clinton arrived at Phoenix Park, the U.S. ambassadors residence in Dublin, where he was to stay the night. Exhausted, the president went to sleep fifteen minutes later and was not told about the senators broadside until the next morning, Friday, September 4.

  Deflated once again, Clinton was upset that his old friend would speak out while he was overseas. White House aides groused that Lieberman had rushed to the floor out of fear that another Democratic senator would beat him to the punch and steal the glory. But the president agreed that he could not show pique in public, especially not at another Democrat. This was a moment of maximum danger. Alienating Lieberman any further would give cover to all the other Democrats in the Senate who were itching to take a shot at Clinton. So when a reporter asked him about the speech at a joint appearance with the Irish prime minister, Clinton responded calmly.

  Basically, I agree with what he said, the president said, although he never actually watched the full speech. Ive already said that I made a big mistake, it was indefensible, and Im sorry about it. So I have nothing else to say except that I cant disagree with anyone else who wants to be critical of what I have already acknowledged was indefensible.

  Asked if it was helpful for Lieberman to speak out, Clinton did not take the bait. But theres nothing that he or anyone else could say in a personally critical way thatI dont imaginethat I would disagree with, since I have already said it myself, to myself. And Im very sorry about it.

  Finally, after nearly three weeks, he had said the words he had refused to say all along: Im sorry. It was the most direct apology yet. And yet it was still not good enough for some. Back home, Senator Feingold endorsed Liebermans speech and said Clinton still needed to explain himself. Maryland governor Parris N. Glendening, a fellow Democrat, canceled a fund-raiser with the president because he did not want to be seen with him just before an election.

  By now, there was no doubt that Starr was planning to send an impeachment referral to the House. Under the law that created the independent counsel, Starr was obliged to provide the House with any substantial and credible information that may constitute grounds for impeachment. As Clinton was jetting back from Ireland on Sunday, September 6, Starrs prosecutors were conducting the last of a series of interviews with Monica Lewinsky as part of an effort to document every sexual encounter she had had with the presidentall to show that he had lied under oath when he maintained he never touched her erotically. While his client was away, David Kendall was preparing one last gambit to forestall an impeachment report.

  In the true dont-give-an-inch tradition of his law firm, Kendall had prepared a lawsuit that would ask a federal judge to block Starr from transmitting any report to Congress that contained analysis of the evidence, premising the request on the theory that the law only empowered an independent counsel to provide information. Any interpretation or recommendations were beyond Starrs authority and would usurp the Houses sole Power of Impeachment, Kendall wrote in the brief. During Watergate, before the advent of the independent counsel law, special prosecutor Leon Jaworski had shown his report to the House to U.S. district judge John J. Sirica first to make sure it was simply a straightforward recitation of facts and evidence, not conclusionary in any way. Yet while Kendalls suit was signed and ready to go, he realized he had only a slim hope of succeeding, and Chuck Ruff and Dick Gephardt both advised against it. Such a move would only look like more fancy White House lawyering.

  So instead Kendall drafted a letter to Starr and sent it on Labor Day, Monday,
September 7, making the same points and asking for a week to review any report before it was submitted to the House. When he saw the letter, Starr interpreted it as a sign of impending litigation on the topic, and so he did two things: he drafted his own response to be sent to Kendall the next day, rejecting the request for an advance peek, and he made sure his staff was ready to move immediately when the House returned to town on Wednesday, September 9.

  Hours after Kendall sent his letter to Starr, the presidents advisers gathered for a three-hour evening strategy session at the White House to review where they stood. In a rare move, the president walked up the stairs in the West Wing to join the meeting in Ruff s office. The situation had clearly taken a turn for the worse from the day a few months earlier when John Podesta had been so confident that he told congressional Democratic leadership aides not to worry because the public did not care about Clintons womanizing. The guy can fuck Miss America and nobody gives a damn, Podesta had told his fellow Democrats. Now people gave a damn, at least on Capitol Hill. Gephardts August 25 comments had rattled the White House aides. The enthusiastic reaction to Liebermans speech within the party was disturbing. Each day, another Democrat inched closer to following Paul McHale down the road toward urging resignation. Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur, an Ohio Democrat who had fought Clinton on trade issues in the past, had said that if he resigned tomorrow, it wouldnt be enough in my judgment. During the White House meeting that night, another House Democrat, James P. Moran Jr. of Virginia, was on CNN telling Larry King that Clinton had lied in court and that impeachment proceedings were undoubtedly necessary. Senator Harry Reid, the mild-mannered, bespectacled Democratic whip, was practically in a panic over how the presidents problems were dragging him down in an already tough reelection contest in Nevada. Senator Fritz Hollings was telling people around him that Clinton should get out now, and fellow Democrats such as Dianne Feinstein, Russ Feingold, and even the more liberal Patty Murray of Washington State were all entertaining similar thoughts. Lawrence Stein, the chief White House lobbyist on Capitol Hill, had been told that Senator Robert Byrd had already drafted a speech demanding Clintons resignation.