The Breach

by Peter Baker

  Ruff finished his prepared text, but decided he had to say one more thing. Like Bob Bauer, he had been outraged by Hydes invocation of D-Day war heroes. Overnight, Ruff had gone back and forth about whether to challenge it and had not decided when he started speaking. But as he turned the last page, he found himself going on anyway. I have no personal experience with war. I have only visited Normandy as a tourist. I do know this: My father was on the beach fifty-five years agoRuff choked up momentarilyand I know how he would feel if he were here. He didnt fight, no one fought, for one side of this case or the other. He fought, as all those did, for our country and our Constitution. As long as each of usthe managers, the presidents counsel, the senatorsdoes his or her constitutional duty, those who fought for the country will be proud.

  Hutchinson felt stung after Ruff had finished. The zinger about Jordan being on a plane to Amsterdam hurt. How had he missed that? He had relied on the information in David Schipperss report to the committee. It did not really matter because without question Clinton knew by that point that Lewinsky might be a witness, so he already had all the incentive he needed to spur Jordan into accelerating the job hunt, even without the court order. But Hutchinson was aggravated because there was no rebuttal opportunity.

  By this point, Hutchinson had grown disenchanted with Schippers anyway. He was too flamboyant, too hotheaded, too quick to declare new evidence to be dynamite. In fact, Hutchinson was barely working with Schippers anymore, relying instead on his deputy, Susan Bogart. Still, as he digested Ruffs presentation, Hutchinson thought he detected its own flawthe White House lawyer had flatly stated that the president could not have been witness tampering when he coached Betty Currie because she was not a witness in the Jones case and would never be named as one, let alone subpoenaed. Hutchinson remembered that in the House investigation they had discovered otherwisethe Jones lawyers had in fact put her on a witness list and issued a subpoena after the Lewinsky story broke. The issue became moot when the judge blocked them from gathering any more evidence connected to the relationship for fear of interfering with Starrs new investigation, and neither the witness list nor the subpoena had ever been made public. Hutchinson asked Bogart, who had consulted with Joness legal team during the House hearings, to look into it.

  That night, Hutchinson had another role to play, however. As a member of the congressional delegation from the presidents home state, he had to serve on the escort committee for the State of the Union address. He had considered backing out, but decided it was his duty. So when the president approached the state delegation in the Capitol a few hours after Ruff s presentation, there was Hutchinson, the man prosecuting him, shaking his hand and offering a polite greeting.

  Well, I see that you finally got you a good lawyer, Hutchinson told the president with a smile, referring to the addition of Dale Bumpers that morning.

  Clinton seemed taken aback. I think hes actually excited, the president said of Bumpers, and then moved away.

  Clintons speech turned out to be another tour de force. While Chief Justice Rehnquist stayed away and a variety of Republicans, including Hyde, decided not to show either, most concluded that etiquette was the better part of valor and came anyway. From Clintons cheery disposition and expansive agenda, viewers might easily have forgotten that this was a president who had just been impeached for high crimes and was on trial in the Senate. Clinton mentioned none of that. Instead, he painted a portrait of a prosperous nation at peace and served up an ambitious plan to devote $2.7 trillion in projected budget surpluses to Social Security. With a flourish of showmanship, he introduced a bevy of guests in the gallery, from home-run hitter Sammy Sosa to civil rights legend Rosa Parks, and offered tribute to his wife, ostentatiously mouthing I love you to Hillary Clinton in the gallery.

  Striking a magnanimous tone intended to contrast with the partisanship of his enemies, Clinton welcomed newly installed House Speaker Dennis Hastert to the job and turned to shake his hand while promising cooperation. And the president made light of the obvious tension in the air, joking that only one side of the room would applaud at a timeusually the Democrats, as the Republicans sat on their hands. When both sides got up to cheer a line about equal pay for women, Clinton laughed.

  That was encouraging, you know? he said playfully. There was more balance on the seesaw. I like that. Lets give them a hand.

  But the Republicans were not amused. The defendant in an impeachment trial was presenting his case, in effect, for more than an hour without cross-examination. Just as he had a year earlier when the scandal first broke, Clinton had used a State of the Union address to cast himself as above all the seediness that obsessed the Republicans in Congress. The lawmakers were just props in his show, and he played them masterfully. Instant polls showed that once again the public applauded Clinton and his program. The next morning, one of his fiercest critics, Christian Coalition founder Pat Robertson, would pronounce the speech a home run that spelled the end of the trial. Clintons won, he said. They might as well dismiss the impeachment hearing and get on with something else because its over as far as Im concerned.

  The next morning, Wednesday, January 20, President Clinton boarded Air Force One and left Washington for his traditional campaign-style tour to promote his State of the Union program. As a destination, his aides picked Buffalothe home district of Congressman Jack Quinn, the moderate Republican whose support for impeachment had broken the back of the presidents defenders a month earlier. White House operatives managed to pack more than eighteen thousand people into the citys hockey arena, a massive crowd even by presidential standards, to rally to the presidents side along with Hillary Clinton, Vice President Gore, and Tipper Gore. The screw-you message to Quinn and the DeLay Republicans was unmistakable.

  Back at the Capitol, the presidents lawyers were trying a different approach with the Senate Republicans. There would be no inflammatory attacks, no overt pressure, just an appeal to those who seemed open to persuasion. Sitting on the Republican side of the chamber, some of the White House attorneys were, in fact, regularly striking up conversations with the senators during breaks. Strom Thurmond, the ancient senator from South Carolina, kept coming over to the defense table to flirt with Nicole Seligman and Cheryl Mills. How come youre so cute? he would ask, then clutch one of their arms. I just love holding on to you. He even brought them candy and tangerines. The two tried to respond politely. One day, they brought brownies wrapped in tinfoil baked by a woman who had been cooking for the overworked, undernourished counsels office, only to be stopped by Senate officials, who said food was prohibited on the floor and were surprised to hear that Thurmond had been secreting sweets to them.

  Jim Ziglar, the sergeant at arms, took it upon himself to gently confront Thurmond. Now, Senator, youve got to stop hitting on the presidents lawyers.

  What do you mean? Thurmond asked innocently.

  I know youve been bringing cookies and candy to those young lawyers.

  Oh, you caught me.

  Now, Senator, what would we do if they filed some sort of sexual harassment suit?

  A mischievous grin crossed Thurmonds face. Now, wouldnt that be nice?

  The old-fashioned attitudes of some of the aging male senators presented other delicate challenges for the two women on the White House team. Both power players in the nations capital, they were used to wearing pantsuits but wondered whether that would be appropriate on the Senate floor. After discussing it several times, Mills and Seligman decided to stick with skirts lest they offend even one of the crustier old senators. It was just not worth the risk, no matter how silly an issue it seemed. They were particularly worried about upsetting Robert Byrd. Once again the dont-irritate-Byrd strategy came into play.

  Before Mills had her turn at the lectern, though, Greg Craig would deconstruct the perjury count for the senators on this Wednesday afternoon. Unlike Mills, Seligman, Ruff, or the others, Craig was thought of as something of an auxiliary member of the Senate club. He had worked on Capitol Hill fo
r Senator Ted Kennedy, become friends with Senator Kent Conrad as a young man, and knew other senators from his work at the State Department. He traveled in the same circles and knew the same people. And of all the lawyers at the defense table that dayDale Bumpers was at home working on his speechCraig had the most political ear and voice. Indeed, as he began unwrapping his version of the case, he made the only reference to the presidents strong poll numbers as a reason to acquita citation that other White House lawyers had objected to as crass when they read Craigs draft and thought they had succeeded in excising.

  Do not throw our politics into the darkness of endless recrimination, Craig implored the senators. Do not inject a poison of bitter partisanship into the body politic, which, like a virus, can move through our national bloodstream for years to come with results none can know or calculate.

  Craig, promising to provide the Senate with more than one hundred percent of your minimum daily requirement for lawyering, recited a litany of complaints with the managers case: The charges against the president were too vague and seemed to change depending on the day. The allegations misstated the presidents testimony. The prosecutors were using a boot-strapping mechanism to try to incorporate Clintons testimony in the Jones case as an element at the trial even though the House had specifically rejected an article of impeachment dealing with his civil deposition. With a dictionary at his side and a fourteen-minute videotape excerpt from the presidents interview with the Jones lawyers, Craig defended the Clinton interpretation of sexual relations. He even defended Clintons meaning of is statement before the grand jury, saying the president was guilty not of perjury but the offense of nitpicking and arguing with the prosecutors. And Craig suggested that the appropriate response to the presidents misconduct was to throw him to the wolves of the criminal justice system like any other citizenafter he left office.

  Mills went next. If she was nervous for the first major courtroom appearance of her career, she did not show it. Coolly, confidently, she launched into a detailed examination of some of the obstruction of justice charges against the president. She spoke slowly, taking care to enunciate each word, but each word carried with it a stiletto aimed right at the managers. Over and over, she mocked the House members; those stubborn facts just did not fit their allegations, she said, using the same phrase eight times, usually glaring at the prosecution table as she did, her voice dripping with contempt.

  But her real mission was to demolish the argument that the case somehow turned on civil rights. Mills had been infuriated by Lindsey Grahams argument and, in the first draft of her statement, had included a slashing rejoinder that would have attacked the congressmans family. During his statement on the floor when he was talking about the progress that had been made in civil rights, Graham had noted that his parents owned a restaurant in South Carolina where blacks were not allowed to stay to drink their beer. Mills wrote a line comparing that racist practice with the policy of Clintons grandfather, who owned one of the only stores in his Arkansas town that would cater to black customers. It was a powerful contrast, Mills thought. Too powerful, as some fellow White House aides saw it. In the end, Mills decided to take it out. In the final version she read on the floor, Mills noted the history of Clintons family without making comparisons to Grahams. Instead, she compared Clinton to Thomas Jefferson, John F. Kennedy, and Martin Luther King Jr., all of whom strayed sexually. We revere these men. We should. But they were not perfect men. They made human errors, but they struggled to do humanity good. I am not worried about civil rights because this presidents record on civil rights, on womens rights, on all of our rights, is unimpeachable.

  Millss presentation immediately became the talk of the town. Some of her fellow White House lawyers felt it was terriblecondescending and overly melodramatic, like a high school student actor trying too hard in her stage debut. But elsewhere Mills was a huge hit. Senators gushed about her in the cloakrooms. Commentators raved about her on television. Tourists and everyday congressional aides, particularly African-Americans, flocked up to her offering praise and gratitude. She had inspired a reaction like none of the others. After she was done speaking, the White House team gathered in the vice presidents office behind the Senate chamber to watch the reviews on CNN. Craig stood closest to the television as a legal analyst panned his performance while Mills collected the plaudits. It was a humiliating moment for him, and an awkward silence filled the room.

  The Senate Republicans were left dispirited by Mills. She had proved to be a powerful force and put them on the defensive. Between her and Ruff, the tide was turning; whatever momentum the managers had built was quickly dissipating. If the managers and the defense lawyers simply canceled each other out, that would be enough for Clinton to win because something dramatic had to happen to convince Democrats to buck the party line.

  Unknown to either side, though, an event with that potential took place that dayJuanita Broaddrick, after years of silence, had decided to tell her story. In her home in Van Buren, Arkansas, Broaddrick taped an interview with NBCs Lisa Myers accusing Clinton of raping her. While much of official Washington by that point knew the outlines of her story, none of the senators judging the president had ever heard it from her own mouth, and even though her allegation was not technically part of the impeachment case, no one could calculate what impact it might have on public opinion if the country saw it in the middle of the trial. The question became whenor whetherNBC would air it.

  Susan Collins knew none of that when she called her fellow senator Russ Feingold that night to hash over what they had heard on the floor so far. She was surprised to find that the Wisconsin Democrat shared her basic assessmentthe perjury charges in Article I seemed somewhat weak, while the obstruction of justice allegations in Article II were far more troublesome. Collins and Feingold agreed to write a joint, bipartisan question about Betty Currie for the upcoming question-and-answer period.

  Although the Presidents lies may not meet the legal test of perjury and thus the first article may be weak, they bother me nonetheless, Collins wrote in her diary that night. Its so tawdry, so dispiriting to hear the videotape of the President shading the truth. But, she added, Its becoming obvious to me that the Independent Counsels attorneys did a terrible job pinning down the President, perhaps from a misguided sense of deference. That is a major reason the perjury case is so weak.

  The next morning, Thursday, January 21, anxious GOP senators began agitating for a way to put an end to the trial. Weve got to get out, Senator Craig Thomas of Wyoming said at a meeting in the office of Georgias Senator Paul Coverdell. The same theme pervaded the Republican conference lunch meeting.

  Calm down, the conference chairman, Connie Mack, told his nervous colleagues. Were all where we all thought wed be.

  Lott was focused on finding an endgame and holding his balky caucus together through the difficult votes to come. They needed, he said, to vote down any attempt by the Democrats to require that Clinton be found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt to be convicted, a high standard used in criminal trials but not in civil trials, and never before required in an impeachment proceeding. They also should vote against the Democratic motion to open deliberations, he said.

  Susan Collins spoke up. After hearing both sides, she said, it was clear that Article II, the obstruction of justice count, was stronger than Article I, the perjury charge. They ought to focus on the obstruction allegations, she said, adding that she would vote to dismiss the other article.

  It was the first crack in Republican solidarity and Lott was worried. He did not want to make it easy for any GOP senator to vote against either of the articles by separating them into distinct questions. There would be only one vote, he told the gatheringto dismiss the entire case or not. We ought to have an all-out blitz against the motion to dismiss, he said.

  Across town, Asa Hutchinson was proceeding on the assumption that they could defeat a motion to dismiss and perhaps even get permission to question witnesses. As one of the managers who would be responsi
ble for taking any testimony, he decided to visit William G. Hundley, Vernon Jordans attorney and law partner, to see if it would be possible to informally interview the presidents friend first. Hundley, a courtly veteran of the Washington bar, politely said no, that would not be possible, and made clear that his client would not veer from his grand jury testimony in any case. Warming up to the topic, Hundley compared Jordan to another client he once represented, former attorney general John N. Mitchell, who went to prison for Richard Nixon. Jordan was the same way with Clinton, Hundley said. He would do anything for the president, even his dirty business. Im really surprised you people are calling Vernon. Once those White House lawyers start feeding him these softballs, hes going to have Bill Clinton up there with Abraham Lincoln.

  Hutchinson arrived back at the Capitol in time to hear the White House complete its opening arguments. David Kendall went first, warning that his review of the obstruction charges would be tedious, and he lived up to his prediction. He chastised the managers for offering one strained theory after another, often finding that their charts were riddled with errors, and that the evidence actually opened up a very large hole in their circumstantial case. Examining the various elements of obstruction individually, he offered innocent explanations for the events in question and concluded there was no trade-off for Lewinskys silence. Quid pro quo? No, he declared in a rhetorical refrain after each scenario.