1995

by Campbell, W. Joseph

  28. Quoted in Todd S. Purdum, “A Washington Potboiler Steals Budget’s Thunder,” New York Times, November 17, 1995.

  29. See ibid.

  30. Mary McGrory, a columnist for the Washington Post, wrote that, in his ill-considered remarks, “Gingrich went from being Julius Caesar to being a crybaby in one day.” McGrory, “With Enemies Like These,” Washington Post, January 7, 1996.

  31. See Todd S. Purdum, “President and G.O.P. Agree to End Federal Shutdown and to Negotiate a Budget,” New York Times, November 20, 1995. “What the President described as flexibility, the Republicans described as an irretrievable pledge” to balance the federal budget in seven years, Purdum wrote.

  32. Quoted in ibid.

  33. See Elizabeth Drew, Showdown: The Struggle between the Gingrich Congress and the Clinton White House (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1996), 376–77.

  34. See Michael Wines, “Congress Votes to Return 760,000 to Federal Payroll and Resume Some Services,” New York Times, January 6, 1996. Wines wrote: “Strong in numbers and steeped in their principles, Republicans in the House nevertheless looked as though they had seriously overreached after three full weeks of using a crippled Government to pressure Mr. Clinton into a budget deal. . . . And Mr. Clinton’s stubborn refusal to cut a deal, seen all last year as evidence of political weakness, suddenly began to look like courage in the face of an enemy siege.”

  35. Richard Morin, “Public Sides with Clinton in Fiscal Fight,” Washington Post, November 21, 1995.

  36. Even the laudatory article in Time magazine noted that Gingrich’s “venture is in a stormy mid-passage now. It may ultimately be forced back, or even sunk.” See “Man of the Year: How One Man Changed the Way Washington Sees Reality,” Time, December 25, 1995, 48.

  37. See Susan Page and Bill Nichols, “Interns Help Pick up Slack at White House,” USA Today, November 17, 1995.

  38. Toobin, A Vast Conspiracy, 84. Jake Tapper, a television news reporter in Washington, once had a date with Lewinsky and offered a more charitable assessment of her, writing: “Monica was/is like a lot of young women inside the Beltway, only more so: young, ambitious, and . . . searching for that one friendly face in the crowd who will think she’s worth talking to. A guy, a boss, a boyfriend, a mentor, a friend. For Monica, that person turned out to be Bill Clinton. Clinton apparently saw in her either a consummately gullible kid, or maybe, just maybe, he was taken by . . . an absence of jade, a willingness to look around the next corner, a sweetness that is rare in a city built on bitter and sour and salty.” Tapper, “I Dated Monica Lewinsky,” Washington City Paper, January 30, 1998, accessed October 21, 2013, www.washingtoncitypaper.com/articles/14334/i-dated-monica-lewinsky.

  39. See The Starr Report: The Official Report of the Independent Counsel’s Investigation of the President (Rocklin, Calif.: Forum, 1998), 78. See also Jeff Leen, “Lewinsky: Two Coasts, Two Lives, Many Images,” Washington Post, January 24, 1998.

  40. Lewinsky’s biographer, Andrew Morton, wrote: “She was delighted to learn that she would have her own desk and computer . . . and that, because she had written an excellent essay [in applying for the internship], her duties were to be much more than simply answering the phone and copying documents; she would also from time to time deliver sorted mail to the West Wing” of the White House. See Morton, Monica’s Story (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1999), 55.

  41. Quoted in ibid., 58.

  42. See Al Kamen, “Upstaged and Upset,” Washington Post, August 11, 1995.

  43. Morton, Monica’s Story, 58.

  44. Ibid., 59. The day after the party on the South Lawn, Lewinsky expected the Secret Service “to call her discreetly with the news that the President wanted to see her,” Morton wrote, adding: “Every time the phone rang her nerves jangled.” No call came from Clinton’s intermediaries.

  45. McCurry, interview with author.

  46. The Starr Report, 79.

  47. As the New York Times later reported, Clinton that day signed a proclamation designating “National Family Week, 1995.” See Robert D. McFadden, John Kifner, and N.R. Kleinfield, “10 Days in the White House: Public Acts, Private Moments,” New York Times, September 14, 1998. The proclamation encouraged “educators, community organizers, and religious leaders to celebrate the moral and spiritual strength to be drawn from family relationships.” See “Proclamation 6852—National Family Week, 1995,” U.S. Government Printing Office, November 15, 1995, accessed October 3, 2013, www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/WCPD-1995–11–20/html/WCPD-1995–11–20-Pg2028.htm.

  48. Quoted in “Final Monica Lewinsky Script,” Barbara Walters interview with Monica Lewinsky, March 3, 1999, 9, script retrieved from Mary McGrory papers, Box 74, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

  49. The Starr Report, 80.

  50. See Monica S. Lewinsky, interview notes of the Office of Independent Counsel, July 30, 1998, 5, contained in “Appendices to the Referral to the United States House of Representatives,” submitted by the Office of the Independent Counsel.

  51. Morton, Monica’s Story, 63. To Lewinsky, showing the president the straps of her thong underwear was but a “small, subtle, flirtatious gesture.” Quoted in “Final Monica Lewinsky Script,” 9.

  52. Jeffrey Toobin wrote that it was no surprise “Lewinsky had chosen the bathroom closest to the president’s domain in the West Wing.” See Toobin, A Vast Conspiracy, 85.

  53. See Monica S. Lewinsky, interview notes of the Office of Independent Counsel, July 28, 1998, 2, contained in “Appendices to the Referral to the United States House of Representatives,” submitted by the Office of the Independent Counsel.

  54. Quoted in “Final Monica Lewinsky Script,” 10. See also The Starr Report, 80.

  55. Quoted in “Final Monica Lewinsky Script,” 10.

  56. Quoted in The Starr Report, 80–81.

  57. Morton, Monica’s Story, 64. Morton quoted Lewinsky as thinking to herself: “Oh my goodness, he’s so gorgeous—and I can’t believe I am here, standing here alone with the President of the United States.”

  58. Ibid., 64.

  59. See Lewinsky, interview notes of the Office of Independent Counsel, July 30, 1998, 5.

  60. Toobin, A Vast Conspiracy, 86. Harris noted in his biography about Clinton that “many people had assumed that there was little opportunity to carry on an adulterous affair in the confines of a modern White House, with all the staff and scrutiny that follow a president.” See Harris, The Survivor, 224.

  61. See Lewinsky, interview notes of the Office of Independent Counsel, July 30, 1998, 6. Lewinsky said she believed the caller was a congressman or a senator. In a televised interview with Barbara Walters in 1999, Lewinsky said she had told herself that she and Clinton “didn’t have a sexual relationship because we didn’t have intercourse.” She also described oral sex as “messing around” and “fooling around.” Quoted in “Final Monica Lewinsky Script,” 20.

  62. Quoted in The Starr Report, 81.

  63. See Sandra Sugawara, “Clinton Cancellation Stuns Osaka Summit,” Washington Post, November 17, 1995. See also McFadden, Kifner, and Kleinfield, “10 Days in the White House.”

  64. Bill Clinton, My Life (New York: Knopf, 2004), 811. In promoting the memoir, Clinton said on the CBS News program 60 Minutes that he entered into the affair with Lewinsky “for the worst possible reason, just because I could.” See “Former President Bill Clinton Discusses His Life in and out of the White House,” 60 Minutes (CBS News), June 20, 2004, transcript retrieved from LexisNexis database.

  65. Lewinsky said her trysts with Clinton were marked by excitement “and maybe a little bit of danger,” given the non-negligible prospect of being caught. Quoted in “Final Monica Lewinsky Script,” 12.

  66. The Starr Report, 79. Toiv became deputy White House press secretary in 1996. McCurry recalled that after the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal broke in 1998, Toiv sometimes was teased by White House staffers who told him, “Hey, you could’ve stopped it, then and there.” McCurr
y, interview with author.

  67. Quoted in Morton, Monica’s Story, 65.

  68. See Lewinsky, interview notes of the Office of Independent Counsel, July 30, 1998, 6.

  69. Quoted in Morton, Monica’s Story, 66.

  70. The Starr Report, 83.

  71. See Lewinsky, interview notes of the Office of Independent Counsel, July 30, 1998, 7.

  72. Quoted in “Final Monica Lewinsky Script,” 14.

  73. Quoted in Morton, Monica’s Story, 66.

  74. Quoted in The Starr Report, 84.

  75. Ibid., 84.

  76. Lewinsky, interview notes of the Office of Independent Counsel, July 30, 1998, 7.

  77. Ibid., 8.

  78. Ibid.

  79. Quoted in The Starr Report, 86.

  80. Ibid., 86.

  81. Morton, Monica’s Story, 69.

  82. Lewinsky, interview notes of the Office of Independent Counsel, July 30, 1998, 8.

  83. See McFadden, Kifner, and Kleinfield, “10 Days in the White House.”

  84. Lewinsky, interview notes of the Office of Independent Counsel, July 30, 1998, 14.

  85. Quoted in Monica S. Lewinsky grand jury testimony, U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, August 6, 1998, 35, contained in “Appendices to the Referral to the United States House of Representatives,” submitted by the Office of the Independent Counsel.

  86. See “Deposition of Monica S. Lewinsky,” Office of the Independent Counsel, Washington, D.C., August 26, 1998, 42, contained in “Appendices to the Referral to the United States House of Representatives,” submitted by the Office of the Independent Counsel.

  87. Quoted in Lewinsky grand jury testimony, 17. On another occasion, Lewinsky said Clinton had told her that she “had a lot of energy” and “lit up the room” when she entered. See “Final Monica Lewinsky Script,” 15. Clinton in his memoir had little to say about Lewinsky’s character beyond describing her as “an intelligent, interesting person.” Clinton, My Life, 774.

  88. Toobin wrote, ungenerously, that the “conversation with Lewinsky may have been the thing that cured the president of his infatuation, because the next time he summoned Lewinsky, two weeks later, it was to break off their relationship.” Toobin, A Vast Conspiracy, 91. The break was not definitive, however.

  89. McCurry recalled that Lewinsky was always “trying to ingratiate herself with the West Wing crowd. Little did she know she was going to hit the jackpot.” McCurry, interview with author.

  90. McCurry said Lieberman’s “radar was always up and it was not for any other reason than she was very big on decorum. . . . She’d say to me, ‘McCurry, your shirt, your shirt. It needs to be—go get another shirt.’ She had a kind of yenta quality to her.” McCurry, interview with author.

  91. Quoted in The Starr Report, 97. See also Richard A. Posner, An Affair of State: The Investigation, Impeachment, and Trial of President Clinton (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2000), 18. Posner wrote: “The Secret Service agents who [guarded] the President were pretty certain that he was sexually involved with Lewinsky.”

  92. See The Starr Report, 97.

  93. Quoted in Monica S. Lewinsky, interview notes of the Office of Independent Counsel, July 31, 1998, 6, contained in “Appendices to the Referral to the United States House of Representatives,” submitted by the Office of the Independent Counsel. Leon Panetta, the White House chief of staff, recalled that “there was no finer first sergeant in the White House than Evelyn Lieberman,” who, he said, was responsible “for telling staff members or interns or whoever if they were in the wrong place at the wrong time, if they weren’t in the proper dress. She would discipline them. She would discipline members of the press as well if they were in the wrong place” at the White House. See “Whether Monica Lewinsky Could Have Spent Time with the President and the Issue of Impeachment,” Hardball with Chris Matthews (CNBC), July 22, 1998, transcript retrieved from LexisNexis database.

  94. The Starr Report, 68.

  95. See ibid., 106–7.

  96. Ibid., 99–100. According to biographer John Harris, Clinton inquired about who was responsible for moving Lewinsky out of the White House. Lieberman said she was. Clinton retreated, Harris wrote, “knowing the conversation was over. ‘Oh, okay,’ he said sheepishly.” Harris, The Survivor, 227.

  97. See “Immunity . . . Unsupported by Precedent,” Washington Post, May 28, 1997.

  98. Judge Wright’s presence at the deposition was unusual, as Jeffrey Toobin noted in his book about the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal. She presided at the request of Clinton’s lawyer, Bob Bennett, who argued that Wright’s presence was essential to ensure the office of the presidency was protected from excessively intrusive questions during the deposition. See Toobin, A Vast Conspiracy, 212–13.

  99. See Posner, An Affair of State, 24.

  100. See The Starr Report, 38. The report said that Clinton “also stated that he had no specific memory of being alone with Ms. Lewinsky, that he remembered few details of any gifts they might have exchanged.”

  101. Lewinsky was suspected of obstructing justice in the Paula Jones case by submitting an affidavit denying a sexual relationship with Clinton. She was also suspected of suborning perjury by encouraging Linda Tripp to lie under oath if deposed in the Jones case. Starr’s report to Congress in 1998 about the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal noted that Lewinsky “had spoken to the President and the President’s close friend Vernon Jordan about being subpoenaed to testify in the Jones suit, and that Vernon Jordan and others were helping her find a job. The allegations with respect to Mr. Jordan and the job search were similar to ones already under review in the ongoing Whitewater investigation.” That is, Jordan had arranged lucrative consulting contracts for Webster L. Hubbell, a friend of the Clintons and a former associate U.S. attorney general, after Hubbell’s conviction of fraud and tax evasion in the Whitewater scandal. He spent eighteen months in prison. Starr suspected that Hubbell was withholding important information about the Clintons’ dealings in the Whitewater scandal and that the consulting contracts were to help ensure his silence. To Starr’s investigators, Jordan’s role in the Hubbell case and Lewinsky scandal seemed to fit with what they believed was a pattern by the Clinton White House of obstructing justice. See Posner, An Affair of State, 26. See also Don Van Natta, Jr. and Francis X. Clines, “Starr to Confront President 4 Years after Start of Inquiry,” New York Times, August 17, 1998.

  102. See “From ‘Zippergate’ to Crisis, TV Filled with Clinton Coverage,” Associated Press, January 23, 1998, retrieved from LexisNexis database. The Associated Press report noted that the Habana Libre hotel, “once packed with journalists for the pope’s visit to the Communist nation, was suddenly quiet.”

  103. “Only NBC, with its profitable Thursday night line-up of ‘Seinfeld’ and ‘ER,’ chose not to interrupt normal programming,” Ethan Bronner noted in the New York Times. Bronner, “Reports of Sexual Scandal Have Everybody Talking,” New York Times, January 23, 1998.

  104. Quoted in ibid. Matt Drudge reported at his online site that senior editors of Newsweek magazine decided against publishing a report about Clinton’s assignation with Lewinsky, saying it required additional research.

  105. Clinton, My Life, 775. Clinton also wrote: “I knew I had made a terrible mistake [in entering into a relationship with Lewinsky], and I was determined not to compound it by allowing Starr to drive me from office” (775).

  106. John Harris wrote: “The nervous gossip that swirled around the West Wing [of the White House] in 1996 about the president and Lewinsky was not an anomaly. An abundance of other rumors echoed.” Harris, The Survivor, 227.

  107. Quoted in “How the Web Was Won,” Vanity Fair (July 2008), accessed September 21, 2013, www.vanityfair.com/culture/features/2008/07/internet200807.

  108. See, for example, Ruth Marcus, “Allegations against Clinton Could Lead to Impeachment, Prosecution,” Washington Post, January 22, 1998.

  109. “Weekly Roundtable,” ABC This Week (ABC
News), January 25, 1998, retrieved from LexisNexis database.

  110. Ibid.

  111. Quoted in John F. Harris and Dan Balz, “Clinton More Forcefully Denies Having Had Affair or Urging Lies,” Washington Post, January 27, 1998. Harris and Balz noted: “Some people listening to Clinton’s statement, carried live on television networks, heard a note of contempt in his voice as he referred to ‘that woman.’ There was a moment’s pause before he uttered the words ‘Miss Lewinsky.’”

  112. Quoted in The Starr Report, 202. Blumenthal so testified to the federal grand jury investigating the Clinton-Lewinsky matter.

  113. Quoted in The Starr Report, 202.

  114. See, for example, “How Clinton Fared in Polls During a Tumultuous Year,” Associated Press, February 11, 1999, retrieved from LexisNexis database. That the American public demonstrated sustained opposition to Clinton’s impeachment or resignation was “quite remarkable,” political scientist Arthur H. Miller wrote, given “the barrage of negative press and Republican charges against the president. . . . Critics of public opinion research often argue that public opinion is volatile and that attitudes are frequently uninformed and, hence, easily changeable. Public reaction to the Lewinsky matter not only proved these critics wrong, but also demonstrated the impotence of the mass media.” Miller, “Sex, Politics, and Public Opinion: What Political Scientists Really Learned from the Clinton-Lewinsky Scandal,” PS: Political Science and Politics 32, no. 4 (December 1999): 728.

  115. Starr’s investigation may have been plodding, but it was painstaking. His lawyers brought scores of witnesses before a federal grand jury investigating the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal. See Van Atta and Clines, “Starr to Confront President.”

  116. See Don Van Atta, Jr., “White House’s All-Out Attack on Starr Is Paying Off, with His Help,” New York Times, March 2, 1998. Van Atta noted that the strategy of attacking Starr “has squelched previous speculation of Mr. Clinton’s resignation or impeachment.” He further reported that “Mr. Clinton’s partisans say they are amazed by the ease with which they have made Mr. Starr’s tactics, and not the President’s relationship with Ms. Lewinsky, the most scrutinized topic.”