So why did Bill settle the case and pay Jones $850,000?
Hillary explains: "Although he hated to settle a case he"d already won . . . Bill decided that there was no other sure way to put this episode to rest."
But that"s a far, far cry from what actually happened.
The truth is that Judge Wright threw out the Jones lawsuit, finding that her case did not rise to the level required to take a s.e.xual hara.s.sment case to a federal jury, since Jones had neither been punished for withholding s.e.xual favors, nor was the single incident sufficient to create a hostile workplace environment. Nonetheless, she found the president of the United States to be in civil contempt of court and referred the matter to the Arkansas Supreme Court for disciplinary action. The result: Clinton"s law license was suspended for five years. Incredibly, none of this makes it into Living History.
The idea that paying Jones almost $ 1 million was not an admission of guilt is absurd. Why would anyone pay almost a million dollars to settle a lawsuit that had been dismissed? The sum amounted to a good part of the Clintons" life savings at the time (and the settlement specified that they could not pay it out of their legal defense fund, but had to write a personal check, although an insurance policy paid for part of it).
COUNTER-ATTACK.
For connoisseurs of seamy political activity, Hillary"s defense of her husband was a banquet with many courses. One of the most distasteful was her attempt, in 1992, to plant a story in the press about George H. W. Bush"s alleged infidelities.
Far from decrying what she called "tabloid journalism," she now found herself defending Bill by peddling s.m.u.t.
Author Gail Sheehy reports Hillary"s attempts to plant the story firsthand: "Then Hillary went a little too"far. It was not by chance that during a formal interview with me... [she] purposefully planted a toxic tidbit in my tape recorder: "Why does the press shy away from investigating rumors about George Bush"s extramarital life?" she complained. She told me a little story. "I had tea with Anne c.o.x Chambers . . . and she"s sittin" here in her sunroom saying "You know, I just don"t understand why they think they can get away with this - everybody knows about George Bush." And then she launches into this long description of, you know, Bush and his carrying on, all of which is apparently well known in Washington. I"m convinced part of it is that the establishment - regardless of party - sticks together. They"re going to circle the wagons on Jennifer and all these other people.""
"Jennifer" refers, Sheehy explains, to a "decade long Bush staffer who by then enjoyed a senior State Department position."
Once again, the stench of private detectives lurks around the edges of Hillary"s story. Vanity Fair reported the contention of a former member of Lenzner"s staff that Cody Shearer, brother of Hillary"s staffer Brooke Shearer, "was working on the Bush love thing with IGI [Lenzner"s firm]. He did it in writing. I know it didn"t stop, because Cody kept coming around." Lenzner and Cody Shearer both "adamantly deny" the story. But then Hillary tries to plant the story with Sheehy? Strange.
When Sheehy later told Hillary that "I had independently confirmed the story she had told me about Jennifer and Bush . . . [Hillary] gave me a glittery lizard eye blink." Her voice went cold as a courtroom witness: "I have no independent recollection of such a conversation."
Regardless of whether any affair took place, though, Sheehy had something remarkable on tape: the future first lady, dishing dirt to hurt her husband"s opponent and his wife.
THE BOTTOM LINE.
Hillary"s defense of Bill against accusations of scandal shows her at the worst. Her use of detectives, stonewalling, lying, deception, and counter-attack presents her in the most unflattering light imaginable.
Of course, we could hardly expect Hillary to be at her best when goaded beyond endurance by attacks and accusations on the one hand, and by the irresponsible behavior of her husband on the other. It"s important to realize that she did not descend into this netherworld of spies and detectives on her own. Nor did she do it to defend her own personal conduct. She was, at least partly, lured into the use of such squalid tactics by the circ.u.mstances of her husband"s career and conduct.
But not entirely. Bill"s weaknesses certainly are what prompted Hillary to defend him with every weapon at her disposal. The choice of those weapons/and the use to which she put them, is Hillary"s responsibility alone. She has demonstrated that we cannot rely on her conscience to keep her from using the most sordid and virulent methods when she feels that her grasp on power is threatened. Since such threats are an occupational hazard for whoever occupies the White House, we are right to wonder how many of these black arts she might bring should she continue on the path she has determined will return her there.
The first step on that path was her 2000 campaign for the United States Senate.
SENATOR HILLARY.
The deal between the Clintons had always been this: first Bill and then Hillary. In 1990, when Bill asked me to explore the possibility of Hillary running for governor of Arkansas, he explained the bargain explicitly: "She feels we"ve done everything for me. My career and my needs have taken a front-row seat - now it"s her turn."
It wasn"t the right time for Hillary to run in 1990, but from the moment that Daniel Patrick Moynihan announced his retirement from the U.S. Senate on November 6, 1998, Hillary began to focus on running to fill his seat.
Speculation that she would run heated up after New Jersey Senator Robert Torricelli, likely on cue from the White House, aired the idea on Meet the Press on January 3, 1999.
A reasonable person might wonder why Hillary Clinton, of Illinois, Arkansas, and the District of Columbia, was being mentioned as a possible senator from New York. In Living History, even Hillary raises the issue, with remarkable understatement: "I was not a New York native." Not a native? She had never lived there, never worked there, rarely visited the city, and had no intention of moving there - unless it was to run for office.
I am very much a New York native. I grew up on the ninth floor of an apartment building on Manhattan"s West Side and attended the city"s public schools and Columbia University, thirty blocks north of my home. I talk about New York all the time. During the years I worked with them in Arkansas, I would often tell the Clintons about concerts, ballet, or plays I"d seen. I even made a practice of bringing a huge corned beef sandwich from the Carnegie Deli - New York"s best - to Little Rock and presenting it with great ceremony to media creator David Watkins, usually in front of Hillary. I called it my "New York Care Package." And, as I"ve mentioned, on plenty of occasions I celebrated (or bemoaned) the performance of the New York Yankees in front of the Clintons.
I saw Hillary frequently from 1980 until 1990. But never, not once, did she evince the slightest, remotest interest in New York, city or state. She never asked what it was like to live there, or to grow up in Manhattan. She showed no curiosity about the city"s schools, crime, taxes, drug problems, politics or anything else. She seemed as interested in New York as she was in Detroit or anyplace else. In fact, during one Clinton visit to New York, shortly after Chelsea"s birth, I gave Hillary a copy of the local weekly newspaper for my community at the time, called the Chelsea Clinton News. ("Chelsea" referred to the area between 14th and 34th streets on the West Side; "Clinton" was the name of the neighborhood between 34th and 59th.) Hillary did a double take and asked if we had gotten the paper printed up especially for her.
So when Hillary registered her interest in running for Senate in my native state, I reacted with disbelief. As a lifelong New Yorker, I bristled at the idea of an interloper pretending to be one of us, for the sole purpose of leaving us to go to Washington to represent us. Whenever I heard her say "we New Yorkers ..." it struck my ears like nails on a chalkboard.
I also felt keenly disappointed that Hillary would launch her political career with so obvious a deception. In my weekly column in the New York Post, I suggested that she should wait until 2004, when a Senate seat in Illinois came up for grabs. I felt she might become a good senator, but not from a state she had never met.
Hillary, of course, sees nothing problematic about her choice. In Living History, she writes that her reason for running was that "I had spoken out about the importance of women partic.i.p.ating in politics and government, seeking elective office and using the power of their own voices to shape public policy and chart their nations" future. How could I pa.s.s up an opportunity to do the same?" As in so many other cases, Hillary chose to treat the prospect of making a Senate run herself as a referendum on group ident.i.ty rather than her own qualifications. She redefined the decision, in Living History and likely in her own mind, from "Should this woman run for this Senate seat from this state?" to "Should a woman run for a seat?"
But Hillary pulled it off: She won the seat.
The audacity - and success - of the move left me amazed. I"d never really believed she would have the chutzpah to run in a state where she"d never even lived. And even once it became clear she was serious about running, I never thought she had a chance of getting elected, for Rudy Giuliani would easily defeat her. Wrong and wrong. She ran and Rudy dropped out, leaving her pitted against an unknown young congressman named Rick Lazio who had little time to establish himself.
More important, I did not know what Hillary knew: that demographic changes reflected in the federal census of 2000 (which were not yet public during the campaign), had dramatically shifted New York from a swing state to a solidly Democratic one. She would likely have known that the population shifts were in her favor, and that would certainly have influenced her decision.
Hillary"s Senate campaign is both her most splendid achievement and her most original effort. And a close examination of its ups and downs - and its treatment in Living History - offers a fascinating window on the real world of Hillary Clinton.
THE CLINTON MARRIAGE GEARS FOR BATTLE.
Hillary"s Senate run finally gave her the chance to pull away, by some measure at least, from Bill"s gravitational pull. In Living History, Hillary deals frankly with the opportunity: "My dilemma was unique. Some worried that Bill was still so popular in New York and such a towering political figure in America that I would never be able to establish an independent political voice. Others thought the controversy attached to him would overwhelm my message. ..."
As she ran, Hillary said she relished her independence. She told Lucinda Franks of Talk magazine: "I want independence. I want to be judged on my own merits. Now for the first time I am making my own decisions. I can feel the difference. It"s a great relief."
But even though Hillary was calling the shots, she needed Bill more than ever. It seemed like a role reversal. He had needed her to become - and remain - president; now she needed him to help her win the Senate race. Hillary notes that "he was anxious to be helpful and I welcomed his expertise. . . . The tables were now turned, as he played for me the role I had always performed for him." And of course Bill was very, very supportive. But to suggest that he played the same role that she had long played in his campaigns is ridiculous. Hillary had always campaigned for Bill and weighed in on ideas and policy. She was always supportive, and was an a.s.set in every one of his campaigns.
But that is a far cry from having unfettered access to an advisor who is a two-term president with an encyclopedic knowledge of the federal budget and every single federal program, who is the sitting commander-in-chief, who has negotiated peace accords, developed landmark federal legislation, and worked with the Congress for eight years. Bill Clinton was no ordinary supportive husband. And, of course, as president, he had a staff of experts on every subject, an experienced political team, a stable of generous donors, and access to every Democrat in the country. On his own, he is a brilliant political strategist. In addition, he had a fleet of planes, an almost limitless entertainment budget, absolute access to the media, a boundless ability to raise money, and a personal popularity that was always way ahead of Hillary"s.
With all of the power of the federal government, he could, at any time, create a focus on issues favorable to Hillary, as he did with the Middle East peace talks that he held during her campaign.
So this was no simple role reversal of supportive spouses. Bill Clinton wanted Hillary to win, and he did everything he could to make it happen. With the backing of the powerful Clinton political machine and the power of the White House, Hillary was in a different sphere from her opponent. Think of it: If she needed information about a foreign affairs issue, she could talk to the president, the secretary of state, or the chairman of the National Security Council in great depth, at her convenience. Whom could Rick Lazio talk to?
If she needed advice on her political strategy, she could talk to a man who had been through six gubernatorial and two presidential campaigns, and helped write hundreds of scripts for political ads. If she needed help in projecting her image, she could turn to the team that helped make Bill Clinton the first Democratic president since FDR to be elected twice.
If Hillary wanted to charm potential donors and supporters, she could - and did - invite them to fly with her on government planes, or invite them to a state dinner or sleepover in the White House. This power was alluring, of course, and it increased her charisma. Hillary masterfully marshaled all the perks of the presidency to advance her candidacy. Any other candidate would have paled by comparison. While Rick Lazio might hold a fund-raiser with local Republicans on Long Island, Hillary was feted at a Hollywood star-studded affair, surrounded by the celebrities and movie stars she admired, who had been generous donors to Bill Clinton and now supported her. It wasn"t even a fair fight.
Bill"s public and private involvement in Hillary"s campaign was pivotal. As the sitting president, controlling the prestige and the vast resources of his office, he was the man who could turn on the spigot to finance her costly campaign. He was also the party chieftain, and could guarantee her a free ride - without a primary contest - to the Democratic nomination in a state where she had never lived. He controlled the vast federal bureaucracy, and immense executive authority. Finally, he was about to wield the power of the budget to back up her candidacy.
But, to raise funds, donors needed to know that giving a dollar to Hillary was as good as giving one to Bill. Indeed, now that Clinton could not run again, it was better. Using the White House was the only way she could possibly raise the vast sums she needed to run.
So Hillary had to appear to be close to Bill once again, in much the same way - if for different reasons - as she had in the past.
But changing the image of the Clinton marriage to a semblance of normalcy in the post-Monica years was not an easy task. Hillary had first to show that they were estranged after he confessed to her, supposedly for the first time, in August 1998. Then, in due time, she needed to make it clear that the breach was healed. The estrangement was vital, for it helped substantiate the idea that they had a real marriage. And the rapprochement was essential, allowing her to attract the money and political support she would need to run.
So Hillary and Bill obligingly performed their very public melodrama - first her anger, then her forgiveness, and finally their renewed closeness - before an eager audience of potential campaign donors, party leaders, and all New Yorkers. Photos of their unforgettable walk to the helicopter on the way to Martha"s Vineyard with Chelsea between them, of Hillary"s adoring gaze at him as he addressed the crowds in Northern Ireland, and their joint appearance at her campaign events - such as the New York State Fair - chronicled the stages of their marital metamorphosis over the years.
Was there ever really a period of alienation between the two of them? It"s not impossible. Hillary was never one to hide her anger at Bill, and it was always her style to withdraw completely and cut off anyone who displeased her. By the time the campaign was about to begin, though, it was imperative that Bill and Hillary be seen as a committed couple again.
So it was scarcely surprising, in September 1999, when Hillary took the opportunity of an interview in the inaugural edition of Talk magazine to publicize the opening act in the reconciliation drama. Her most intimate confederates, her closest friends, uncharacteristically opened up to author Lucinda Franks with highly personal details of the Bill/Hillary relationship. That was the tip-off. Anyone who knows anything about Hillary Clinton understands that the penalty for talking to the media about anything concerning her - never mind about her innermost secrets - is instant exclusion from her good graces. The shortest route to her list of least-favored people is to talk to the press. So anyone who talked - and still lived - was undoubtedly told to talk. And not just to talk, but to stick to a carefully developed script.
One of the goals of the story was to elaborate on the reconciliation, but it was also necessary to paint the picture of her journey back to Bill. So first Hillary had to show how angry and estranged she had been. Franks quotes "one of [Hillary"s] closest aides" as saying "Hillary barely spoke to Bill from the time of the stain on the dress in August right up until the trip to North Africa." Kathie Berlin, a friend of Hillary"s, told Franks that Clinton "suffered terribly from Hillary"s exclusion. If he had trouble keeping focused, as people say he did, it was because she was no longer part of the equation." Bernie Nussbaum, former White House counsel and Hillary"s personal friend, says that Hillary "acted like someone had died" after the Monica scandal.
Then Hillary had to show her forgiveness and enact a pantomime of Bill"s redemption. Melanne Verveer, Hillary"s chief of staff and longtime friend told Franks: "I think she fell in love with him again when she came here [to North Africa in the spring of 1999]. As the president has tried to make up for what he has done, we"ve slowly seen a physical pa.s.sion come back into their lives. And it"s not just for show. I"ve seen them together when no one is looking. And when they start talking it"s electric. The power of ideas positively ignites them."
Had Melanne been this graphic without Hillary"s okay, she"d be floating, figuratively, face down in the Hudson River. Like other very close friends, such as Diane Blair, who reported to the press from time to time about the Clintons" love for each other, they proved very useful in sugarcoating the couple"s story to gullible, Clinton-favoring journalists. The party line was clear: The marriage is real. She did suffer. She gave him the cold shoulder for a long time. He repented. And now they"re back together.
Once more, Hillary struggled mightily to feign domesticity. "I was cutting Bill"s grapefruit this morning," she told Franks, "and we had the best idea we ever had about day care, and all of a sudden there"s this flapping at the window and it"s a seagull - a seagull at our window." (Neither Bill nor Hillary nor the seagull have yet shared the day care brainstorm.) Hillary even made sure that Talk confirmed that they slept together - to showcase Hillary"s renewed closeness to her chief fund raiser. The quintessentially private Hillary revealed: "We like to lie in bed," she told Franks, "and watch old movies - you know on those little individual video machines you can hold on your lap?" I knew Hillary Clinton for more than twenty years. And I can testify that her sense of privacy is so intense that it"s impossible to imagine her offering a reporter such an intimate tidbit without a compelling motive - in this case to establish that they were an item again.
Of course, just because Hillary was publicly spinning their renewed relationship doesn"t mean that it wasn"t true that they were back together. Indeed, the lesson in dealing with the Clintons is that their public posturing about their marriage bears no necessary relationship - direct or inverse - to the truth. Their marriage has its ups and downs, but to attempt to chronicle them through their public statements is impossible.
Hillary even used the Talk piece to make excuses for Bill, blaming his conduct on the conflict between the two strong women of his youth - his mother and his grandmother - and on how he was abused emotionally as a child. To hear her tell the story, it wasn"t his fault after all.
Hillary told Franks that, as they were packing up to move to New York, "she and her husband went through old boxes of papers and photo alb.u.ms." Hillary said, "it reminds us of our past. That we have one, and that there is so much more than the extremely painful moments."
For his part, Bill made sure he was heard telling friends - and that they told Franks for inclusion in the Talk article - "doesn"t she look beautiful?" Romance was breaking out all over.
Congressman Charlie Rangel, an early supporter of Hillary"s candidacy, even told Talk, "You could see the guilt written all over [Clinton"s] face" as he partic.i.p.ated in talks about the viability of her candidacy. "Any man would do anything to get out of the doghouse he was in." And when that man is president of the United States, he can do quite a great deal.
The Talk magazine article was a punctuation mark, an announcement that the long days of pain and alienation were over. Now it was time to move on to the Senate race.
WHITE HOUSE DINNERS.
Hillary always controlled the invitations to White House entertainment and state dinners, as do all First Ladies. Until her Senate campaign, the dinners were not especially targeted to attract and reward donors and ingratiate the press. Instead, the invitees were mainly White House Senior Staff, members of the cabinet and Congress, and prominent Americans, politicians, and others, who were a.s.sociated with the country of the visiting dignitary.
(At one White House state dinner honoring President Zedillo of Mexico in 1995, I was introduced to quite a number of prominent Hispanic and Mexican Americans and Mexican public officials. After dinner, I noticed our friends Gene and Marta Eriquez and went to talk to them. At the time Gene was the mayor of Danbury, Connecticut, the town next to ours; he and Marta had been to our house many times. Gene asked if I had arranged the invitation, but I hadn"t. Gene laughed. "I think they must think I"m Hispanic," he said. "That happens a lot with my name." [He"s Italian.]) Once Hillary decided to run for the Senate, the purpose of the state dinners and other entertainment at the White House changed drastically. Instead of diplomatic events to showcase the country of the visiting head of state, they became a highly politicized vehicle for courting and rewarding Hillary"s donors and supporters, and for reaching out to the national and New York press who would cover her campaign. Camp David and the Lincoln Bedroom also became overnight fund-raising sites for her voracious campaign treasury.
The Washington Post reported that "of 404 people invited to sleep overnight at the White House or Camp David since Hillary Clinton began her Senate race, 146 of the guests had contributed money in this election cycle, for a total of $5.5 million, 98 percent of it to Democratic ent.i.ties. About 100 of the sleepovers have contributed to committees supporting Mrs. Clinton"s race, for a total of $624,000. Overnight guests contributed a total of $2.5 million to the Democratic National Committee."
At the height of the fund-raising frenzy, guests were staying overnight at the White House at an average rate of twenty-nine times each month - nearly one per day. It was an occupancy rate any Washington hotel would envy.
In September 2000, Hillary exploited a state dinner honoring Indian Prime Minister Atai Bihari Vajpayee: Hillary seized upon it as an opportunity to reward donors, court New York political reporters, and stroke Empire State politicians. Nearly every guest had some potential connection to Hillary"s campaign. According to Newsweek, "more than 100 of the 646 guests . . . donated money to Hillary"s Senate campaign or several soft money funds set up to benefit her."
Among the most interesting guests were Sydny Weinberg Miner, vice president and senior editor at Simon & Schuster, and Carolyn Reidy and Michael Selleck from their trade division. Was their memoir deal already in the works?
Hillary"s most blatant use of the White House and the social prestige and power of the presidency to raise funds for her campaign was the Millennium Dinner at the White House. Nearly a thousand people were invited to celebrate the arrival of the twenty-first century that evening, but the list was so politically sensitive that the White House refused to release all of it.
At Hillary"s table was Dennis Rivera, New York local president of the Service Employees International Union - a key player in local politics. The union donated $10,000 to her campaign, and mobilized its 300,000 members on her behalf. Bernard Schwartz, head of the Loral Corporation, also joined Hillary at her table. Loral is best remembered for being accused of selling satellite technology information to China, but it should not be forgotten that Schwartz and his wife had donated $40,000 to support Hillary"s campaign.
At the president"s table, of course, was Terry McAuliffe, his chief fund-raiser. Also there were Walter Sh.o.r.enstein, one of the Democratic Party"s top fifty soft-money patrons, and S. Daniel Abraham, founder of Slim-Fast, who contributed $76,000 to Hillary"s campaign and affiliated committees.
Also attending was Beth Dozh.o.r.etz, the fund-raiser who lobbied for Marc Rich"s pardon and who provided the Clintons with their dining room table and other gifts. Walter Kaye, a donor and gift-giver who got Monica Lewinsky her job at the White House, was there. Jill Abramson of the New York Times was on the guest list, as was E. J. Dionne of the Washington Post. According to the Post, the Millennium event "evolved into an off the record fund-raiser, with corporate sponsors sh.e.l.ling out millions to mingle with the Clintons and their celebrity guests."
Hillary even planned to publish a book about White House entertaining during her Senate campaign. But the publicity about her blatant use of these state dinners to court political supporters likely induced her to postpone publication until after the election was over.
The idea for the book probably stemmed from a story that appeared in the Washington Post shortly after White House Social Secretary Ann Stock left her position in October 1997. The small article announced that Stock and then-White House chef Walter Scheib were planning to write a book together based on their experiences planning parties at the Clinton White House. The book would include recipes from state dinners and other White House events and tips on entertaining.
Remember how much Hillary likes her staff to speak out on their own? Well, before the ink had dried on that Post article, somebody must have had quite a talking-to. The Stock/Scheib book disappeared, but by the end of the Clinton presidency, a very similar book hit the shelves. The author? Hillary Rodham Clinton.
An Invitation to the White House: At Home with History was published by Simon & Schuster on November 14, 2000. The book featured more than one hundred flattering photographs (including a cover shot) of a sophisticated Hillary as the hostess at various White House events. Hillary was shown with Lauren Bacall, Meryl Streep, Willie Nelson, John F. Kennedy Jr., Ricky Martin, Princess Diana, the Rev. Billy Graham, the Rev. Jesse Jackson; with the president, she was pictured with Nelson Mandela, Queen Noor and the late King Hussein of Jordan, former President and Mrs. Kim of Korea, the Emperor and Empress of j.a.pan, the king and queen of Spain, Tony and Cherie Blair, Stevie Wonder, Czech President Vaclav Havel, Harry Belafonte, and on and on. It was the ultimate manifestation of Hillary"s addiction to celebrities.
The book even shows photos of a 1998 carnival on the White House grounds. Yet it fails to mention that the company operating the fair was run by Edward and Vonna Jo Gregory - the pair who were convicted of bank fraud in 1982 and who then hired Hillary"s brother, Tony Rodham, to get them a pardon. Bill came through with the coveted pardon after the Gregorys contributed to Hillary"s campaign. But Hillary apparently found none of this important to mention; her accompanying text merely recalls: "In 1998 Capricia Marshall and I decided to stage an old-fashioned carnival, complete with Ferris Wheel, daredevil rides, cotton candy, and balloon artists for the children" (and presidential pardons for the carnival"s owners).
THE POWER OF THE PRESIDENCY ... AT HILLARY"S DISPOSAL.
White House dinners weren"t the only way that the Clintons courted donors. President Clinton used the broad power of the presidency to raise funds for Hillary. According to U.S. News and World Report, on October 27, 1999, Clinton asked the president of the European Community to allow American aircraft landing in Europe to be equipped with "hush kits" to abate noise. One leading manufacturer of these kits is ABS Partnership, whose princ.i.p.als, Sandra Wagenfeld and Francine Goldstein, gave $160,000 to Hillary"s campaign right before Clinton"s intervention. The two women had also given $301,000 to the Democratic National Committee in 1999, and were guests at a White House state dinner in June of that year for the president of Hungary.
No mention of fund-raising, and certainly no allusion to the use of the White House, Camp David, or Air Force One for that purpose, appears anywhere in Living History. Asked about the numerous guests to White House events who contributed to her campaign, Hillary said "I don"t think it is particularly newsworthy. There just really isn"t any reason for anybody to raise questions about it." But Hillary used the White House in many, many other ways, as U.S. News reported: - In 1999 alone, Hillary traveled to New York thirty-five times or more on military aircraft. While each of the trips had an official excuse - visiting the United Nations or inner-city schools - they also gave her the opportunity to campaign and look for a place to live.
- She used federal aircraft to fly to two fund-raisers in Los Angeles, including a $10,000 a couple dinner hosted by Steven Spielberg and his wife. She justified the use of public planes by making a speech in the San Fernando Valley.
- Hillary took a $25,000 contribution from Metabolife International, the maker of a weight-loss supplement, which had been trying to stop FDA action against its product.
As the article noted, "The first lady, in a word, is finding lots of ways to employ the advantages of inc.u.mbency without ever having held political office."
President Clinton also used the federal budget and policy to Hillary"s advantage: - Late in 1999, President Clinton announced a major increase in housing aid, largely to the benefit of New York - a reversal of seven years of cost cutting, including major increases in aid for low income tenants.
- The president restored budget cuts in Medicaid payments to New York"s teaching hospitals, deleting a key cost reduction that had been a centerpiece of the 1997 budget-balancing deal.
- HUD Secretary Andrew Cuomo announced that the federal government would directly fund homeless shelters in New York City, bypa.s.sing city government, which was the usual channel for such aid (and thereby embarra.s.sing Hillary"s then-opponent, New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani).
Using the White House, the president, Camp David, state dinners, government planes, government patronage, and the federal budget, Hillary put together a ma.s.sive war chest to fund her Senate campaign in the third most populous state in the nation.
And when reporters got too close on the trail of her White House fund-raising exploits, Hillary simply shut down access. At the Millennium party, reporters were not permitted to" the larger event. When asked about this policy, the first lady"s spokesperson, Marsha Berry, stated: "It"s closed because it"s closed."
Every president harnesses the machinery of the federal government to help his chances for re-election. But Hillary"s unabashed use of all the president"s resources for her Senate race is a frightening preview of how politicized her administration might be in awarding federal contracts, aid, and spending.
CHAPPAQUA.
Hillary even tried to use the Clinton financial machine to buy her home in Chappaqua, a wealthy Westchester County suburb of New York City, where she moved to establish residence in her newly adopted state. At first, Hillary sought to buy the $1.7 million house with a $1.35 million mortgage guaranteed by Terry McAuliffe, the Clinton fund-raising director and future chairman of the Democratic National Committee.
On September 3, 1999, newspapers told their readers all about the new Clinton home, a "100-year-old manor house at 15 Old House Lane." The Clintons issued a neighborly statement: "We appreciate everyone who helped make our search for a new home an enjoyable experience. We particularly want to thank the homeowners, their neighbors and the real estate brokers who have been so gracious to us throughout our search."
USA Today reported that "White House aides said McAuliffe"s partic.i.p.ation was required because the type of loan the Clintons took out was a security-backed mortgage, with McAuliffe putting up the securities."
The Clintons couldn"t even buy a home of their own without triggering a scandal.
The New York Times reported that the Clintons had originally asked former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin and former chiefs of staff Mack McLarty and Erskine Bowles to sign the guarantee, but were turned down by all three. But "Mr. McAuliffe did not hesitate to help."
The Clintons had been genuinely concerned that they might not qualify for a mortgage because of their outstanding legal debts, now in the millions of dollars. "It weighed very heavily on Hillary," said one person close to the Clintons. "She was very worried that they were going to lose the house. She was distraught."
"Terry would do anything for them," the Times"s source said. "He clearly knew there were consequences to helping them and that he would put himself in harm"s way, but he was ready to take the heat." Indeed there were "consequences."
The Times noted that "leaders of several public watchdog groups said that the refusals by Mr. McLarty and Mr. Rubin demonstrated that the favor done by Mr. McAuliffe was even more important to the Clintons than anyone had first realized. This is a President who has never had any compunction about going around with a tin cup," said Charles Lewis, the founder and executive director of the Center for Public Integrity. "Most people would have a very, very difficult time asking someone to write a check for $1.3 million.""
The house sale set off alarms all over Washington and New York. Was McAuliffe"s guarantee a gift? The Clintons said no, because the money was to be held in escrow. Public interest advocates said yes, because McAuliffe had to put the money in a bank and was denied the use of it for the five-year term of the Clintons" mortgage. Rudy Giuliani himself questioned the deal: "A million-three is a lot of money; somebody putting it in the bank for you is quite unusual."
The problem was determining whether the guarantee was a gift, and thus subject to taxation. To handle the heat, Hillary made up a story. She said the deal had the seal of approval of the federal ethics office. "Everything that we"ve done has been pa.s.sed on by the Office of Government Ethics and has been legally approved," she said.
Well, not quite. According to the New York Times, "Stephen D. Potts, the director of the independent ethics office, said that his office had ruled only on the narrower question of whether Mr. Clinton would have to report Mr. McAuliffe"s involvement on his annual financial disclosure form. Mr. Potts said that the narrow question was the only one that the White House Counsel"s Office had raised about the arrangement with Mr. McAuliffe."
Potts added: "If the President"s and Mrs. Clinton"s statements were accurately quoted by the press, they could give the impression that the Clintons accepted the loan guarantee because O.G.E. (Office of Government Ethics) said its acceptance was not a problem. We do not know who "legally approved" acceptance of the loan guarantee or who advised that the loan guarantee "was not a gift." We do know that it was not O.G.E."
Potts said he had warned the White House about that interpretation after first reading Mrs. Clinton"s remarks in mid-September. But Hillary still didn"t get the message. Potts said he subsequently saw President Clinton quoted in the Washington Post saying that he took the loan "only after receiving a.s.surances from O.G.E. that the loan guarantee did not const.i.tute a gift under federal law.""