Death of American Virtue - Ken Gormley [149]
Cammarata’s contemporaneous handwritten notes of the telephone call indicated he received detailed information from this anonymous source. The woman on the other end, “age 50,” stated that the event in question had occurred in 1993. She had been working a part-time job at the White House, having been a “party activist” during Clinton’s successful presidential campaign of 1992. The woman stated that she had made an appointment with the president to request a full-time job because her “marriage was not going well.” Her husband, a lawyer, had been charged with misappropriation of client escrow funds.
According to Cammarata’s notes, the woman said that she “went to talk to BC [Bill Clinton]” in a private room adjoining the Oval Office, to ask for help. The door was closed—there were no Secret Service agents in view. She told the president that she was “afraid of things in her personal life” and she needed his assistance in securing a full-time job. President Clinton said “yes,” he would gladly assist her. Then, according to her account, “it got physical.” The unidentified woman told Cammarata that Clinton pulled her to him, kissed her several times, and whispered that he “always wanted to do that.”
The woman also told Cammarata that she was “shocked” by the president’s advance. She did not indicate, however, whether she resisted. As the kissing progressed, she said, Clinton touched her breasts. He next took the woman’s hand and placed it “on his genital area—over his pants.” The woman admitted that she “kissed him back.” She said she was simultaneously “frightened” and “excited,” and halted the encounter to tell the president that she feared “someone might walk in.” She was also concerned because this interlude was holding up his cabinet meeting—wouldn’t the secretary of state or some other important official put two and two together? After reiterating that she “wanted a job,” the woman abruptly pushed her hair into place and stated that she had to leave. As she walked out of the president’s private office, according to Cammarata’s notes, she “saw 3 cabinet members.” The mystery woman walked past them, smiled obliquely, and returned to her work station. She eventually told a coworker about the incident—although she declined to tell Cammarata who that coworker was.
The notes of the conversation revealed a final startling twist: The woman told Cammarata that when she got home, she “couldn’t locate her husband.” She went on to say, “He was found dead that night. SUICIDE.”
Cammarata was in the midst of helping Gil Davis prep for the Supreme Court argument and did not have time to establish whether the story told by this unidentified caller checked out. Still, before he threw the notes of the conversation into his drawer, he decided to call Michael Isikoff at Newsweek. Cammarata felt that Isikoff, who had been covering the Jones case from the beginning, was “friendly to us and seemed to be supportive of our position.” “Mike,” he said, “let me give you this information. Maybe you could track it down. Let me know what you find out.” After listening to the bizarre story and scribbling down notes, Isikoff played his cards close to his vest. “Okay. Fine,” was all he said.
With that hurried exchange, the existence of a potentially crucial witness was about to reveal itself. Her name, Cammarata would learn soon enough, was Kathleen Willey (pronounced “Willie”). The person with whom Kathleen Willey had shared the details of her bizarre encounter with the president, it turned out, was another woman who worked in the same area of the White House.
That woman’s name was Linda Tripp.
THE night before the oral argument in the Supreme Court, Acting Solicitor General Walter Dellinger was pulling into his driveway after another grueling night of preparation,