Death of American Virtue - Ken Gormley [181]
The draft impeachment report, on this key issue, remained inconclusive.
The second allegation related to President Clinton’s statement under oath that he knew nothing about the $300,000 fraudulent loan from David Hale to Susan McDougal’s company in April 1986. Hale had testified at trial—and now Jim McDougal joined in the same refrain—alleging that both men had spoken to then-Governor Clinton about the loan at McDougal’s office at Castle Grande, and that he had urged them to make it for the benefit of the “political family.” There was at least a plausible basis for concluding that Clinton may have lied under oath on this one.
OIC also asserted that Clinton was untruthful when he testified in his April 1995 deposition that he had no recollection of stopping by the Madison Guaranty offices, while going on a jog from the governor’s mansion, and asking Jim McDougal to throw some legal work to Hillary and the Rose Law Firm. Although there was nothing illegal per se about having the Arkansas First Lady do work for Madison, it created a potential “conflict.” The more important question for OIC prosecutors was whether Clinton had lied under oath (once again) when he testified that he did not recall that conversation. Rosenzweig recognized that trying to construct a criminal case (or an impeachment referral) based upon such nebulous information was like trying to catch a cloud in a jar. He sized it up candidly: “I think Jim’s a puffer, but, you know, he [Clinton] probably asked if they could throw Hillary some business.” At the same time, President Clinton had insisted that he had no recollection of whether such a conversation took place. Rosenzweig “believed that lack of recall.”
Stephen Bates completed the draft referral around Thanksgiving of 1997. The top-secret document was then routed to the principal legal staffers for debate, during the month of December. As Ken Starr himself would recall, “We were all of one accord—that it did not reach the level of ‘substantial and credible information.’”
Even Hickman Ewing voted against sending the impeachment referral to Congress, at least for the moment. He reluctantly conceded to his fellow prosecutors, “We’re one witness short.”
So the Starr prosecutors put the Whitewater impeachment referral on ice, for the time being. Yet one witness was still at large, whom Ewing hoped might come around. OIC had learned from interviewing Blood Sport author James Stewart that Susan McDougal came from a deeply religious family and that she might be particularly loath to put her right hand on the Bible and lie under oath. Susan had gone to jail, she had defied OIC, but she had never yet perjured herself. So Starr and Ewing kept the faith. “I kept hoping against hope that she would see the light,” Starr admitted.
Susan McDougal had been moved from the deplorable Sybil Brand facility to the newer “twin towers” high-tech jail in Los Angeles, where she was placed in isolation. Her cell was outfitted with Plexiglas from ceiling to floor, so that she could not communicate with any person outside the cell or hear the sound of another human voice. After a lawsuit was filed by the American Civil Liberties Union, Susan was moved to a federal prison three blocks away, a facility that was more habitable. Here, in the Metropolitan Detention Center, female inmates could at least communicate with males on the floors below through toilet pipes; some women sent tortillas and other food wrapped in paper to friends through the toilet system.
Judge Susan Webber Wright was receiving piles of mail daily pleading for Susan’s release from prison. One citizen from New Mexico wrote in longhand: “Please let Susan McDougal out of jail! It is unconscionable to treat this young woman so cruelly! She is not an ax murderer or a serial killer! She simply doesn’t want to say things that Kenneth Starr wants her to say, which are simply not true!” Another gentleman wrote: “You did the right thing recently in regard to Paula Jones. Now do the right thing and free Susan McDougal WHO IS A TRUE POLITICAL PRISONER.