Death of American Virtue - Ken Gormley [190]
He never suspected that Jerome Marcus, after hanging up, would call Richard Porter in Chicago, who would call the gossipy literary agent Lucianne Goldberg in New York, who would contact Linda Tripp in Maryland (Tripp and Goldberg had been strategizing together on the Monica Lewinsky matter for months) and pass along Jackie Bennett’s direct-dial number to Tripp. Through this roundabout messenger service, Linda Tripp learned that the deputy independent counsel was awaiting her call.
Bennett stayed in the office late that night, preparing for an important deposition of the First Lady, scheduled to take place at the White House on the following Wednesday. FBI agent Steve Irons was moping around the office, feeling guilty that he had missed his son’s basketball game back in Little Rock, again, the ongoing curse of an absentee father with an FBI badge. He was lamenting to Bennett about his shortcomings as a parent when Bennett’s phone rang. It was unusual for calls to ring through directly this time of night. The woman on the other end asked for Bennett by name. She spoke in a halting voice. “It’s me,” she said.
Bennett frantically waved lawyers and FBI agents into his office. He mouthed the words “This is her!” Bennett, a big man with a deep, booming voice, towered over his colleagues like a defensive tackle in the huddle. He spoke into the phone: “Tell me how you got my name.” He wanted to make sure she was the real deal.
The woman sounded miffed. “If you don’t understand that,” she said, “I’m not sure I want to meet with you.” Bennett sized up the tone of the person on the other end: “She was kind of defensive or paranoid.”
At first, the woman did not disclose her name. She began spinning out third-person hypotheticals, saying, “Let’s say I’ve got a friend who is in this situation. And she is a witness—this has to do with the Paula Jones litigation. And she knows about a [young] person who had an affair with the president who is a witness in that. And the White House is encouraging her to lie about it.”
The mystery caller then launched into a monologue about Vernon Jordan driving off with the young former intern in a limousine so that she could meet with another lawyer. This impressionable intern, she said, was supposed to sign a document and “lie about the truth of her relationship with the president.” The caller added, with an abundance of caution, “This friend of mine has tapes with her.” She continued her third-person game: “However, she would need immunity for that act.”
As Bennett deciphered the odd soliloquy, the woman on the other end had illegally tape-recorded conversations in which the former intern had discussed a sexual affair with the president and admitted that she was being coached to lie in her upcoming Paula Jones deposition. As long as the woman’s tape recording did not involve a federal offense, Bennett thought, quickly ticking through a legal analysis in his mind, there was no downside to providing immunity for these nonconsensual recordings. The likelihood of this witness being prosecuted under state law, if OIC granted her federal immunity, would be extremely low. So he said, “Well, I’m sure that immunity could be given.”
The woman blurted out in a raspy voice, “Well, it’s me.” By the way, she stated, exhaling as if relieved to end the third-person game, the intern’s name was Monica.
Next the woman revealed something that made Bennett’s head swim: She had arranged to have lunch with Monica the following day. The caller didn’t trust her own lawyer—the White House had lined up this person to “assist” her as a witness in the Jones case. The lawyer was “a personal-injury guy” named Kirby Behre, who seemed to be in cahoots with the president’s people. So the mystery woman planned to take matters into her own hands. She was going to get information from Monica her own way.
The woman dropped another bombshell: “I’ve talked to you guys before,” she said. Bennett was flabbergasted at the news. “I talked to your office before and gave grand jury testimony, and I