Death of American Virtue - Ken Gormley [206]
At 5:00, she was sitting in Jordan’s office, clutching the subpoena. He asked Monica bluntly whether she had ever engaged in sex with the president, or had the president ever “ask[ed] for it?” The young woman bit her lower lip and replied, “No.” Jordan next reviewed the subpoena. It appeared to be a standard legal document. It could be dealt with, he said. The best approach was for him to refer her to a first-rate lawyer.
Days later, Monica drove with Vernon Jordan to the law offices of Francis D. Carter, a former public defender with an impeccable reputation. In the car, Monica divulged a tiny sliver of the truth—she confessed to Jordan that she had delivered documents to the president several times in the White House and struck up a little friendship with him, and they had engaged in “phone sex.” Jordan raised his eyebrow—phone sex? She replied, turning red, that it involved arousing the other person with sexual banter over the telephone. Jordan raised his hand—“Enough.” He brushed this off as too much immaterial information. In his view, the Jones lawyers were embarking on a “fishing expedition here.”
Monica would forever stick up for Vernon Jordan, emphasizing that she had intentionally denied any affair with Clinton in conversations with him. Yet Monica would later say, in the interest of full disclosure, “I thought he [Jordan] might know. With a wink and a nod.”
Together, Jordan and his young friend walked into Frank Carter’s law office at 1341 G Street NW, a small suite with pieces of colorful African art adorning the walls. Monica later reconstructed her feelings: “I was terrified. Can you imagine? You’re twenty-four years old. I guess it was equivalent, in a way, [to] going in for your first surgery. I’ve never been involved in any sort of legal matter. So it was very overwhelming to me.”
Not only was Monica “nervous” about the prospect of signing a false affidavit, but she was also growing suspicious of Linda Tripp, who seemed to be acting unusually strange these days. First, Tripp had recently made a bizarre proclamation that she had drafted a written summary of everything Monica had told her about her relationship with President Clinton, and placed it in a sealed envelope addressed to her attorney, “to be opened in the event of [my] death.” Tripp had also blurted out—in an agitated state—that she was going to reveal the “truth” and blow Monica’s cover, when she gave her own testimony in the Jones case. Monica could not figure out how Jones’s lawyers had even known about Tripp or why they would want to ask her questions. At best, Tripp seemed to be a potential witness in the peripheral Kathleen Willey matter—where was the connection? Her friend’s strange behavior was starting to creep Monica out.
FRANK Carter, former public defender of the District of Columbia, one of Washingtonian magazine’s top fifty lawyers who was experienced in both civil and criminal matters, considered it an ordinary day. The date was December 22. Seated in his office on G Street NW, surrounded by carved wooden faces and African tapestries, he was doing the work of any busy small-firm practitioner. It was not the first time Vernon Jordan had asked him to take on a client. The two men knew each other from the close-knit circle of African American attorneys in the district. They were not close social friends; it was all business, especially for Jordan, a man of high stature and grand formalities. He now walked into Carter’s office, leaving Lewinsky seated in the waiting room, and said, “Mr. Carter, this is a straight referral. You reach whatever financial arrangement you want or can get. This lady, she needs a good lawyer, and I referred her