Death of American Virtue - Ken Gormley [209]
In any event, both of the participants in the affair had agreed to deny it. The president had already answered his written interrogatories in the Jones case before Christmas, denying having sexual relations with any state or federal employee during the relevant time period. The only other person who knew about her affair with Clinton—aside from a few close friends (and maybe her mother)—was Linda Tripp. Monica decided, shutting the door of her Watergate apartment, that she would not tell Tripp that she had signed the affidavit, until she could map out a strategy of her own.
Perhaps in a week or so.
In the meantime, Monica’s interviews in Manhattan had paid off. On January 9, she was offered an entry-level position in Revlon’s public relations department at a salary of forty thousand dollars. It represented a sizable pay cut from her job in the Pentagon—but desperate times called for lower salaries. With a quick phone call of thanks, Monica accepted the position and began packing up a dozen boxes in her Watergate condo. Finally, she told herself, she was free from the shackles of Washington and the destructive relationship with a man, twice her age, who also happened to be president of the United States.
Monica later described her last encounters with Bill Clinton: “We had exchanged gifts at Christmas, and I sent him a book and a warm, heartfelt note on the 5th of January. The last time we spoke was around then and it was a strained call.” Monica fully expected that in another month she would have moved to New York, begun a new life working at Revlon, and “heard from him every now and again.”
CHAPTER
25
PINNING THE TAIL ON CLINTON
Paula Jones had a fresh batch of lawyers from Dallas who were tackling the litigation with newfound fervor. Attorney Donovan Campbell, Jr., and his team had just taken over the reins of the Jones litigation; now Campbell called Jones with encouraging news: His investigators had uncovered information that Clinton had engaged in a sexual affair with a young intern in the White House, a discovery that might help their cause. “I’ll never forget the call,” Jones said. The Dallas lawyer had told her, “‘And he’s still doing it, Paula. I mean, he’s still doing it. In the White House, in the Oval Office.’”
Susan Carpenter-McMillan was especially excited about the report. “I knew we had something,” she recalled. “I knew we had some goods.”
Carpenter-McMillan herself had played a role in bringing the hard-charging Dallas lawyers together with Jones. Over a hundred law firms had volunteered to pursue the president after the Virginia lawyers had bowed out. Carpenter-McMillan had turned to the Rutherford Institute, a conservative public interest group in Virginia. Within days, found er John Whitehead had recommended a small Texas firm headed by a hard-nosed Rutherford board member. It seemed like a match made in heaven. Donovan Campbell, age forty-six, had won tough battles for conservative principles. He had written a brief defending a Texas anti-sodomy law that punished homosexuality as a mental disorder. He had defended the right of a high school girls’ basketball team in Duncanville, Texas, to recite the Lord’s Prayer in huddles. He had led the picketing of performances of the gay-themed Torch Song Trilogy at the Dallas Theater Center. Campbell was an indomitable conservative Christian who would not buckle to pressure from the Clinton White House. This was a “David-and-Goliath-type situation,” Susan Carpenter-McMillan said. The Dallas firm was tough enough to bring the immoral Clinton to his knees.
Campbell was primarily a tax lawyer. Two of his partners, Jim Fisher and Wesley Holmes, were top-notch litigators with experience in sexual discrimination cases. Holmes, born in Arkansas, would present a perfect Southern face for the jury. Fisher was an intellectual and could speak the language of appellate judges. The Rutherford Institute would pay out-of-pocket expenses. In Carpenter-McMillan’s eyes, it was a beautiful match. “And I think it stayed a match,” she