Death of American Virtue - Ken Gormley [216]
Bennett had also taken steps to blow the Jones lawyers out of the water when it came to the “distinguishing characteristic” allegation. The president’s lawyer had learned that the president was scheduled for a physical exam that included a checkup by a urologist. He communicated to the physician: “Now that you know about this issue, could you focus on it as part of your exam?” It was an unseemly task, but a necessary one. Unbeknownst to the Dallas lawyers, Bennett now had his own affidavit unequivocally stating that the president “was perfectly normal” in this regard and that the alleged “distinguishing characteristic” on which Paula Jones’s credibility rested simply did not exist.
If the president’s deposition went smoothly, as he expected, Bob Bennett had reason to believe that he would walk away with a complete victory.
CHAPTER
26
PANIC IN THE JUSTICE DEPARTMENT
The day after Jackie Bennett arranged for the FBI to wire Linda Tripp, he and Ken Starr arrived at the White House to take a quick deposition of First Lady Hillary Clinton. If Mrs. Clinton had known what the Starr team knew, this meeting on Wednesday, January 14, would have been even more uncomfortable than it already was.
FBI agents and OIC prosecutors had stayed up all night with dubs of the Ritz-Carlton tapes and a pair of headphones. Straining to hear each word on an old boom box, they had nearly fallen out of their chairs. If the conversation between Monica Lewinsky and Linda Tripp was even half true, they now whispered, within days—after the Paula Jones deposition on Saturday—they would be able to establish multiple criminal counts against President Bill Clinton, including obstruction of justice, perjury, suborning perjury, and other crimes sufficient to end his presidency.
Even before this meeting, there was never any love lost between the OIC prosecutors and the First Lady. They had hauled her before the grand jury when the missing Rose Law Firm documents popped up, insulting Mrs. Clinton and solidifying her disdain for Ken Starr and his minions. The OIC, for its part, was deeply skeptical of everything that came out of Mrs. Clinton’s mouth. Unbeknownst to the First Lady, Hickman Ewing was still busily working away in Arkansas, hoping to amass sufficient evidence to indict her.
Inside the White House, the two groups went through the ritual of greeting each other, like animals whose neck hair bristled at the sight of each other. Jackie Bennett later recalled that Mrs. Clinton appeared “well-coifed” and impressive looking. She seemed, as a court reporter commented to him on the ride home, “comfortable and at ease with herself” as First Lady. Yet there was an unmistakable flicker of unpleasantness on her face this day.
Mrs. Clinton asked Jackie Bennett, who towered over her like a giant, “Have we met before? You look familiar.”
Starr chimed in exuberantly: “Jackie was on the Whitewater trial team in Arkansas.” Bennett blanched, understanding that this was like saying to Mrs. Clinton: “This man tried to dismember you and your husband and destroy your friends with a meat ax, we’re so proud of him!” The First Lady looked as if she had just heard “fingernails on a chalkboard.” Bennett thought to himself, “My gosh, Ken—what were you thinking of?” Later, Bennett asked Starr about the incident and his boss simply smiled and “sort of acknowledged that it was deliberate.” Bennett thought, “Oh, that shows me something. I like that.” Now that the relationship between the White House and OIC had disintegrated, even a consummate gentleman like Ken Starr was prepared to play psychological war games.
The deposition was uneventful, lasting no more than fifteen minutes. The Starr prosecutors questioned Mrs. Clinton with respect to whether the White House had improperly ordered confidential FBI background files on Republican appointees. They watched the witness and duly recorded her