Death of American Virtue - Ken Gormley [219]
Inside the Washington Beltway, independent counsels were generally viewed as illegitimate outsiders. Starr himself, ironically, had opposed the whole concept of the independent counsel law, going back to the Reagan and Bush years. Yet the law had been reauthorized; Clinton himself had signed it back into law. Now—whether one liked the statute or not—Starr felt that the White House had a “moral obligation” to cooperate with his investigation. That, in his view, was not happening. Instead, there was perpetual “hostility directed at us,” even though his prosecutors had acted “professionally” and “play[ed] by the rules” at every step.
Still, Ken Starr believed in following the rule book. As he often reminded his prosecutors, “We repair frequently to the mothership,” referring to the Justice Department. Even if the department might give a surreptitious warning to the president, Starr still felt it was his duty to inform the attorney general. They would follow procedures, Starr said, rubbing his eyes, which stung with tiredness. They would take the high road.
Starr asked Jackie Bennett to follow protocol by meeting with Eric Holder, who could then brief the attorney general. This meant his conversation with Holder would have to be tightly constructed. As Bennett retired to his office to type up a carefully worded script, his secretary handed him a message from Michael Isikoff at Newsweek, making his day even more complicated—the reporter wanted Bennett to call him ASAP.
Bennett didn’t like the timing of this call from a big-time investigative reporter. He stuck the message in his pocket, deciding to hold Isikoff at bay. Instead, he dialed the after-hours switchboard at the Justice Department, where he reached Agent McNally at the Command Center at 9:45 P.M. Bennett asked to speak with the deputy attorney general. The agent replied that Mr. Holder had gone home for the night, adding: “We’ve got a pager. We’ll page him.” At 10:18 P.M., after receiving no response, Bennett called the switchboard a second time, emphasizing that the matter was urgent. Twelve minutes later, Eric Holder rang through to Bennett’s direct line, shouting over background noise, “What’s up?” He was at a Washington Wizards’ basketball game. He had needed to find a pay phone with a semblance of privacy.
Bennett read from his purposely nebulous script. His typed notes, later turned over to the House Judiciary Committee, revealed that he stated: “We are sort of into a sensitive matter.” It involved “people at and associated with White House.” The matter was still “breaking.” Starr’s office was “working with FBI.” The whole topic was “highly sensitive.” Could they meet the following day so that he could give the deputy attorney general more details?
The roar of the basketball crowd drowned out Holder’s puzzled response. He asked whether he should call Attorney General Reno and alert her to the situation. Bennett replied cryptically, “I don’t want to tell you not to.” Holder found this to be a “strange answer.” The two lawyers had played basketball together for years in the DOJ league; they had always treated each other as friends. Holder was becoming impatient with this cloak-and-dagger business. “Jackie, this is Eric,” he said in a loud whisper. Bennett answered, “I know that, but this is dicey enough.”
Bennett ended his one-way conversation by saying that he would call back in the morning. When they arranged a time to sit down in private, he said, he could divulge specifics.
Ken Starr himself, years later, would conceded that it was probably a mistake for OIC to expand into the Lewinsky matter. After viewing the wreckage left in the wake of that decision, he concluded that the cost