Death of American Virtue - Ken Gormley [245]
The FBI finally called Carter’s office at 5:23 P.M. The OIC lawyers were still not sure what they would say if Carter got on the phone—fortunately for them, the answering service reported that he had left for the evening. Without identifying who he was, Fallon asked how they might reach Mr. Carter if the need arose. The operator reported that the service could reach him at any time if there was an emergency. Jackie Bennett, still in the adjoining room, felt encouraged that his agents had reached out to this problematic attorney; now, this duty was discharged. With that, Starr’s team offered Monica the phone number for the public defender and Legal Aid Society in case she felt compelled to contact a new lawyer.
Monica was fearful—not just about what might happen to her, but also about what the Starr prosecutors might do to her mother. From snippets of conversation, she could discern that Linda Tripp must have told OIC that Monica’s mother had offered her a piece of her condo in Australia if Tripp would vanish before the Paula Jones deposition. The agents and prosecutors were clearly suspicious that her mother was “not only knowledgeable about the affair, but was somehow involved in the whole process of trying to keep this secret and to try to keep Tripp quiet.” The young woman began pressing Emmick: If she “cooperated,” what benefit would she and her family gain? The prosecutor perked up and said that OIC would ask the judge to “give her a lesser sentence.” Monica responded, “That’s not a guarantee. I could still go to jail. I could still be a felon and my life could still be ruined.”
Emmick now excused himself to talk it over with Bruce Udolf and the other OIC lawyers. He said, “Gosh, maybe the way to break through this logjam is just offer her immunity.” The consensus was, “Why not?” Emmick recalled that he was “looking down at [his own] feet” and thinking to himself, “Here I am, looking at the feet of these people and the feet are looking at me, and we’re talking about these big, humongous events and it just seems really bizarre.”
Udolf would later reveal that, although Monica may not have known it, she was holding the trump card. In 2007, Udolf broke his nine-year silence. He had returned to law practice in Miami after having been ostracized from Starr’s prosecutors because he was viewed as an apostate. “I never viewed her as a realistic target for indictment,” Udolf said. “She [Monica] was in the catbird seat and didn’t know it. We needed her cooperation and that could easily be obtained by granting her immunity. The only reason to indict her would be to have a show trial or to tee the case up for an impeachment trial—neither of which would be an appropriate use of the grand jury process. It just wasn’t going to happen if we had any say in the matter.”
Emmick later acknowledged that the decision to offer Monica immunity was made rather impulsively, after their original plan unraveled. He and Udolf believed Ken Starr had expressly given them the go-ahead to make this decision. “So we just decided ‘okay,’ and shrugged our shoulders and I went off and offered her a nonprosecution,” said Emmick.
Monica Lewinsky sat in her chair and chewed on her lip, mulling over the offer. She finally asked, “What about my mom?” Without further deliberation, Emmick volunteered, “Yes, we’ll promise not to prosecute your mother as well.” His logic was simple: “Frankly, we’re not that interested in Mom, anyway, but also, we just wanted her to make up her mind.”
Monica said that the offer sounded attractive. But, she added, “I still have to talk to my mom.” Emmick did not write this off as a bluff: “My impression was that the house of cards had fallen down and her world was coming apart.” He was reassured by the fact that when Monica was not crying, she was able to compose