Death of American Virtue - Ken Gormley [322]
For OIC, Catherine Davis still turned out to be worth her plane fare from Tokyo, many times over. In one day, the witness had put to rest any lingering theory that Monica was a stalker who had fantasized a sexual relationship with the president. Now, a half-dozen other witnesses could be hauled before the grand jury to confirm the affair. Additionally, OIC had received highly credible confirmation that a blue Gap dress existed—at one point—and could be subpoenaed for DNA testing.
Ken Starr’s prosecutors finally felt that they had gathered up the goods on Bill Clinton.
ADDITIONAL evidence had also surfaced in the Paula Jones case, threatening to throw that litigation into a fresh state of pandemonium. Kathleen Willey had finally broken her silence on 60 Minutes, telling a national television audience that President Bill Clinton, for whom she had once volunteered as a Democratic fund-raiser, had groped her in the White House in 1993, the day before her husband had killed himself. “It was kind of like I was watching it in slow motion and thinking surely this is not happening,” she said, adding in a subdued voice: “I thought, ‘Well, maybe I should give him a good slap across the face.’ And then I thought, ‘Well, I don’t think you can slap the President of the United States like that.’” President Clinton had flatly denied the Willey accusation while testifying in the Paula Jones deposition. This might constitute a second potential count of perjury, if Willey’s story could be proven.
Clinton’s political team launched a swift counterattack, releasing a dozen letters written by Willey to the president after the alleged assault. In these letters, Willey had gushed about her admiration for Clinton and described herself as the president’s “number one fan.” Still, the drums were beating louder for Clinton’s scalp.
The Paula Jones lawyers from Dallas also filed court papers alleging that Clinton had raped a nursing-home owner named Juanita Broaddrick in the late 1970s, during his stint as Arkansas attorney general. Although this story had bounced around for years and Broaddrick had denied it, Ken Starr’s office had dispatched FBI agents to Van Buren, Arkansas, where the wary blond-haired woman finally confirmed her view that Clinton had decades ago assaulted her.
With the White House reeling from this series of body blows, something astounding occurred that caused some Clinton defenders to have renewed faith in the existence of God: On April Fool’s Day of 1998, Judge Susan Webber Wright granted summary judgment in favor of President Bill Clinton, throwing the Jones case out—lock, stock, and barrel.
In a thirty-nine-page opinion stamped with the seal of the clerk of courts, Judge Wright addressed each of Jones’s claims and rejected them as a matter of law. Acknowledging that the governor’s alleged conduct “may certainly be characterized as boorish and offensive,” the judge went on to conclude that “even a most charitable reading of the record in this case fails to reveal a basis for a [legal] claim.” One of the biggest problems was a lack of any “tangible job detriment.” Judge Wright pointed out that Jones “received every merit increase and cost-of-living allowance for which she was eligible” while employed by the State of Arkansas. In fact, the plaintiff’s job had been upgraded from Grade 9 to Grade 11, meaning a boost in salary. Additionally, Jones had been permitted to return from a maternity leave after her first child was born,