Death of American Virtue - Ken Gormley [363]
The OIC prosecutors next pounced on a question that was generating oodles of speculation in the media: Was President Clinton wearing ties from Monica as a “signal” to her, in recent weeks, to telegraph some message in secret code? The witness sat back with a shrug and acknowledged that ties had always held a special significance for her. She had worked in a men’s necktie store in Southern California before moving to Washington. For Monica, picking out ties was like selecting colorful greeting cards. She had given at least six ties to the president as gifts. “I used to bug him about wearing one of my ties,” she told the grand jurors, “because then I knew I was close to his heart.”
So it couldn’t have been a coincidence that Clinton recently had appeared on the television news wearing these special ties, Monica concurred. Yet she was not prepared to say that the president had worn them “to tug on my emotional strings” or to sway her testimony. Rather, the ties seemed to be incorporated in Clinton’s wardrobe—for instance, on the day after her first appearance in the grand jury—to communicate, “Hey, you had to do what you had to do.” For Monica, it was simply a symbol of an emotional bond.
The more time Monica spent baring her soul, the more the grand jurors opened up and began asking questions of their own. One juror asked directly why the former intern had persisted in this dead-end relationship.
WITNESS: I fell in love.…
JUROR: When you look at it now, was it love or a sexual obsession?
WITNESS: More love with a little bit of obsession. But definitely love.
JUROR: Did you think that the President was in love with you also?
WITNESS: There was an occasion when I left the White House [that] I did think that.…
Monica confessed that she was aware that Bill and Hillary Clinton were experiencing complications with their marriage. Clearly, “something was not right.” This gave her hope that there might be a future for her with the president. The grand juror kept pressing, trying to figure out what made this attractive but obviously confused young woman tick:
JUROR: You said the relationship was more than oral sex. I mean, it wasn’t like you went out on dates or anything like that like normal people, so what more was it?
WITNESS: Oh, we spent hours on the phone talking. It was emotional.… I thought he [Clinton] had a beautiful soul. I just thought he was just this incredible person and when I looked at him I saw a little boy and …
The grand juror expressed bafflement, countering: “The only part I know is that he was a married man with a wife and a family.” Monica, who had been seduced into an affair with a married man (a former drama teacher named Andy Bleiler) during high school, took a sip of water and blurted out, “Obviously there’s … there’s work that I need to do on myself… you know, a single young woman doesn’t have an affair with a married man because she’s normal, quote-unquote.” She took a breath and forged ahead: “But I think most people have issues and that’s just how mine manifested themselves. It’s something I need to work on and I don’t think it’s right.… I never expected to fall in love with the President. I was surprised that I did. My intention had really been to come to Washington and start over and I didn’t want to have another affair with a married man because it was really painful. It was horrible. And I feel even worse about it now.”
A second grand juror jumped in to throw Monica a lifeline: “I want to let you know that we’re not here to judge you in any way, I think many of us feel that way.”
Now, in a surprise twist, several grand jurors insisted that Monica tell them about the day OIC had confronted her at the Ritz-Carlton. Prosecutor Mike Emmick immediately tried to steer the inquiry away from that topic, interjecting,