Death of American Virtue - Ken Gormley [42]
As Governor Clinton was celebrating Christmas with his family in Little Rock and preparing to take the oath of office as the forty-second president of the United States, Foster carried the paperwork in his briefcase to Sam Heuer’s office. Here, fourteen years after the ill-fated Whitewater deal was consummated, the Clintons transferred all their interests in the company to Jim McDougal. Heuer insisted that there be consideration for the transfer, so he “loaned” McDougal a thousand dollars to pay for the property, a sum that a Clinton representative advanced to Heuer. It was a loan that McDougal never intended to (and never did) repay. In a gesture designed to thumb his nose at Bill and Hillary Clinton, Jim McDougal ground down Foster on a few points, insisting that the Clintons be required to file tax returns in ninety days and thereafter return all the Whitewater corporate records.
With the bargain finalized, sole ownership of Whitewater passed to James B. McDougal. Foster heaved a sigh of relief, pleased to have this monkey off his clients’ backs. He returned to the Rose Law Firm, handing the bulky brown folder to his secretary and scribbling an internal memo to the Whitewater Development file dated December 30, 1992.
In that document, which turned out to reflect a tragically premature proclamation of victory, Foster declared that the Whitewater matter was “closed for good.”
CHAPTER
6
DEATH SONG IN THE WEST WING
Three lawyers who had worked alongside Hillary Rodham Clinton at the Rose Law Firm accompanied President Bill Clinton to Washington, occupying key posts in the new administration. Each of these three men—Vince Foster, Webster Hubbell, and William Kennedy III—was trusted implicitly by the president-elect and the incoming First Lady. Each of them, because of his close bond with Hillary at the Rose firm, had played some silent role in trying to clean up the Whitewater mess before and after the election. Vince Foster had assembled lists of facts relating to the disastrous Whitewater investment, to shape responses for the campaign team after the Jeff Gerth story reignited that issue. Webb Hubbell had joined Foster in poring over the documents. His principal job was addressing “allegations of conflicts” and coming up with “a response to questions that Gerth submitted to the campaign—a list of questions involving not only Whitewater, but Hillary’s representation of Madison.” Bill Kennedy, the managing partner of the firm, had pulled the corporate records together to figure out how to remove Hillary from the deal, once it became evident that “McDougal was losing it.”
Many inside the new Clinton White House quickly came to believe that enemies of the First Family placed targets on the backs of these three Rose Law Firm allies of Hillary from the start of the administration. Whether it was the work of enemies, or fate, each of them was ultimately broken by the move to Washington.
One of them, six months to the day after William Jefferson Clinton’s inauguration, would be dead.
BERNIE Nussbaum, a wiry, intense, balding lawyer from New York with big ears and hair that puffed up from the sides of his head, was an unlikely figure to be part of the Arkansas migration to Washington. With his tailored suits and unmistakable New York accent, Nussbaum did not look or sound like someone comfortable hanging out in a Southern barbecue pit. Yet he had known Hillary since she had worked for him, as a young attorney on the House Watergate Committee staff, during the tail end of the Nixon presidency. This was back when Hillary wore long hair and 1970s-style Coke-bottle glasses, and Bernie had some hair, he liked to joke. All those years ago, Hillary had told Bernie that her fiancé, Bill Clinton, would one day become president. Two decades later, she had a new