Death of American Virtue - Ken Gormley [429]
Back in the Senate the next day, Clinton’s defense team likewise batted a thousand. Deputy White House Counsel Cheryl Mills stole the show by picking apart the House managers’ opening speeches and blasting the audacious Republicans for repeatedly referring to Paula Jones’s lawsuit as a “federal civil rights” case. Wearing a stylish beige suit and a sparkling gold necklace, the African American deputy counsel told the senators in a firm tone, “I am not worried about civil rights because this President’s record on civil rights, on women’s rights, on all of our rights is unimpeachable.”
David Kendall, one eye droopy from tiredness, rode Mills’s momentum and kept going, dissecting the charges that related to obstruction of justice and displaying a complete mastery of the record. He reminded the senators that Monica Lewinsky had specifically told the grand jury, “‘No one ever asked me to lie and I was never promised a job for my silence.’” Kendall surveyed the senators and demanded, “Is there something difficult to understand here?”
Kendall had started his association with the president when Clinton arrived in the White House; now he was closing with Clinton as strong as ever. For the sophisticated politicos, watching Kendall maintain his “top dog” status while other lawyers in the White House came and went was like “watching the Politburo in the old days of the Soviet Union.” Kendall remained the “first among equals” within the elite inner circle of presidential lawyers. He could fight over a semicolon or a comma, rip the opposing side to shreds, and walk away unscathed. Kendall’s presentation on this day showed why he was one of the foremost litigators in the country: As he wrapped up his remarks, he appeared as if he had jogged five miles, taken a nap, showered, pressed his suit, and walked into the hall totally refreshed. “The President did not commit perjury,” Kendall lectured the senators, repeating the defense team’s opening theme, “He did not obstruct justice, and there are no grounds to remove him from office.”
BILL Clinton, by all accounts, was getting back into fighting form. His chief counterterrorism adviser, Richard A. Clarke, recalled riding over with the president to a major policy address at the National Academy of Sciences in the midst of the surreal Senate impeachment trial. Clinton was flipping through the speech Clarke had helped to draft, “On Keeping America Secure for the 21st Century;" then Clinton closed the binder and started regaling Clarke with stories about “his cousin from Arkansas and her sexual escapades.” As the presidential limousine wound through neighborhoods to the Foggy Bottom area of Washington, Clinton seemed oblivious to the Senate trial aimed at removing him from office; instead, he tried to make Clarke laugh like a mischievous schoolboy. The intense-looking security adviser would later state with a mixture of astonishment and amusement: “That was Bill Clinton. That was ‘Bubba.’ He was being impeached and he still [wasn’t ruffled].” When Clinton arrived at the National Academy of Sciences, having barely glanced at the prepared text, he gave a masterful speech on the growing threat of terrorism in the United States—far better than the one Clarke had drafted.
Bill Clinton was returning to his old battle-tested self, seemingly impervious to thrusts and body blows being aimed at him by those wielding traditional political weapons.
Just as it appeared that the Republicans’ case might burst into flames, a story in the New York Times shook the foundation of the White House. The January 31 piece was headlined “Starr Is Weighing Whether to Indict Sitting President.” Citing anonymous “associates” of Starr, the article reported that the special prosecutor “has concluded that he has the constitutional authority to seek a grand jury indictment of President Clinton before he leaves the White House in January 2001.” The Times also revealed that two constitutional scholars serving as paid consultants to OIC—Ronald E. Rotunda from the University of Illinois