Death of American Virtue - Ken Gormley [447]
This was distressing to Monica, not because she cared so much about Bill Clinton anymore, but because she would end up being put on the stand as the chief witness against Clinton. It would be an emotionally and psychologically catastrophic experience, she feared—perhaps even worse than being dragged through the muck by Ken Starr for two years. As Monica walked out of Ray’s office and exited the building on Pennsylvania Avenue, she recalled thinking to herself, her heart racing with a sudden jolt of panic, “Oh my God … This is not good.”
Robert Ray was also playing mind games with the White House. He had contacted David Kendall after Thanksgiving and communicated that he wanted an “in person” meeting with the president. “I want to have a conversation,” he told Kendall. “A one-way conversation.”
David Kendall had dealt briefly with Ray on the Hubbell investigation. He had also crossed swords with the young prosecutor when Ray announced his Whitewater findings during Hillary’s Senate campaign. In both cases, Kendall felt that Ray was playing it straight. Now Kendall was bedeviled. He kept pressing: “What are we going to do here? What do you want to talk about?” Ray refused to tip his hand. “I want a fifteen-minute conversation with the president,” he told the Williams & Connolly lawyer. If Kendall wanted to instruct his client to “stay mute” or to strap a muzzle over his mouth, that was fine. This wasn’t about Bill Clinton; this was about the independent counsel’s communicating a message directly to the potential target “without it being filtered through an attorney.” Kendall agreed to the proposal. He had no idea where it would lead.
Ray’s endgame wasn’t the only mystery in December 2000. The election between Vice President Al Gore and Governor George W. Bush had erupted into a state of near pandemonium—Florida’s deciding electoral votes were dangling in limbo as Florida’s courts and state legislature vied for control over a surreal recount that included local judges of election trying to count “hanging chads” through magnifying glasses. Ray purposely kept mum about the Clinton situation and his negotiations with the White House. “We were concerned about having anything in the press while the election was in doubt,” Ray later divulged. “I felt [the country] needed to focus on the election, not on me.”
On the evening of December 27, 2000, Ray rode with Kendall in Kendall’s 1995 green Toyota Camry, a vehicle chosen to keep the visit inconspicuous since it frequently came and went at the president’s residence. The car was waved through the White House gates at 10:00 P.M., just as the final Christmas candlelight tour was departing the grounds. Nobody in Ray’s own office, other than his deputy Keith Ausbrook who now rode in the backseat, knew anything about this secret summit. Ray’s motto was, “When it comes to certain important matters, resist the temptation to inform anyone.”
Robert Ray had never met President Bill Clinton, other than one day the past August when Ray had golfed with his father at the Army and Navy Club and spotted a group of men carrying black bags that he deduced did not contain golf clubs (his experience in law enforcement told him) but were packed with automatic weapons. On this afternoon, a huge crowd had gathered near the eighteenth hole. Suddenly, Ray found himself on a rope line; President Bill Clinton was walking down the fairway, greeting admirers and shaking hands. When Clinton reached him, the new special prosecutor smiled and spoke up cheerfully: “Hello, Mr. President, I’m Bob Ray. I’m pleased to meet you.” Clinton did not seem to recognize