Death of American Virtue - Ken Gormley [535]
a nasty flu: David Kendall, interview by author.
the president agreed: “Clinton Admits Misleading Testimony, Avoids Charges in Lewinsky Probe,” CNN.com, 19 Jan. 2001; “Clinton Pays $25,000 Fine in Arkansas Case,” New York Times, 8 Apr. 2001.
With one big caveat: In court papers closing the Arkansas disbarment proceedings, the president further admitted that he had engaged in conduct “prejudicial to the administration of justice” (“Clinton Admits Misleading Testimony”).
sickened by the final deal: Bill Clinton, interview by author.
Ray’s secretary tracked down: Robert W. Ray, interview by author.
“This is right”: Ken Starr, interview by author.
In the White House: CNN, “Clinton’s Final Day Includes Pardons, New Monument and Note for His Successor,” CNN AllPolitics, 20 Jan. 2001.
Bill Clinton’s last: Bill Clinton to Marge Mitchell, 20 Jan. 2001, Marge Mitchell papers.
Chapter 52: Aftermath
“We just had a nasty:” Ken Starr, interview by author.
Even in Clinton’s bestselling: Clinton, My Life; see also Sonja Steptoe, “10 Questions for Kenneth Starr,” Time, 5 July 2004, 8.
In 2002, Starr’s successor: Neil A. Lewis, “Final Report by Prosecutor on Clinton Is Released,” New York Times, 21 Mar. 2002; Final Report/Ray.
Starr expressed conflicted: Ken Starr, interview by author.
pure relief that her husband’s work: Alice Starr, interview by author.
a one-way street: Monica Lewinsky, interview by author. The per sis tent marching orders from OIC, Monica Lewinsky recalled, boiled down to: “I was not allowed to talk about January nineteenth.” Even during her much-anticipated interview with ABC’s Barbara Walters in early March 1999, after the impeachment trial had concluded, the parties had been instructed to steer clear of discussing OIC’s treatment of Monica at the Ritz-Carlton (CNN, “Excerpts of Lewinsky Interview,” CNN AllPolitics, 4 Mar. 1999; Martin Mbugua and Thomas M. Defrank, “Monica Asks Judge to Lift Gag Order,” New York Daily News, 26 Jan. 1999). Monica did, however, discuss OIC’s treatment of her extensively in her as-told-to book written by Andrew Morton released that same month. This was possible, she later said, based on a “loophole” in the immunity agreement that permitted her to talk freely to Morton because he was an “author” rather than a “journalist.” The supreme irony of OIC’s decision to establish strict parameters that prevented interviewees from probing into OIC’s treatment of Monica, she later pointed out, was that the entire Starr investigation and impeachment effort seemed to rest on the veracity of her testimony. On one hand, Starr’s office had proclaimed to the courts, to Congress, and to the American people that she was the “most credible person in the world” with respect to its effort to prove criminal conduct on the part of Bill Clinton. When it came to her testimony about her own treatment by OIC, however, Starr’s prosecutors took the contrary position that she “completely lacked credibility” on that topic (Monica Lewinsky, interview by author).
“I wouldn’t have touched her”: Jo Ann Harris, interview by author; Jo Ann Harris to author, 8 July 2006. Harris emphasized that there was a special office in DOJ designed “to advise prosecutors as to ethical issues and to give them cover.” If Starr’s prosecutors had contacted that office, they would have discovered, among other things, that Frank Carter was “extraordinarily respected, well known in Washington” and a “cool, clear-headed