Death of American Virtue - Ken Gormley [54]
BERNIE Nussbaum was all in favor of cooperation. Yet he was adamantly opposed to permitting law enforcement officials—even those from Clinton’s own Justice Department—to rummage, at will, through sensitive documents in the inner sanctum of the White House. With FBI agents gathered around him in Vince Foster’s office, Nussbaum personally examined each file, looking for a suicide note, evidence of extortion, or clues to Foster’s death. As he reviewed each folder, he orally described its contents to the agents. Any files that were potentially of interest to the FBI were set aside, so they could be copied by the White House and delivered to the Justice Department.
Tempers occasionally flared as Nussbaum called out the general content of papers while FBI agents strained to peek over his shoulder. No suicide or extortion note was found. The search did turn up, however, several boxes of the Clintons’ personal files, most relating to investments, taxes, and other financial matters, including the Clintons’ Whitewater papers. Foster had been in the process of completing financial disclosure statements and filing tax returns, all of which required these documents. As Nussbaum would later explain to a Senate committee investigating the matter: “It is proper, and indeed traditional, for the White House Counsel’s office to assist in this function.” Since these files had nothing to do with governmental business—they belonged to the Clintons—he felt strongly that they remained “personal files, which had to be returned.” The files included one designated “HRC Financial” containing Hillary Rodham Clinton’s financial papers; one called “Clinton Financial Statements;" one relating to the Clintons’ income taxes; and one marked “Whitewater Development.” Altogether, they constituted a box or two.
The agents looked uncomfortable when Nussbaum declared his intention to return these files to their owners. Yet the FBI did not voice an objection. Nussbaum asked Maggie Williams, the First Lady’s chief of staff, to arrange to transfer these documents to the Clintons’ personal quarters. He told Williams that the Clintons “would probably want to send the files to Williams & Connolly,” the Washington law firm that represented the couple on private, nongovernmental matters.
At 7:25 that evening, the cardboard boxes were carted away by an intern to the third-floor White House residence. Carolyn Huber, special assistant to the president and director of personal correspondence, unlocked a closet and placed the boxes inside. “They were sent to the residence,” Nussbaum would later testify, “because it was late in the day, and we were leaving for the funeral in Arkansas early the next morning.”
There were also batches of files that continued Vince Foster’s own personal records. These were identified for the benefit of the FBI agents and turned over to the Fosters’ attorney, James Hamilton, who was present during the search. “I made the transfer,” said Nussbaum, “right on the spot.” When Nussbaum returned home that evening, Deputy Attorney General Philip Heymann telephoned him after learning about this unusual process. The ordinarily avuncular Heymann exploded: “Bernie, are you hiding something? Is there some horrible secret here that you’re hiding?”
Standing before the Senate committee charged with investigating Vince Foster’s death, a year later, Nussbaum would vigorously defend his actions in Foster’s office that night. “It was my duty as a lawyer, and as White House Counsel, to protect client confidences, including highly sensitive government documents in that office,” he said. It was also his duty to ensure that personal files belonging to the Fosters and Clintons went to their respective lawyers. “Every document the investigative authorities [FBI] asked for was given to them,” he said.
As to the assertion that there was some nefarious plan to spirit away documents that might implicate the Clintons in the Whitewater scandal, Nussbaum termed this pure poppycock. In Nussbaum’s mind, Whitewater was a dead issue. He told the senators: