Death of American Virtue - Ken Gormley [56]
I made mistakes from ignorance, inexperience and overwork
I did not knowingly violate any law or standard of conduct
No one in the White House, to my knowledge, violated any law or standard of conduct, including any action in the travel office. There was no intent to benefit any individual or specific group.
Foster had continued in a hurried scrawl:
The public will never believe the innocence of the Clintons and their loyal staff
The WSJ editors lie without consequence
I was not meant for the job or the spotlight of public life in Washington. Here ruining people is considered sport.
Nussbaum knew that he had an obligation to turn over this evidence to the Justice Department. But he felt that out of decency, the letter should first be shared with the president and First Lady, then shown to Lisa Foster. Otherwise, the press would flash this presuicide note on the evening news before the Clintons and Foster’s family had even seen it.
Hillary’s office, just ten feet away from his own in the West Wing, was open. The light was on. Nussbaum walked in and spoke gently to the First Lady, who was seated at her desk. “Hillary,” he said, “we found [some] scraps of paper. It is a list of things that were bothering Vince. I think you should see them.” She followed Nussbaum to his office and began reading the note. Finally, Hillary dropped her eyes. “Bernie,” she said, turning away, “I can’t deal with this. Do whatever you want.”
Nussbaum recalled, “She was depressed. I think she was in bed a lot of this time. She’s a tough, strong person. But it was a very gut-wrenching time. Her father had died just a few months earlier. It was a tough scene for her to take.”
Next, Bernie contacted Lisa Foster’s lawyer to say that he had found something “that Lisa needs to see.” Lisa was just returning from Little Rock that night. She would take a detour before returning home.
At 6:00 P.M., Mrs. Foster drove from the airport to the White House, her first visit there since her husband’s death. She sat on the sofa, as Bernie shook the pieces of paper from an envelope and spread them across his desk. Lisa did not seem surprised, as she read aloud her husband’s scrawl. “He was writing down things that bothered him,” she said. Vince was famous for putting his thoughts on paper, she explained. He was doing this openly, just days before his death. Lisa thanked Nussbaum for showing her the note. It was fine, she said, for him to turn over Vince’s scribblings to the federal authorities.
The next day, after the president had returned from a quick trip to Chicago, Nussbaum walked into the Oval Office, where President Clinton was seated at his desk, his face still somber from the funeral. Bernie said, “Vince left some sort of note, or list. Do you want to take a look at it? I’m going to turn it over, but I’d like you to see it.” President Clinton looked up. He fixed his jaw. “I don’t want to look at it, Bernie,” he said. “Do whatever is right.”
When the note was finally handed over to Attorney General Janet Reno—who in turn directed Nussbaum to turn it over to the U.S. Park Police—the attorney general had only one comment: “Why did you wait twenty-four hours?”
The Justice Department was “thoroughly suspicious” about the timing and circumstances surrounding the removal of documents. Moreover, telephone records later turned over to the Senate committee investigating Whitewater, chaired by Senator Alfonse D’Amato, a New York Republican, would reveal that there was a flurry of phone calls from Hillary Clinton to Washington the night of Vince’s death. From her mother’s home in Little Rock, the First Lady called her chief of staff, Maggie Williams, for sixteen minutes; an unlisted “trunk line” in the White House for ten minutes; her assistant Carolyn Huber for four minutes; her lawyer friend and confidant Susan Thomases in New York for twenty minutes (Thomases had played a