Death of American Virtue - Ken Gormley [92]
ONE piece of fascinating scandal history that remained buried in Gil Davis’s files in the basement of his Virginia law office, until years later, related to the fact that Ken Starr was one of the first lawyers Davis contacted for help on the Jones case. “Elf” Jerome Marcus had faxed a confidential note to Davis, first suggesting that Jones’s lawyers should utilize the talents of Ronald Rotunda, a leading constitutional scholar with an increasingly conservative bent who taught at University of Illinois Law School: “Because [Rotunda’s] background is from the left, unlike (for example) Judge Bork or even Ken Starr, I think it would be wonderful to have Professor Rotunda argue on Paula’s behalf.” Marcus added, tongue-in-cheek: “Of course, if the ACLU is willing to come in, I would think that would be best; but I’m not holding my breath.”
Davis decided to pick up the phone and contact Ken Starr. Starr was now a partner at Kirkland & Ellis in Washington. One of the elves with whom Davis had already dealt, Richard Porter, was a member of Starr’s firm in its Chicago office. Starr’s credentials spoke for themselves. He was a former solicitor general in a Republican administration, not to mention a leading expert on constitutional law. Davis and Cammarata had ordered a transcript of his appearance on the MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour in late May, debating Georgetown law professor Susan Low Bloch and White House Counsel Lloyd Cutler; on this national program, Starr had masterfully argued that the president was not immune from civil suit in the Jones matter. So they left a message at Starr’s Washington office, hoping that he would return the call.
That same night, while the two lawyers were working in a hotel room, the phone rang. Cammarata picked it up. To his amazement, Ken Starr was on the other end. Cammarata handed the phone to Gil and murmured, “Judge Starr is on the phone, talk to him.” After a twenty-minute conversation, followed by additional discussions in ensuing days to discuss presidential power cases, it became clear that Starr was prepared to play some role in the case. “And I think he actually wanted to come in as an amicus,” that is, a friend of the court, Davis would recall. Starr would take the position that there was “no Presidential immunity.” Yet he made clear that he was not getting into this due to any “personal views” about Paula Jones or Bill Clinton. “He was only interested in the legal matter,” said Davis.
Starr, it turned out, was also consulting with a conservative women’s group called the Independent Women’s Forum, which included prominent female conservative luminaries whom Starr considered friends, about the possibility of filing an amicus brief in the Jones case. At the same time, Starr was also consulting with Whitewater independent counsel, Robert Fiske, about filing an amicus curiae brief in the Jones case on behalf of the Office of Independent Counsel.
Davis’s billing records reveal that he spoke with Starr four and a half hours during the month of June, in six separate conversations. Davis marked down $775 worth of billable time on his time sheets, relating to these conferences. He also reached out to a young lawyer named Paul Rosenzweig, at the urging of Jerome Marcus and Richard Porter. The two elves had been classmates of Rosenzweig at the University of Chicago Law School. In a memo to the Jones file dated June 16, Davis wrote that Porter had recommended Rosenzweig, then practicing law in Washington, “as a person who can do some research and help us on the questions we need to have help on.” Davis sent at least one batch of material to Rosenzweig; Davis later confirmed that he consulted briefly with Rosenzweig after the elves made the introduction.
This became a sticky subject because Rosenzweig was later hired as one of Starr’s principal lawyers; it was Rosenzweig who would be used by those same elves with whom he had attended law school to steer Linda Tripp to Starr’s office.
At the time, however, none of