A Woman in Charge (54 page)

The new president and the Arkansans who had come to work in the new administration were livid at both the tone and substance of the piece. “[Bill] was a little ranting. About the disdain,” said presidential deputy Rahm Emanuel. “He said it to Carville and me. But James and I had the same take on it, which was, ‘God bless Sally for being honest.' She was fucking honest.”

Quinn now represented for Hillary the epitome of the Washington press establishment. That was ironic, because Quinn herself was ridiculed by some of the town's best reporters, though she could write a singular kind of Washington piece which arrived at certain truths that eluded more conventional journalists. And Quinn did play a kind of intriguing and visible role in the Washington social scene.

 

I
T IS UNDERSTANDABLE
that, feeling isolated and alienated in the town to which they had moved to serve the country, the Arkansans would build a substructure in which they could connect to their common past and place. “We were in a new, more unforgiving league,” said Webb Hubbell. “But we Arkansans felt a need for companionship, for connection. Never mind that the Washington attitude was that if that's what you yearned for, perhaps you were in the wrong place.” From this evolved Arkansas Nights, “conceived as a port in the storm,” said Hubbell, in which Razorback victories could be celebrated, old stories swapped, and friendships maintained now that the Arkansans were spread across the Washington bureaucracy, many with their families back home, in jobs that kept them at their desks fifteen hours a day and in many instances living in hotels, or friends' houses, and seeing their spouses and children only on occasional weekends.

The first Arkansas Night, on a Tuesday at a Capitol Hill restaurant called Two Quail, was attended by fewer than a dozen: among them Vince Foster and his sister Sheila Anthony; Hubbell; Bruce Lindsey; Mack McLarty; Ann McCoy; Betsey Wright; Deb Coyle, an assistant to Lindsey who had worked at the Rose Law Firm and later in the governor's office; Nancy Hernreich (the president's secretary); and Marsha Scott, a bright, politically savvy former girlfriend of Clinton who became chief of staff in the personnel office. Within a month, Arkansas Nights had become institutionalized and reserved for Tuesdays. The regular crowd swelled to a couple dozen Arkansans and a select group of out-of staters in the administration who were declared honorary Arkansans, among them Kevin O'Keefe, a Chicago lawyer and politician who had known Hillary since college; Bernie Nussbaum; trade negotiator Mickey Kantor; and Vernon and Ann Jordan. “The real test of being invited to Arkansas Night was loyalty to Bill and Hillary,” Hubbell said, “not where you came from. No one in this group would ever be a source of leaks or gossip about our friends.” Movie and ball game nights in the White House theater with the president and Hillary—and often Chelsea—became an extension of Arkansas Nights.

This socializing was ridiculed by some as evidence of the cronyism and Dogpatch mentality of the new administration. The theme of the supposed small-state insularity of Hillary, the president, Hubbell, Foster, and others fascinated no one more than the editors of
The Wall Street Journal
editorial page, where it inspired irrational vitriol and contempt. Despite Foster's warning that he feared hearings on Hubbell's confirmation as assistant attorney general could lead to problems rooted in the Arkansas past, the process on Capitol Hill had been relatively painless. But not on the
Journal
's editorial page. “Who is Webb Hubbell?” the
Journal
first asked on March 2, 1993, the first of six such “Who is…?” editorials about Hubbell between his nomination as assistant attorney general and his sentencing in January 1995 to a jail term of twenty-one months for embezzling funds at the Rose Law Firm. The “Who is…?” formulation began on March 12, 1992, with the first of three “Who is Bill Clinton?” bombardments. The sitting ducks for the
Journal
's editorial writers included Harold Ickes, Janet Reno, Susan McDougal, Lindsey, Hillary, Patsy Thomasson (who worked under David Watkins), deputy counselors William Kennedy and Jack Quinn, and, most famously, Vince Foster.

By mid-spring, many of those present at the Arkansas Nights were concerned about Foster. He was no longer an elegant, self-assured leader. He was obviously preoccupied, a troubled and tired functionary who was having great difficulty making the adjustment.

 

T
HERE IS
a photograph taken by one of the White House photographers in mid-May 1993 and never publicly released that speaks volumes. Hillary, Foster, and Bill Clinton could look no glummer. “The Travel Office is spinning out of control. They're already acting like the presidency is over,” said one of their assistants in the room with them, aware of his own hyperbole. “But that's how she was taking it in '93. ‘Why can't you people bring this under control? Why are we being treated like this? Why are these stories continuing? Why are these stories dominating the news? Why can't we stop them? Why are we getting totally beat up and made to look like…'”

Hillary was primarily addressing the lawyers in the room: Foster, Nussbaum, Lindsey, and one of Nussbaum's deputies.

The most distressed-looking person in the picture is Hillary. Foster is gaunt, sad, empty. Bill looks like he just doesn't want to be there.

The question of what exactly transpired in regard to the firings of seven employees of the White House Travel Office preoccupied the special prosecutor for more than seven years, despite its relative insignificance. As with Whitewater, a huge amount of investigative resources—judicial (but hardly judicious), journalistic, congressional—were expended. However, the “Travel Office problem” came to acquire huge symbolic importance, not least because of what George Stephanopoulos came to describe to some of his colleagues as Hillary's “Jesuitical lying.”

The Travel Office difficulties for the Clintons could be traced to Bill's authorization of their friend Harry Thomason to be given a White House pass, an office in the East Wing, and a vague charter, known as the “White House Project,” to continue shaping the public images of the president and first lady and the new administration. With two assistants working on the project, Thomason came up with a plan to hire the “best and brightest” directors in Hollywood to film presidential and White House events and “get the most appealing visuals” design a new presidential seal that would project the “image of the new generation of leadership” and use the White House as the backdrop of a lavish sixty-fifth birthday party for Mickey Mouse.

Harry and his wife, Linda Bloodworth-Thomason, had long been the Clintons' devoted friends, invaluable in the campaign and in helping plan the inaugural. As befit Hollywood producers, they were extremely skilled at packaging, and their focus had largely been matters of cosmetology and showmanship: Linda's with Hillary's appearance—clothes, makeup, hair; and Harry's with marketing the candidate and making him more appealing to the voters. He had helped coordinate and sat at the Clintons' side on the
60 Minutes
set. After being billeted in the Lincoln Bedroom during the inaugural week, Linda went back to Hollywood, but Harry stayed on to pursue his White House Project and advise Hillary and Bill in private. And it was he who had first suspected Secret Service and White House domestic staff leaks.

On February 17, the day the president presented his economic plan to Congress, Bill also took a moment to peruse a note from one Darnell Martens, a business partner of Thomason. It suggested that the aviation business in which the two were partners, TRM, be awarded a government consulting contract to review government use of nonmilitary aircraft. During the campaign, TRM had been paid commissions for arranging air charters for the candidate and his entourage, usually aboard the airplane referred to by the press as “Air Elvis.” Now that Clinton was president, Martens had also suggested to Thomason that they change the name of TRM to Harry Thomason and Associates, to “capitalize on ‘Thomason' name recognition.”

“These guys are sharp,” the president wrote to Mack McLarty on a note accompanying Martens's proposal. “Should discuss with Panetta, [Philip] Lader,” the director and assistant director, respectively, of the Office of Management and Budget. More important than the note was Thomason's insistent pushing of a related matter. He and other Arkansans in the White House claimed that the Travel Office, which handled the multimillion-dollar business of arranging flights and hotel accommodations for members of the press accompanying the president, first lady, and other White House officials, was haphazardly managed and more than likely a semilegitimate operation in which fraud or embezzlement might be occurring.

In late April or early May, Thomason discussed the matter of the Travel Office with both Bill and Hillary. She was receptive. “Harry was more the instigator,” said a White House aide. “It was as if someone put a lever under the boulder and it started down the hill and hit the village at the bottom of the hill.”

Because the Travel Office served the press corps directly, Hillary—inspired by Thomason's assurance, according to her aides—became convinced that a spate of favorable stories would result from the disclosure that the Travel Office was being operated dishonestly, its employees fired, and new procedures and people put in place on orders of senior White House officials. One of the president's pledges in tandem with his economic plan for reduced spending throughout the government included a pledge to trim, by as much as 25 percent, the number of employees in the White House. Reconstituting the Travel Office as a lean, well-run entity would add legitimacy and seriousness to the claim.

“Stay ahead” of the problem, Hillary had told Thomason in early May, agreeing that weeding out corruption would make a “good [press] story.”

The first lady's intervention compelled senior staff members to resolve the Travel Office situation with alacrity. McLarty later explained, “the fact that the first lady, one of the principals, had raised this issue, that adds an element of priority to any matter, and it did to this one.”

Thomason relayed to Watkins that the first lady was “very interested.” On May 12, Cornelius reported back to Thomason, Watkins, Foster, and William Kennedy (Foster's deputy in the counsel's office) that Billy Dale, director of the Travel Office for thirty years, and his Travel Office employees were careless in their accounting and recordkeeping. It was true that for many years, the Travel Office had laid out large amounts of cash for tips and unanticipated expenses on press trips, and afterward charged each media organization for its estimated share without providing an itemized breakdown. However, Cornelius exaggerated the facts. She claimed that the checks written for large amounts of cash without corresponding records were financing “lavish lifestyles” for employees of the office; she had learned, actually, of only one employee's boat and another's vacation home.

To further demonstrate likely criminality, Kennedy prevailed on friendly FBI agents who worked with him on vetting presidential nominees to open a formal investigation. He told them the matter was of interest at the “highest levels” of the White House. With this suggestion Kennedy had acted inappropriately. He had either been unaware of, or ignored, a rigid protocol initiated after Watergate that required all White House officers to inform the head of the Justice Department before contacting the FBI. This protocol, when ignored, could lead to real trouble: one of the articles of impeachment against Richard Nixon was for impeding the FBI's investigation.

Hillary increased the pressure to take action on the Travel Office situation the next day. “Are you aware that there are potentially very serious problems in the Travel Office?” she asked McLarty when they met privately at her request. He said he was.

“Oh, well, good,” she said. “Then if you're aware of it, I know you're looking into it.”

McLarty alerted Watkins and Foster about his conversation with Hillary.

She also talked to Foster directly about the Travel Office twice that day. “HRC generally appeared less than satisfied with timeliness of decision-making, i.e., cloture,” Foster jotted in his notes.

The next day, Friday, May 14, Foster asked Watkins to call Hillary. An audit of Travel Office records by the Peat Marwick accounting firm had found a serious lack of organization and numerous inconsistent financial practices, especially in the handling of petty cash on press trips, Watkins reported to her.

“Harry says his people can run things better,” Hillary replied, according to Watkins. And with the staff cuts, “we need those people out—we need our people in. We need the slots.”

Since the transition, a twenty-five-year-old cousin of Bill's, Catherine Cornelius of Little Rock, who had supervised travel arrangements for the Clinton campaign, had been agitating for her own appointment as director of the Travel Office, and urged that its career employees be fired and a new staff of Clinton loyalists be named to work under her. She was assigned in April to work in the Travel Office and report to another Arkansan, David Watkins, White House director of management and administration.

Watkins called Thomason later that evening to tell him about his conversation with Hillary and the progress of the audit.

On Sunday night, May 16, Hillary spoke with McLarty before a dinner party in the White House residence. McLarty told her that Peat Marwick already found “mismanagement and possible misconduct.” Hillary seemed unsurprised.

“Well, this is a serious matter,” she said. “Let's be sure we make a decision on this. Let's stay after it.”

On May 17, Watkins told McLarty and Foster that he had decided to fire the Travel Office employees, citing his phone call with Hillary. He planned to hire a Little Rock company to take over, and put Cornelius in charge.

“Well, I had dinner with the president and Mrs. Clinton last night, and it was certainly on her antennae,” McLarty agreed.