The Breach

by Peter Baker

  God bless you Tony RudyAre we the only ones with political instinctsThis whole thing about not kicking someone when they are down is BSNot only do you kick himyou kick him until he passes outthen beat him over the head with a baseball batthen roll him up in an old rugand throw him off a cliff into the pound surf below!!!!!

  CHAPTER TWO

  Youre a damn,damn, damn fool

  Tom DeLay set about finding a baseball bat and an old rug the next day. After watching the presidents speech at his home in northern Virginia outside Washington, DeLay stopped by the Capitol briefly on the morning of Tuesday, August 18, before flying to California for a campaign swing. He had made no public comment the night before on the advice of his press secretary, Mike Scanlon, who had predicted that Clinton the masterful public performer would never hurt himself with a nationally televised speech and so it could be risky to go after him on the same evening. DeLay wasted little time reminding his young aide of that advice.

  Hell never screw up, right, Scanlon? DeLay said mockingly.

  DeLays reaction to the speech was visceral. As he saw it, attacking Ken Starr was a disgusting move. The tone, the manner, the sense of arrogance, all suggested a man trying to get away with something. DeLay told aides that when he had served in the Texas legislature, if someone lied, he would be ostracized by his own party; in Washington, it seemed, you could lie with impunity and get away with it. DeLay resolved not to let Clinton get away with it. For months, he had held himself back, taking occasional potshots but thinking someone else would emerge to take the lead. By now, though, it seemed clear no one else would. Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott was too restrained, House Majority Leader Dick Armey too weak within his own caucus, House Judiciary Committee chairman Henry J. Hyde too judicious. Even the outspoken Newt Gingrich, who had risen to political stardom by attacking the ethics of then-Speaker Jim Wright, appeared to waffle on how aggressively to press the case against Clinton, lurching back and forth without warning.

  By the time his plane landed that afternoon, DeLay had figured out what he wanted to do. He called back to Washington and set up a conference call with his top aides. His staff, like most others, was scattered around the country, many on vacation, but DeLay ordered them to get back to Washington right away. From this day forward, he said, they were going to make it their mission to drive Clinton from office. Not just to impeach him, but to force him to resign. That had to be the goal, because DeLay knew that removal by Congress was improbable at best so long as Democrats controlled more than the thirty-four votes necessary to block the two-thirds majority required for conviction in the Senate.

  This is going to be the most important thing I do in my political career, and I want all of you to dedicate yourselves to it or leave, he told his staff. As of today, I want a war room. I want a communications strategy. I want a political strategy. I want you to work day and night.

  DeLays pronouncement was greeted with some trepidation within his inner circle. Some DeLay advisers, including Congressman Bill Paxon, a boyish New York Republican and onetime rising star, had been warning him to keep a low profile, lest he find himself the latest critic destroyed by Clinton. But others, including Scanlon and Tony Rudy, encouraged DeLay. If they were going to wage war, they wanted to do it with no holding back. By the end of the day, DeLay had thrown down the gauntlet in public, issuing a statement calling on Clinton to step down.

  For the good of the country, and to put this scandal behind us, the president should resign, DeLay said. It is bad enough that our president is guilty of having an extramarital sexual relationship with one of his young interns. But it is much more damaging that this president looked the American people in the eye and knowingly lied to us.

  DeLay convened a conference call of the House Republican leadership to inform them of his decision to go after Clinton. At the beginning of the call, Gingrich opposed the idea, but by the end, he had flipped and agreed it was the right thing to do, effectively giving DeLay the green light. The decision put the pugnacious fifty-one-year-old congressman from Sugar Land, Texas, on a collision course with the worlds most powerful man and guaranteed that the issue would not be brushed aside or finessed with a deal, at least not if he could help it. Born in Laredo, Texas, the son of an oil-drilling contractor who was none too gentle with him, DeLay grew accustomed to rough environments early in life. He became a pest exterminator in Houston, a career choice that became something of a caricature in his later political lifeso much so that he chose not to list it on his official biography posted on his Web site, instead simply referring to himself as the onetime owner of a small business. After a stint in the Texas legislature, DeLay first won his seat in Congress in 1984 and quickly built a reputation for a fiercely conservative, bulldog style that earned him the nickname The Hammer. In 1994 he ran for majority whip, the number-three position in the House, in charge of lining up votes for the Speaker, beating out Gingrichs candidate for the job. Three years later, DeLay met with conservatives plotting to overthrow Gingrich, but when the coup failed, he acknowledged his role and apologized, saving his job.

  DeLay and his staff enjoyed promoting stories about his toughness, a little myth-building that helped increase his influence (he kept a bullwhip prominently on display in his office, near his copy of the Ten Commandments). But The Hammer had secured his place in the House Republican leadership by assiduously catering to all of its members, including moderates and liberals. He turned his office into a full-service constituent center for congressmen, from making sure they got pork-barrel projects to laying out barbecue chicken for them during late-evening sessions. DeLay understood better than most how to play the inside game.

  While DeLay hit the television circuit to attack Clinton, his staff returned to Washington to set up the nucleus of an organization designed to oust the president. In a conference room in the Capitol, they created a series of teams, one devoted to communications, another to research, and a third to member services. As they brainstormed, they decided to become the clearinghouse of impeachment for the party, flooding House Republicans with information and providing a central booking agency for members who shared DeLays conviction and were willing to go public with calls for Clinton to resign. They would put together a list of E-mail addresses and phone numbers to blast-fax statements, while sending two hundred talk-radio shows names of members advocating resignation. A message of the day would be sent to every Republican members office to keep up the pressure. Sample press releases would be written for other congressmen to release in their own names. Their research staff would comb through archives on the Nixon impeachment to figure out how it workedincluding everything they could find about young Hillary Rodhams role as a junior lawyer on the staff of the House Judiciary Committee during Watergate, right down to the address of her apartment and details such as her Illinois drivers license and Arkansas bar membership. With Democrats already complaining about the possible cost of an impeachment inquiry, DeLays aides decided to search for any travel vouchers or other receipts showing expenses by the future first lady during Watergate, although they would quickly find those still under seal.

  For all this effort, they would come up with a name. They would call it The Campaign.

  Weve got that walk to the helicopter, Doug Sosnik noted. How are we going to handle it?

  It was the Day After, Tuesday, August 18, and the Clinton White House was suffering a political hangover of the worst kind. Clintons demoralized political advisers gathered in the morning to plot the images of the daya strangely comforting ritual. The main event was the first familys departure for Marthas Vineyard, a moment that would be thoroughly scrutinized for any hints about the condition of their marriage. To get to the resort island, the president and first lady would have to travel together by air force jet. To get to Andrews Air Force Base, they would have to travel together by marine helicopter. To get to the helicopter, they would have to stroll across the South Lawn.

  Scores of cameras would be waiting for that walk. Usual
ly, the presidents aides choreographed every detail of such an eventmake sure to put your arm around her, wave to the crowd, play with the dog, whatever. Nothing was left to chance. But on this day none of the aides could bring himself to formulate a proposal, let alone bring it to the president or the first lady. It would be inhuman.

  When the family emerged from the Diplomatic Entrance and headed for Marine One, the first lady glared straight ahead, her face worn and wounded, refusing to acknowledge her husbands presence and not even bothering with her customary public pretense of nonchalance. The president, holding the blue leash for Buddy, his chocolate Labrador retriever, in his right hand, managed a wan smile for the crowd. It fell to their eighteen-year-old daughter, Chelsea, to provide the image of the day. Positioning herself between her parents, she reached out to grab her fathers left hand and her mothers right hand. There was the best picture the White House aides could have wanted but did not for once try to stageChelsea as the human bridge, holding her parents together at perhaps the most cataclysmic moment of their twenty-three-year marriage.

  When they reached the helicopter, the president reached out to hold the first ladys right elbow as she climbed the stairs, only to have her brush past him unassisted. The president boarded behind her and they buckled in for the short flight to Andrews. No first family can vacation entirely alone, but the entourage of senior officials had been kept to a bare minimumDoug Sosnik, Mike McCurry, and Capricia Marshall, the White House social secretary and close confidant of both Hillary and Chelsea. As the chopper blades beat the air and the green-and-white aircraft launched itself into the sky, the cabin was dominated by an awkward silence. McCurry tried a little light banter about Marthas Vineyard to ease the tension, and Sosnik joined in the strained chitchat, talking about the sights and activities on the island.

  Once they arrived at Andrews, the group boarded a twin-engine DC-9, a backup version of Air Force One used whenever the president flew someplace with a short runway that could not accommodate the regular fully loaded Boeing 747. The president settled in at a small table with Sosnik and McCurry, while Hillary and Chelsea sat behind them, talking quietly between themselves. As the plane soared northeast, the first lady drifted off to sleep while the president read The General, a military thriller by Patrick A. Davis, and worked on the New York Times crossword. Suddenly Clinton was laughing and showed McCurry the clue for 46 down: four letters meaning meal for the humble.

  The answer: crow.

  Heres one thats appropriate for today, Clinton joked.

  The painful silence between the president and first lady convinced McCurry that they had yet to deal with the obvious threat to their marriage. While others, including even Sosnik, were still unaware of the impending military strikes on Afghanistan and Sudan, Hillary Clinton knew what was coming, and that had been one more thing inhibiting an extended, intimate discussion. Their relationship would have to wait until the immediate crisis passed. But for all her anger, Hillary did call her press secretary, Marsha Berry, before leaving the White House to authorize a statement intended to quiet a little of the clamor: Clearly, this is not the best day in Mrs. Clintons life. This is a time that she relies on her strong religious faith. Shes committed to her marriage and loves her husband and daughter very much and believes in the president, and her love for him is compassionate and steadfast. She clearly is uncomfortable with her personal life being made so public but is looking forward to going on vacation with her family and having some family time together. Nowhere did the first lady mention the seething rage she felt at her husbands betrayal or her own public humiliation.

  When the plane touched down on the island around 5:15 P.M., a throng of several hundred friends and supporters waited to cheer them up, including Vernon E. Jordan Jr., the Washington power lawyer who had gotten ensnared in the scandal by helping Lewinsky find a New York job and a lawyer to draft her false affidavit denying a sexual relationship with the president. Jordan gave each member of the first family a tight bear hug as soon as they reached the tarmac. Chelsea was delighted to find some of her college friends from Stanford University on the runway, realizing it meant she would not have to spend the entire vacation with her mother and father, and she jumped out in front of her parents to work the receiving line like an old pro.

  The chill Clinton would feel over the next few days came not just from his wife but from much of the Democratic establishment. While polls showed the public approved of his speech, it had clearly bombed inside the Beltway, even with his own party. Some of the most senior and respected Democrats in Washington were privately livid. While the president was winging his way to Marthas Vineyard, one Democratic congressman, Paul McHale, a former marine who had served in the Persian Gulf War and proudly displayed a mil itary saber on his wall, termed Clintons affair morally repugnant and called on him to resign. No one at the White House was worried about a backbencher like McHale, but they were instantly petrified about what reaction he might set off. Doug Sosnik had told Clinton as far back as February that his fate was in the hands of congressional Democrats. Drawing on the lessons of Watergate, Sosnik stressed that Richard Nixon was forced out of office not by Democrats but by fellow Republicans when they concluded he was guilty and could not survive. Similarly, Sosnik told Clinton, Republicans are never going to be able to remove you, but Democrats can.

  While the House would be the first stop for any impeachment drive, the White House team was more worried about the Senate, where the members were more independent-minded and more readily able to build momentum for resignation. Sosnik, John Podesta, and the others on Clintons political team had worked for the Senate Democrats, and they divided up the list to call each of the forty-five members to identify who would fight for the president, who was soft, and who could bolt. Their canvass showed that the president was in far more trouble than even the media suspected. At least a dozen Democratic senators appeared on the verge of abandoning the president, including Robert C. Byrd, Joe Lieberman, Bob Graham, Bob Kerrey, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Richard Bryan, Dianne Feinstein, Ernest F. Fritz Hollings, and Russell D. Feingold. Feinstein had stood in the Roosevelt Room on that day in January when Clinton had denied having sex with that woman, and she felt personally betrayed. My trust in his credibility has been badly shattered, Feinstein said publicly the day Clinton left on vacation. Privately, she refused to take his phone calls. Even Tom Daschle, the even-tempered leader of the Senate Democrats, was deeply angry. When White House aides called his office to suggest that Clinton talk with Daschle, they were told that the minority leader was not in a frame of mind to take his call. It would be days before Daschle would finally agree to speak with him.

  Clintons problems on Capitol Hill were exacerbated by his long history of rocky relations with congressional Democrats. Perhaps if they had been closer to him, they might have been more willing to rally to his defense. But Democrats in Congress did not trust their president much more than the Republicans did. From the start, they had learned the hard way to watch what Clinton did, not what he said. In the early days of his presidency, he had convinced House Democrats to take the political risk of voting for a highly controversial energy tax as part of his budget plan, then, when the issue moved over to the Senate, he reversed himself and abandoned the so-called BTU taxand his House allies. As they saw it, he cost them their majority, as Republicans, led by Newt Gingrich, roared into the 1994 midterm elections, captured the Senate, and ended forty years of Democratic control of the House. They watched with exasperation as Clinton cut deals with Republicans over welfare reform, trade agreements, and the budget, often leaving Hill Democrats out of the picture. And then in the ultimate insult, Clinton on the advice of consultant Dick Morris cemented his reelection in 1996 through a triangulation strategy designed to set him apart from both Republicans and congressional Democrats.

  Now Clinton could no longer afford to keep his distance from his party. He needed them to come to his rescue. But they were wondering whether they should keep their distanc
e from him.

  It was a question Mike McCurry had never thought he would have to ask the presidents personal physician, but there he was on the phone with Dr. E. Connie Mariano: Is the president taking any drugs to suppress his sexual appetite?

  The answer came back no. McCurry realized how intrusive this sounded, but the press was asking and he had to be informed before answering. Over the years, the White House had found itself disclosing even the most minor of ailments or treatments because the presidents health was a matter of public policy; there could be no legitimate privacy argument anymore. How about any other medications? McCurry asked Mariano. Was anyone treating Clinton for stress or providing marriage therapy?

  We have not and I dont believe any is indicated, Mariano answered. The doctor explained that she treated her patient, not the man she read about in the newspaper. While the White House kept psychiatrists on its list of on-call medical professionals, Mariano said she felt Clinton had plenty of people to vent to and that loving relatives, supportive pastors, and friends were the best type of treatment.

  Bill and Hillary Clinton, though, were essentially not talking in the Oyster Pond compound they had borrowed from a Boston developer. The president was left to take long walks on the beach alone with Buddy to contemplate his predicament. On Wednesday, August 19, their second day of vacation, he celebrated his fifty-second birthday with a small dinner of barbecued chicken and island corn at the Chilmark farm where Vernon Jordan was staying, but then after returning to the compound around 11:30 P.M., he picked up the secure phone installed especially for his use and stayed up until 3 A.M. consulting with aides and military advisers about the upcoming strike against two sites linked to Saudi terrorist Osama bin Laden. By the time Clinton hung up, the missiles were scheduled to slam into their targets in just twelve hours.