Burning Down the House

by Julian E. Zelizer

  Even before the outcome of the vote had been formally announced by Dixon, word quickly spread about what had happened in the damp basement room of the Rayburn Building. Although the committee Democrats had dismissed the bulk of the charges contained in Phelan’s report, as well as those in Gingrich’s original complaint, there were a few allegations that had emerged during the investigation that concerned them enough to vote in favor of looking further. As each member was polled one by one on each charge, party lines blurred on different votes. Not all of the Democrats reached a conclusion of innocence, and that was a big problem for Speaker Wright. The first piece of information to spread around Congress was that the final committee vote on whether George Mallick might have a “direct interest” in legislation, potentially the most damning charge of all, was 8 to 4, with the Democratic congressman Chester Atkins, the Massachusetts maverick, and Bernard Dwyer, the New Jersey insider, joining the six Republicans.

  The bipartisan outcome was politically devastating. Atkins’s vote made sense given his countercultural past, but “Dwyer’s vote caused the most surprise because he was regarded as a model of party loyalty,” correctly judged the Los Angeles Times.26 If Dwyer believed that there was a problem, then there might be something there. The upstanding legislator was sensitive to appearing as if he were lenient on corruption after Abscam swept up two fellow New Jersey legislators, Senator Harrison Williams and Representative Frank Thompson.

  The Democratic votes in favor of the charges made it extremely difficult for the Speaker’s supporters to summarily dismiss the process as a Republican fabrication. As Common Cause’s Fred Wertheimer recalled, “You can’t win that fight once you have a unanimous decision.”27 One Democratic aide noted, “You can’t bitch that it’s a Republican plot that easily anymore. You’ve got two reputable Democrats who went along.”28

  Atkins was ostracized for his vote and quickly became the loneliest man on the Hill. According to a reporter who was closely following these events, when the Massachusetts congressman “walked onto the House floor . . . it was like the parting of the Red Sea as groups of Democrats wordlessly moved aside as he passed by.”29 Jack Brooks, the crusty, cigar-chomping Texas Democrat, was so angry that he openly threatened retribution against Atkins and Dwyer. He told The New York Times’s Robin Toner that he had one word of advice for Democrats who had voted against the Speaker: “pray.”30 Rumors that a corrupt deal had been struck between Phelan and the two Democrats swirled through the building. On the night the committee voted, Phelan and Atkins were mugged while walking in front of the Supreme Court on their way home from dinner together at Adirondacks, an upscale restaurant in Union Station. The mugger fled after both men handed over their wallets. The episode was shocking and upsetting, but for Democrats supporting the Speaker, their main emotion was anger—anger that the prosecutor and this crucial Democratic swing vote had had dinner together. The stories about Phelan’s socializing with committee members had bothered House Democrats from the first; now, however, the damage was impossible to ignore as they learned of a critical Democratic legislator blithely walking through the dark streets of Washington after a lavish dinner with the prosecutor right before an Ethics Committee vote.

  But some of the heat directed at Atkins and Dwyer started to fade when journalists reported that on different votes other committee Democrats had also joined the Republicans. Dixon himself sided with the Republicans in favor of moving forward with the count about the bulk book sales to interest groups. And only two Democrats, Joseph Gaydos of Pennsylvania and Alan Mollohan of West Virginia, voted against the charge that Betty Wright’s salary might have been a “gift” to the Speaker. The committee voted unanimously on some charges, which meant that even stalwart Democrats like Vic Fazio voted in the affirmative on some counts. Karen Van Brocklin, whom Gingrich had assigned the task of trolling for Wright scandals, told reporters with an unmistakable hint of glee, “Consider Vic Fazio. He is very close to Wright. But he could not overlook everything that came before the committee. He could not conscientiously or morally vote against some things, because it is so bad.”31

  The Speaker’s staunchest supporters, and there were not many by this point, scrambled to change the conversation. The Arkansas Democrat Bill Alexander feared that his party was being too timid. “Answer Rep. Newt Gingrich’s attacks upon our party or be prepared to lose again and again,” he warned in a New York Times op-ed.32 Alexander hit back by formally filing charges with the House Ethics Committee accusing Gingrich of having violated House rules with his own book deal in 1984. While the committee remained holed up drafting its official report about their findings on Wright, Alexander laid out a case that included ten different charges about Gingrich’s ethical misconduct when, in 1984, he set up a limited partnership of twenty-one conservative figureheads, such as Joseph Coors, the Colorado beer magnate, along with powerful business interests in his district, to finance the promotional efforts for Window of Opportunity. “Mr. Gingrich is a congressional Jimmy Swaggart,” Alexander said to the press, referring to the televangelist recently exposed for having sex with a prostitute, “who condemns sin while committing hypocrisy.”33

  Wright, who was barely seen these days, felt as though he were fighting for his life. It was one thing to take on Gingrich, quite another to wrestle with an ethics committee that was headed by a respected Democrat. Listening to the advice of his friends from Texas, Wright tried to move out in front of the issue. On April 13, the Speaker, who was now being trailed by a horde of reporters, convened a press conference to address the charges. Democrats from the House leadership, senior committee posts, and top liberals looked on as their boss stood uncomfortably before reporters in the packed room. None of his colleagues knew exactly what to expect because this situation was unfamiliar to the Speaker. He rarely allowed reporters to record anything he did. Here, under the harsh glare of the camera lights, all they could do was to look on nervously, almost painfully, as Wright tried to deflect the specter of another Watergate.

  Wright adamantly denied the committee’s initial findings and dismissed Phelan’s report. There were moments when Democrats familiar with him could see from the way the Speaker’s forehead cringed or his skin reddened that rage was bubbling beneath the surface, just as it had when he had been confronted by a drunk veteran decades earlier or when he came close to punching Dan Lungren on the House floor.

  The most emotional moment occurred when Wright defended the honor of his wife. Of everything that the committee voted on, what angered him the most was the accusation that Mallick had provided her with a job and fancy benefits as a way to funnel money to him. As his voice trembled and tears welled up in his eyes, Wright blasted Phelan for suggesting that Betty had done anything untoward.34 His body sagged as he thought about how his political problems were affecting her. It had always bothered Wright that there were rumors in Congress that Betty’s expensive tastes, such as the sizable wing they added onto their home in McLean, were to blame for his financial issues. With reporters watching his face quiver, the Speaker vowed to “damn well fight to protect her honor and integrity against any challenge, by any source, whatever the cost.” The cynics in the press pool would have known that feminism had never been one of Wright’s signature issues, but now the Speaker embraced the cause with a righteous fervor. By defending Betty’s professional work, he was standing up for the rights of all Washington spouses to have a career. He brought up the fact that in Washington there were many legislators whose spouses worked and slammed the report as an attack on dual-income families. Wright regained his composure before concluding the press conference, which was punctuated by vigorous applause from his Democratic colleagues. He pleaded for the committee to start the next stage of the ethics process as soon as possible. He was absolutely certain that the committee would find him innocent of all the charges and this would clear his name.

  The speech was an ineffective defense and visually reinforced that Wright was a polit
ician under investigation. The press conference resembled the growing list of televised confessionals from troubled politicians. Richard Nixon’s 1952 “Checkers” speech or Senator Ted Kennedy’s 1969 Chappaquiddick apology could not have been far from viewers’ minds. As Margaret Carlson wrote in Time, “The ritual is eerily familiar. A public figure under fire for wrongdoing rises to defend himself, proclaiming his honesty, years of service and adherence to the rules. Last Thursday it was Jim Wright’s turn before the TV cameras. . . . Like the others, Wright’s performance only emphasized how much trouble he was in.”35 Richard Viguerie’s United Conservatives of America sent out a fund-raising letter that included a bumper sticker, which read, JIM’S NOT WRIGHT FOR AMERICA, and a missive demanding that a special investigator be appointed to look into the “ultra-liberal Speaker of the House.”36

  Robert Michel instructed his caucus to stand down, saying there was no incentive for them to become part of the story or to give fodder to Democrats who wanted to paint this as a partisan hit job. Let the sixty-nine violations in the report bury him. Republicans were to maintain a posture of restraint while they offered fact-based talking points about the ethics process in their conversations about the case over the Passover recess.37 Illinois’s Henry Hyde warned his colleagues, “I think it really is premature to start dancing on the Speaker’s grave. I think we all want to maintain a sense of scrupulous fair play in this highly charged political situation.” But the most notable reaction was Gingrich’s. The usually voluble Georgian said only that he would wait. “I’m not going to have anything to say until I’ve read the full report,” he told reporters.38 He was possibly taking a page out of the playbook of Lee Atwater, who said, “We’d be fooling ourselves if we think anyone is going to get elected in 1990 strictly on the Jim Wright issue. But every day the Democratic Party is on the defensive because of Jim Wright is a day we’re coming out ahead. In politics, you win when you’re on the offensive. We’re winning right now.”39

  Meanwhile, Dixon and the Ethics Committee, as well as Phelan, received ample praise from editorial writers who agreed that the right decision would be to continue with the next stage of the investigation. The New York Times argued that Wright’s defense of having not “knowingly” violated the rules was “off the mark.” After all, they said, “even if ordinary members of Congress are held to lower standards, the Speaker, second in line for the Presidency, is required to steer clear of transactions he has reason to believe are improper. Did Mr. Wright do so? The public will be well served if the full House matches the Ethics Committee’s example of careful decision and careful explanation.”40

  When the committee made the results official on April 17, the Speaker knew that the walls around him would crumble fast. At the press conference to announce the committee vote and release Phelan’s report, Dixon and Myers revealed that the stories about their secret deliberations had been accurate. To the dismay of the Speaker and his counsel, Dixon announced that the committee was also looking into new allegations that emerged about additional investments. Dixon, who promised to expedite the process, cautioned reporters that Wright “has not yet been found guilty of any violation.” Wright’s supporters were savvy enough to understand that the warning would not be heard; most Americans didn’t follow the nuances of the process. Instead, they gravitated toward dramatic headlines. HOUSE COMMITTEE CHARGES WRIGHT WITH 69 ETHICS-RULES VIOLATIONS, The Washington Post proclaimed.41

  Wright would have twenty-one days to respond. Thereafter, the committee would deliberate for up to thirty days, using stringent standards of evidence, to decide whether the Speaker was guilty and whether any kind of punishment was warranted. There would be a floor vote to determine how to respond to the committee’s final recommendations. If the committee did not propose some form of punishment, any member of the House—such as Gingrich—could bring the issue for a vote on the floor as a resolution.42

  On the day following Dixon’s press conference, the Speaker addressed a closed session of 240 Democrats in the House chamber to assure them, “I have never dishonored this institution and I never will.”43 The speech lasted for forty minutes, and with glistening eyes he vowed to fight until the very end. When he finished, they stood and applauded. But the support in that closed room was ephemeral. The loyalty that Democrats were showing toward the Speaker came out of a sense of respect for his hard work as a legislator and a clinical feeling of duty to protect the interests of their party. The California Democrat Ron Dellums admitted to a Knight Ridder reporter, “It’s not going to be about justice. It’s going to be about how it’ll play in Peoria.”44 With very few Democrats liking Wright personally, it was now, at the height of this crisis, that his laconic and abrasive personality started to cost him dearly. He had few true friends on Capitol Hill whose support he could count on. The Speaker’s tight circle in Fort Worth was useless in this fight, and some allies, like Mallick, were liabilities.

  In this atmosphere, members of the committee began to fight back against their critics. When one hundred Democrats signed a letter stating that Phelan’s report “sets the stage for the ruination of any member’s career” and said the ethics process was similar to the one used “during the Joe McCarthy era,” Vic Fazio lashed out. The congressman told reporters that Phelan’s report was “fair and unbiased” and “not McCarthy-like.”45

  Through most of April, Gingrich had remained silent about Wright. As minority whip, he was finding himself mired in policy issues, and he was increasingly in conflict with President Bush. In late March, Bush had infuriated the Right by announcing an agreement with the Democratic Congress allowing for nonmilitary aid to the contras until the elections of November 1990. As long as the Sandinistas demonstrated they had implemented democratic reforms, the United States would not undertake any further efforts to overthrow them. In the agreement, President Bush agreed to yield power to Congress to terminate nonmilitary aid immediately if the contras engaged in military action. The accord, which was made the same week that Republicans elected Gingrich minority whip, was seen as a blow to hawks like Gingrich who had gone to the mat for Reagan in the 1980s. The agreement poured fuel on his desire to go after the Speaker.46

  Gingrich also found himself at loggerheads with President Bush over taxes. Eager to reduce the ballooning federal deficit, Bush was toying in mid-April with increasing taxes despite his famous campaign pledge—“Read my lips: no new taxes.” When news stories emerged that the president was open to raising the federal gasoline tax, Gingrich pushed him away from the idea by telling reporters, “It raises taxes for working Americans who sit in traffic every day.”47

  Still, legislation remained a secondary concern for Gingrich, who spent most of his first month as minority whip selling his message to reporters. He tested out catchphrases such as the “Looney Left” to describe Democrats to the press.48 One of his favorite terms was “institutional corruption,” which he used to characterize the endemic wrongdoing that he said occurred whenever Democrats held power, from their control of big-city machines to Capitol Hill.49 In a remarkable op-ed in The Washington Post titled THE GINGRICH MANIFESTO, he outlined his strategy and made certain chilling promises. “It’s spring; even in Washington that means it’s time to clean house. But up on Capitol Hill, spring cleaning involves stirring up more than dust.” He reminded those who were “hoping for grenades in the halls, bombs in the Rotunda and mines in the House” that he’d been supported by a broad and influential coalition that included seven New Englanders, seven women, and a sizable contingent of the party’s moderates. Gingrich vowed that fighting against corruption in pursuit of a new Republican majority would remain central to his agenda.50 In an effort to show that his fight was not solely partisan, he personally called out the fourteen-term Republican congressman, Joseph McDade of Pennsylvania, who had been accused of not having disclosed sizable gifts, such as junkets and college scholarships for his child, that were given by companies and individuals who were pursuing gover
nment contracts. Gingrich’s sporadic jabs at Republicans like McDade helped him to justify making grandiose statements like “We are at the early stages of an era of political reform like the Progressive Era.”51

  Although he had remained silent about Wright for weeks, Gingrich could no longer contain himself once Phelan released his report and the Ethics Committee voted. At a lunch with reporters on April 20, he complained that the committee had brushed aside the savings and loan charges, a massive mistake in his estimation. “The Cadillac is minor compared to the savings and loan question,” he told reporters. He broke his silence about Wright’s future by offering another bold prediction: “I will be very surprised if the senior members of the Democratic leadership don’t try to talk the speaker into stepping down before going through the agony of a public defense, public cross-examination. . . .”52

  But with the ethical finger-pointing also turned on him, Gingrich sought to hit back hard against Democrats like Congressman Alexander who had embarked on a scorched-earth policy. He sent a list of documents to Dixon to expedite the committee’s review of his book. “The entire project was a legitimate effort to publish and promote a real book,” he wrote to Dixon, “one that appeared (albeit briefly) on the ‘best seller’ list.”53 At the House Press Gallery on April 25, Gingrich stood beside Marianne to again refute the charges that his book deal was no better than the Speaker’s sordid moneymaking scheme. Gingrich explained that his book was a legitimate publication, written by someone with a Ph.D. in history. “What we did,” he said in his prepared statement, “we did legally correct, we did ethically correct, we did it out in the open and it is above board and I think that’s a huge difference between us and Jim Wright.”54