Didn't HRC get money from Viacom for her campaign?
February 27, 2001
Politics & Policy
Clinton Spoke Up for Friends
In a Billing Dispute With CBS
By JOE FLINT and JOHN HARWOOD
Staff Reporters of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
WASHINGTON -- When he was still president, Bill Clinton placed a phone call to the chief executive of CBS seeking to help his old friends, the TV producers Harry Thomason and Linda Bloodworth-Thomason, in a million-dollar billing dispute, according to people in the entertainment industry familiar with the matter.
It was several months before the last rush of requests for presidential pardons from Clinton friends and others with political connections. The Thomasons and their company, Mozark Productions, were in a quabble with CBS over payment for an aborted comedy series when Mr. Clinton called CBS's chief executive, Leslie Moonves, according to two accounts. Soon thereafter, CBS, a unit of Viacom Inc., resolved the dispute by paying Mozark around $1 million.
More than a month after Mr. Clinton departed, Washington remains agog over the way he exercised his constitutional pardon power as the clock ran out on his presidency. Mr. Thomason acknowledged last week that he had asked Mr. Clinton to pardon convicted tax evaders Robert Fain and James Manning before leaving office, a request the president granted.
But the matter involving CBS and the Thomasons shows a different kind of presidential activism. A CBS spokesman, Chris Ender, declined to comment. The Thomasons didn't return numerous phone calls to their offices and to a lawyer for Mr. Thomason. Mr. Clinton's spokeswoman, Julia Payne, said she had no knowledge of any "private conversation" between the former president and Mr. Moonves, and despite repeated inquiries offered no response from Mr. Clinton. After a wave of publicity over his actions on the way out of office, Ms. Payne said, "it seems to be so much more piling on."
The phone call to Mr. Moonves on Mr. Thomason's behalf came months before the end of Mr. Clinton's term, when his administration still held power over many decisions that could affect CBS, which as a broadcast network is closely regulated. While the pardon controversy drags on, Mr. Clinton's action shows how, in less formal ways, a president can use his office to favor his friends.
The couple's credentials as friends of Mr. Clinton are nearly unmatched. It was the Thomasons, then the comedy monarchs of Hollywood as a result of their hits "Designing Women" and "Evening Shade," who produced the legendary "The Man From Hope" video that cast Mr. Clinton in an appealing light at the 1992 Democratic convention. They helped Mr. Clinton raise Hollywood money for that campaign, and Mr. Thomason even kicked in $20,000 for the Democratic National Committee that June.
Once Mr. Clinton took office, Mr. Thomason drew criticism for his role in the administration's controversial decision to revamp the White House travel office. But he remained a steadfast ally of the first couple, creating an ad for the administration's failed health-care overhaul effort and later advising Mr. Clinton on how to handle the Monica Lewinsky scandal. This past August, he orchestrated Mr. Clinton's televised walk through the bowels of the Staples Center in Los Angeles on the way to his valedictory address to the 2000 Democratic National Convention.
Failing to Keep Pace
In recent years, the producers' TV success didn't keep pace. A television-production deal with DreamWorks SKG produced no shows. "Hearts Afire" and "Women of the House," products of a deal between Mozark Productions and CBS, failed to achieve high ratings.
A third potential comedy series for CBS was "The Good Life," a Janine Turner vehicle about single women in Manhattan. But it was killed by the network before making it onto the air for the 1996-97 season. The network and its tough-minded CEO, Mr. Moonves, then hesitated at paying a "penalty fee" of more than $1 million to compensate the Thomasons for the project. As the matter dragged on, CBS pressed to defer payment of the fees, pending the Thomasons' next idea.
Networks often seek to defer paying penalty fees. Though the figure represented a relatively small sum to CBS -- the television unit of its parent company Viacom had revenue of $1.9 billion in the fourth quarter of 2000 -- it wasn't a small sum to Mozark Productions.
The president of the U.S. was in a position to help. He had a personal relationship with Mr. Moonves.
The president and the CBS executive had skied and golfed together. At a state dinner in 1996, Mr. Clinton pitched the television executive on the idea of a network movie on how a family's battle with a daughter's illness led to passage of his cherished Family and Medical Leave Act in 1993. The result was the CBS production "A Child's Wish," with Mr. Clinton himself appearing in a cameo role.
Mr. Clinton named Mr. Moonves co-chairman of a White House Advisory Committee on Public Interest Obligations of Digital Television Broadcasters and filmed a testimonial about Mr. Moonves when the American Jewish Committee gave the CBS executive a Human Relations Award. (Hillary Rodham Clinton late last year agreed to a deal for an $8 million book advance from Simon & Schuster, which is also a Viacom unit.)
So it was hardly a cold call a few months back when Mr. Clinton telephoned Mr. Moonves on the Thomasons' behalf. According to the two people familiar with the matter, the president expressed concern about the dispute and, without mentioning specifics, indicated to Mr. Moonves that he hoped the network would treat the Thomasons kindly.
How much Mr. Clinton's words affected the outcome of the dispute isn't clear. Some former Clinton White House aides joined Ms. Payne in minimizing the significance of a matter involving the former president's friends. "Big deal," says former White House adviser Rahm Emanuel.
But to others, the matter raises questions about the propriety of the nation's chief executive injecting himself into a private business matter -- even one within the circle of intimates popularly known as "Friends of Bill."
'A Pretty Special Event'
"If that's true, then it really is an inappropriate use of presidential power to get involved in a personal financial dispute," said Leon Panetta, Mr. Clinton's former White House chief of staff. "I think that crosses the line." Even to someone who counts the occupant of the White House as a friend, Mr. Panetta adds, "you get a call from the president of the United States, you damn well know it. That's a pretty special event."
A presidential historian, Michael Beschloss, said, "If the president is asking a private businessperson to do something as a favor for a friend of his, he'd better be very, very light on the pedal."
As an ex-president, of course, Mr. Clinton can dabble in a wide range of business matters. Tuesday, he is scheduled to speak in New York at an entertainment conference sponsored by the trade paper Variety.
Meanwhile, the Thomasons are again taking aim at the small screen. Mozark Productions is developing a pilot with renowned chef Emeril Lagasse -- for NBC.
Write to Joe Flint at joe.flint@wsj.com1 and John Harwood at john.harwood@wsj.com2
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