Christine: here's a European view on Jordan's stance:
Electronic Telegraph
Monday 23 February 1998
Issue 1004
Former allies leave Clinton isolated in
Lewinsky scandal
By Hugo Gurdon in Washington
External Links
A Guide to
the Monica
Lewinsky
Story - The
Coffee Shop
Times
Paula Jones's
case against
Clinton -
Court TV
Clinton
Accused:
Special report
- Washington
Post
Whitewater
and Clinton
scandal clips
- The
Progressive
Review
The A-Z
Guide to
Clinton
Scandals - CJ
Burke
The White
House
PRESIDENT Clinton faced new danger yesterday as his confidant, Vernon
Jordan, claimed that he deceived him about an alleged affair with a 24-year-old
White House trainee.
Mr Jordan's adherents are leaking information to the press that Mr Clinton told his
friend that he never had sexual relations with Monica Lewinsky. Since then
evidence has accumulated suggesting that this is not so.
When asking Mr Jordan to help find her a job, the President also hid the fact that
she had been subpoenaed in the Paula Jones sexual harassment case, according
to reports. If this is what Mr Jordan tells a Grand Jury this week it could add to
Mr Clinton's legal woes.
Within days of Miss Lewinsky receiving her subpoena, Mr Clinton's secretary,
Betty Curry, asked Mr Jordan to help find her a new job. Mr Jordan's camp is
letting it be known that he kept the President minutely informed about his progress
in advancing Miss Lewinsky's career. An intriguing picture is therefore emerging
of Mr Clinton becoming increasingly isolated, and of Washington's upper crust
distancing itself from him.
Robert Strauss, Mr Jordan's mentor and law partner, Sally Quinn, the
Georgetown hostess and wife of Ben Bradlee, editor of the Washington Post
during Watergate, and Lloyd Cutler, a Democratic grandee, have appeared on
television to support Mr Jordan. He is a wealthy lawyer whom the Washington
elite regard as one of their own.
The President is becoming reclusive, hiding away at Camp David, his retreat in
Maryland. He is joined there by Arkansas friends such as Harry and Linda
Thomason. Mr Strauss said on TV: "Vernon is a loyal, devoted friend . . . [but]
not a man who does things he knows to be either conceivably illegal, improper."
He would stand by Mr Clinton if possible, but was not prepared to sacrifice
himself to save the President. Mr Jordan's gradually leaking account of his role in
the Lewinsky affair suggests that Mr Clinton enlisted his help in a cover-up
without telling him the truth of what he was concealing.
If Mr Jordan feels that he was lured deceitfully into a dangerous legal web and is
now prepared to let a rift open between himself and the President, Mr Clinton's
prospects cannot but darken.
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