Blackmailing the President: Clinton is vulnerable because of this scandal and many others. If a military pilot of nukes can be discharged for this vulnerability, so can the Commander in Chief. Remember: equal protection under the law, All men are created equal, etc. Should the President be held less accountable than an ordinary citizen? If so, what would that do to our system of justice? What would it make the office of the President?
(quotes from Starr report)
In a recorded conversation later on October 6, Ms. Lewinsky said she wanted two things from the
President. The first was contrition: He needed to "acknowledge . . . that he helped fuck up my
life."(585) The second was a job, one that she could obtain without much effort: "I don't want to have
to work for this position . . . . I just want it to be given to me."(586) Ms. Lewinsky decided to write
the President a note proposing that the two of them "get together and work on some way that I can
come out of this situation not feeling the way I do."(587) After composing the letter, she said: "I want
him to feel a little guilty, and I hope that this letter did that."(588)
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"[V]ery frustrated" over her inability to get in touch with the President to discuss her job situation,
Ms. Lewinsky wrote him a peevish letter on July 3, 1997.(500) Opening "Dear Sir," the letter took
the President to task for breaking his promise to get her another White House job.(501) Ms.
Lewinsky also obliquely threatened to disclose their relationship. If she was not going to return to
work at the White House
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Although not questioned about this particular letter, the President testified that he believed Ms.
Lewinsky might disclose their intimate relationship once he stopped it.
In Ms. Lewinsky's recollection, their meeting began contentiously, with the President scolding her:
"[I]t's illegal to threaten the President of the United States."(511) He then told her that he had not read
her July 3 letter beyond the "Dear Sir" line; he surmised that it was threatening because Ms. Currie
looked upset when she brought it to him. (Ms. Lewinsky suspected that he actually had read the
whole thing.)(512) Ms. Lewinsky complained about his failure to get her a White House job after her
long wait. Although the President claimed he wanted to be her friend, she said, he was not acting like
it. Ms. Lewinsky began weeping, and the President hugged her. While they hugged, she spotted a
gardener outside the study window, and they moved into the hallway by the bathroom.(513)
There, the President was "the most affectionate with me he'd ever been," Ms. Lewinsky testified. He
stroked her arm, toyed with her hair, kissed her on the neck, praised her intellect and beauty.(514) In
Ms. Lewinsky's recollection:
[H]e remarked . . . that he wished he had more time for me. And so I said, well, maybe you will
have more time in three years. And I was . . . thinking just when he wasn't President, he was going to
have more time on his hands. And he said, well, I don't know, I might be alone in three years. And
then I said something about . . . us sort of being together. I think I kind of said, oh, I think we'd be a
good team, or something like that.
(end of quotes) |
