HENRY HYDE, THE MAN WHO WILL SIT IN JUDGMENT ON PRESIDENT CLINTON, CONFIRMS THAT HE CARRIED ON A SECRET AFFAIR.
Salon Newsreal
salonmagazine.com
"This hypocrite broke up my family"
BY DAVID TALBOT | Fred Snodgrass, a 76-year-old Florida retiree, says he gets so upset when he watches Rep. Henry Hyde on TV that "I nearly jump out of my chair." Hyde, the Illinois Republican who heads the House Judiciary Committee, is on television often these days. Hyde's committee will decide whether the adulterous affair President Clinton carried on with a White House intern, and his efforts to keep it hidden, should be referred to the House of Representatives for impeachment proceedings. "I watched [Hyde] on TV the other night," said Snodgrass. "These politicians were going on about how he should have been on the Supreme Court, what a great man he is, how we're lucky to have him in Congress in charge of the impeachment case. And all I can think of is here is this man, this hypocrite who broke up my family."
Snodgrass says Hyde carried on a five-year sexual relationship with his then-wife, Cherie, that shattered his family. Hyde admitted to Salon Wednesday that he had been involved with Cherie Snodgrass, and that the relationship ended after Hyde's wife found out about it. At the time of the affair, which lasted from 1965 to 1969, Fred Snodgrass was a furniture salesman in Chicago, and his wife was a beauty stylist. They had three small children, two girls and a boy. Hyde, then 41 years old, was a lawyer and rising star in Republican state politics. In 1966, he was elected for the first time to the Illinois House. Hyde was married and the father of four sons. (His wife, Jeanne Hyde, died of breast cancer in 1992, after a 45-year marriage.)
Snodgrass' ex-wife, who is now remarried and living in Texas, declined to speak to Salon. But through one of her grown daughters, she confirmed that she had engaged in a long-term affair with Hyde.
"My mother originally didn't want me to say anything to the press," said her daughter. "But she's just so fed up with [Hyde], with how two-faced he is. She knows she wasn't his first [mistress] and she wasn't his last. She hates his anti-abortion stuff, and all the family values stuff. She thinks he's bad for the country, he's too powerful and he's hypocritical."
Hyde released the following statement to Salon Wednesday: "The statute of limitations has long since passed on my youthful indiscretions (Hyde was 41). Suffice it to say Cherie Snodgrass and I were good friends a long, long time ago. After Mr. Snodgrass confronted my wife, the friendship ended (after 5 years) and my marriage remained intact. The only purpose for this being dredged up now is an obvious attempt to intimidate me and it won't work. I intend to fulfill my constitutional duty and deal judiciously with the serious felony allegations presented to Congress in the Starr report." |
