The right wing web - Following is a story by Isikoff on how Lewinsky's story was handled by Jones lawyers, Goldberg, Tripp, and other conservative lawyers.
Is Starr clean on this in your opinion ? I believe he is, but an independent Judge will need to look into it.
Wether he was trapped or not, Clinton remains a felon and a likely rapist in my mind, needs to be booted out, and thrown in jail.
Newsweek
2-21-99 M. Isokoff
The Right Wing Web
In an exclusive book excerpt, NEWSWEEK's Michael Isikoff details how a loose band of Clinton enemies helped Paula
Jones-and brought Monica to Starr's attention
In Washington, you never know who you'll meet in a TV green room. In August 1997, as I waited to appear
on CNBC to offer my analysis of the latest judicial decision in the Paula Jones case, I ran into someone who
knew much more about the Jones litigation than I did. An acid-tongued blonde who writes a legal-affairs
column for the right-wing weekly Human Events, Ann Coulter was one of President Clinton's most ardent
enemies. She was also an experienced lawyer. As we chatted that night, she kept hinting that she had inside
knowledge about Jones's legal strategy. When I remarked on this, she laughed. "There are lots of us busy
elves working away in Santa's workshop."
Busy elves? Who were these lawyers? What were they doing? It would take me 18 months to piece
together—and confirm—the important role they played in the Lewinsky affair. As I reported on the story in
1997 and into 1998, I got hints that some conservative lawyers were working behind the scenes. And
NEWSWEEK did report the outlines of their activity as early as the first weeks of the scandal. As the
months wore on, I used the lawyers to get more information; sometimes they tried to use me to spread the
story. Looking back, some sources misled me; others later told me of their involvement on an off-the-record
basis and lifted that restriction only at the conclusion of the Senate trial. Although the conspirators were
conservative, they were not the "vast" group that Hillary Clinton suspected. Instead, they were a handful of
determined enemies of the president who not only helped the Jones camp but also led a willing Linda Tripp to
Kenneth Starr.
The story begins in Little Rock with a lawyer named Cliff Jackson. One of Clinton's most bitter foes,
Jackson had been unearthing secrets of Clinton's for years. In 1994 the work paid off. He persuaded
journalists Bill Rempel of the Los Angeles Times and David Brock of The American Spectator to investigate
allegations that Clinton, while governor, had used state troopers to procure women. When Paula Jones
recognized herself as one of the women in Brock's piece, she wanted to file suit against the president—to
regain her good name, she said. Jackson was eager to help her find the best attorneys. Gerry Spence wasn't
interested. Neither was Anita Hill. The National Organization for Women responded with a form letter and a
kit on how to file a lawsuit.
So Jackson turned to an old friend and conservative colleague: Peter W. Smith, a prominent Chicago
investment banker who was a major contributor to Newt Gingrich's political committee, GOPAC. No friend
of Clinton's, Smith had helped bankroll Jackson's earlier efforts to derail the president. (He'd given Brock a
$5,000 stipend to investigate Clinton's sexual escapades and contributed $25,000 to a fund to support the
troopers who blew the whistle on Clinton.) When Jackson asked Smith to help Jones, he suggested they call
Richard Porter, a former aide to Dan Quayle. Porter was an associate at Kirkland & Ellis, the blue-chip
Chicago law firm that's home to Kenneth Starr. Porter couldn't take on the case—for one thing, he wasn't a
litigator—but he didn't want to let Smith down. Falling back on old school ties, he turned to a fellow
University of Chicago law alum, Jerome Marcus. A registered Democrat who had worked in Ronald
Reagan's State Department, Marcus was a tough litigator with a Philadelphia firm. Like the others, Marcus
didn't want to be publicly associated with the Jones case—his firm's founding partner was a prominent
Democratic fund-raiser—but he was intrigued. "I can't put my name on stuff, but I'll help," he told Porter.
Working from his Philadelphia home, Marcus drafted the first civil complaint ever filed against a sitting
president. But Jones needed lawyers who were willing to step up to the microphone. The "elves" found Gil
Davis, a genial former federal prosecutor who ran a Virginia law firm. Teaming up with his associate, Joe
Cammarata, Davis took on the case with gusto.
They soon hit a snag. No incumbent president had ever been sued for things he'd done before taking office.
Was the case constitutional? It was up to the Supreme Court to decide. Readying their argument for the high
court, Jones's lawyers were befriended by none other than Ken Starr, then in private practice. The former
appellate judge believed the case had merit and counseled them to move forward. Starr and Davis spoke a
half-dozen times for a total of four-and-a-half hours in June 1994, discussing ways the Jones attorneys could
undercut the president's claims of immunity.
Starr's help ended there. In August 1994 he was named independent counsel and cut off contact with Davis.
By then, however, the elves had enlisted the help of another conservative lawyer—a brilliant young litigator
named George Conway. A graduate of Harvard and Yale, Conway, then in his mid-30s, was already pulling
down a million dollars a year at one of New York's prestigious firms. A consummate gossip with an impish
laugh, Conway loved to swap stories about Clinton's foibles. When Conway attacked Clinton's immunity
argument in a Los Angeles Times op-ed piece, Cammarata and Davis knew they'd found a kindred spirit. He
agreed to do his part, but only if he, too, remained behind the scenes. Why the secrecy? One of his law
firm's heaviest hitters was Bernard Nussbaum, Clinton's first White House counsel.
Among Conway's and Marcus's tasks: setting up a grueling "moot court" session to prepare Davis for the
Supreme Court argument. Reaching out to Conway's brothers in the Federalist Society, a band of
conservative lawyers, they enlisted the help of Robert Bork and Theodore Olsen, a former Reagan Justice
Department official and Ken Starr's close friend. The session was designed to re-create the often
intimidating atmosphere of a Supreme Court argument. At the appointed hour, however, Davis was nowhere
to be found. When he finally showed up, his briefcase bulging, he suggested he'd rather skip the grilling and
just discuss the case. Conway felt ill. He wondered how much Davis had prepared for the case. Standing
before the justices a week later, Davis stumbled. At times, he tripped over the very points Olsen had warned
him about. But Davis got by: months later, the high court ruled 9-0 that the case against Clinton could
proceed.
Worried about a possible trial, the president's lawyers made an offer in August 1997: $700,000 to make the
whole thing go away. Paula and her husband, Steve, wouldn't have any of it. From the beginning she said she
wanted an apology and she wasn't going to budge now. Her lawyers stuck with her. But that all changed
when Judge Susan Webber Wright tossed out part of the case, making it less likely Clinton's insurance
companies would ever have to pay up. Davis and Cammarata begged her to settle. Still Paula held out. The
lawyers threw up their hands. If Jones was going to continue to fight, she'd have to do it with another set of
lawyers.
It didn't take long to find a new team. In September 1997, John Whitehead spotted a Washington Post article
reporting Davis and Cammarata had quit the case. Whitehead led the Rutherford Institute, which helps
Christian conservatives mount legal cases. He thought the Jones lawsuit would bring some welcome
publicity. He knew just the firm to handle the case. Rader, Campbell, Fisher Pyke reflected the Christian
principles Rutherford touted. Like Whitehead, the Dallas lawyers hoped the Jones case would bring their
firm into the big time.
They quickly were overwhelmed. Clinton's lawyers blitzed the court with motions demanding limits on the
evidence of Clinton's involvement with other women that could be introduced at trial. In late October, Wright
ordered Don Campbell and his partners to respond within 24 hours. The Dallas lawyers desperately needed
help. They turned to the elves. "Don't worry," Conway promised. "We've been waiting three years to write
this motion." Conway and Marcus pulled an all-nighter. Frantically e-mailing between New York and
Philadelphia, they pieced together a 31-page legal brief that ripped apart the president's arguments point by
point. Judge Wright, they argued forcefully, had to let them dig up the president's sexual past. The Dallas
lawyers were thrilled by the brief and filed it under their own names that morning. Wright later allowed the
Jones lawyers to proceed.
An even bigger break would soon come. In New York, literary agent Lucianne Goldberg was looking to air
her friend Linda Tripp's claims that Clinton was having an affair with a young White House intern, Monica
Lewinsky. I had known of Tripp's allegations for months, but I didn't have sufficient reporting to suggest
NEWSWEEK should print a story. Impatient with me, Goldberg and the elves resolved to take their claims
directly to the Jones camp. She called on one of her wide circle of conservative friends, the right-wing book
publisher Al Regnery. Could he put her in touch with Jones's lawyers? Regnery gave her the phone number
of Peter Smith, the secretive Chicago investment banker Cliff Jackson had called three years earlier. On
Nov. 18, 1997, Smith listened to what Goldberg had to say, then called her back with a young man on the
line: Richard Porter, the ex-aide to Vice President Quayle. Porter assured the literary agent that he would
take care of it. Goldberg noted the call in a spiral notebook in which she kept track of her conversations with
Tripp, alongside recipes for short ribs. Next to that day's entry, she wrote cryptically, "note: Ken Starr's
partner re: Linda. She will be subpoenaed." Were Goldberg and Tripp already thinking of taking the story to
Starr? Goldberg would later insist that the reference to Starr was merely a way to identify Porter's firm.
That afternoon Conway was sitting in his New York office when an e-mail from Porter popped up on his
computer screen. "There's a woman named Lewisky [sic]. She indulges a certain Lothario in the Casa
Blanca for oral sex in the pantry." Porter's message went on to mention a "Betty Curry [sic]" as being the
woman's conduit, the existence of "romantic tapes" and a "certain reporter at NEWSWEEK" who knows all
about it. Conway immediately called Porter. He had to be kidding. Porter assured him this was no joke.
Conway faxed the e-mail to Jones's lawyer Don Campbell.
As a result of the Goldberg to Regnery to Smith to Porter to Conway to Campbell phone chain, Tripp found
herself talking directly to the Jones lawyers. On Nov. 21, 1997, David Pyke called her at home. Tripp told
him that if she was subpoenaed and asked the right questions, "I will not lie," but "I need to look hostile."
Perhaps, he suggested, a subpoena could just "drop on your doorstep out of the blue." The legal machinery
was now in motion to make Tripp—and Lewinsky—witnesses in the case of Jones v. Clinton.
A month later, Tripp and Lewinsky got their subpoenas. Goldberg's notebook records a phone call from
Tripp on Dec. 23, 1997. "Linda told 'pretty girl' she would not lie" under oath. Goldberg also noted that she
discussed the latest developments with Porter and Marcus. She told them about the Tripp tapes and that
Monica had told Linda that "Vernon Jordan told her to lie." Goldberg's claim may have been an exaggeration.
Still, the allegation that Jordan was coaching Monica and that Lewinsky was pressuring Tripp to lie stunned
Porter and Marcus. "Holy s---," Marcus recalled thinking. This was possibly subornation of perjury. Maybe
obstruction of justice. And it was on tape.
Protecting the tapes took on new urgency. There was talk of getting the tapes into the hands of a third party,
someone who would make sure they weren't destroyed. Perhaps a publisher who could put them under the
cloak of the First Amendment.
By October 1997, I had only a sketchy picture of the behind-the-scenes maneuvering by the lawyers, but I
was told about the tapes by Goldberg and others. They offered to play them for me, but I begged off. I did
not want to be a part of whatever they were up to. I wasn't happy when I heard about the suggestion that
they could use the tapes as the basis for a tell-all book. Stunned at this idea, I called Goldberg and told her
that such a move was insane. Maybe I crossed the line by saying so, but it seemed to me that if Tripp went
for a book deal she would undermine her own credibility. And though I didn't admit it, I was thinking
something else as well: You're going to muck up my story too. The book idea never went anywhere, but
Marcus spent the Christmas holiday wrestling over what to do with the tapes: "All I kept thinking was ...
who do you call?"
It is not clear who first came up with the answer: take the tapes to Starr. It might have been Marcus or
Goldberg, who had continued to chat with the elves over the holidays. Tripp herself, who was frequently on
the phone with Goldberg, said last week in an interview, "It never occurred to me to go to Ken Starr." To all
of them, though, it made perfect sense that the tapes should go to the man who had spent three-and-a-half
years trying to uncover Clinton's secrets. But would Starr want them? Marcus knew just how to find out. On
Jan. 8, 1998, in Philadelphia, he met with an old pal, another University of Chicago alum, Paul Rosenzweig,
who worked for Starr investigating Travelgate. Before dinner at Deux Cheminees, Marcus told Rosenzweig
of the Tripp tapes. "I haven't listened to this stuff," Marcus remembers saying. "I don't know if it's real or
not. But do you think this is something your office would be interested in?" Rosenzweig was always careful
when discussing his work. "I don't know," he said, "I'll find out." Later, Conway and Porter joined the group
at the tony French restaurant. The elves avoided any further direct mention of Lewinsky, but throughout the
evening one or the other would wonder aloud, "Aren't these people [Clinton and his crowd] unbelievable?''
The next day, Rosenzweig told Jackie Bennett, Starr's righthand man, of his dinner. A hard-nosed
prosecutor, Bennett warned that they were not going to chase rumors and hearsay. If this woman had some
information, she had to give it to them directly. "It needs to come in the front door," Bennett told
Rosenzweig. Briefed three days later, Starr agreed. Rosenzweig relayed Starr's decision back to Marcus,
who sent word to Linda. By 9 p.m. she was on the phone spilling to Bennett.
To this day, it is unclear whether Starr and his deputies understood how closely Marcus was tied to the
Jones camp. Four days later, when the independent counsel's office asked for permission to expand its
investigation to include the Lewinsky affair, Bennett voluntarily declared the office's independence. "No
contacts w Paula Jones attorneys by C office," read one deputy's notes of the meeting. Bennett recently said
that he thought the elves were helping Tripp, not Jones. In fact, the "elves" were doing both. And they could
hardly believe that their years of effort had paid off on such a grand scale.
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