Chapter One -- Part B The Nixon-Clinton Impeachment Tragedy |
From the 1992 Election to "Clinton Wounded"
President Clinton was elected in 1992, with 43% of the vote in a three way, low turn-out race. It wasn’t much of a mandate, but he won. Soon, a new generation of the freshfaced, highly educated, highly intelligent Clinton elite was on parade to Washington, ready to do the People’s Business. President Clinton, flush with power and apparently not one to just talk about the weather when now he could do something about it, proclaimed in his Inaugural address: "We must force the Spring." He promised the most ethical administration in American history.
Giddy days.
The Clinton administration brought a lot of talent to bear to make America better off. President Clinton pushed through his economic plan over united Republican opposition, and in doing so deserves much of the credit (but more to Perot for forcing the issue) for bringing the deficit under control and improving the economy. Hillary’s massive health care effort failed. The new administration made many blunders, most of them forgotten.
Ethical questions quickly emerged for the new administration. Zoe Baird, Clinton’s first nominee for Attorney General, was forced to withdraw because she and her husband had employed an alien couple as a nanny and chauffeur, paying them below minimum wage, and belatedly paying Social Security tax. [10] Janet Reno, the longest serving member of Clinton’s cabinet, was the third person advanced by the administration to be Attorney General, after Judge Kimba Wood’s name was floated and then also withdrawn for employing an illegal alien and neglecting to pay Social Security tax. [11]
As President George Bush said in the 1992 debates: "there’s a pattern here." Serious questions about Whitewater and other scandals began to emerge.
As a brief summary of Whitewater and related events from 1992 to the 1994 Congressional elections, following are six excerpts from a chronology prepared by Harvard Law Professor Alan M. Dershowitz, from his book Sexual McCarthyism.
"May 1993 White House fires seven employees in the Travel Office, possibly to make room for Clinton friends. An FBI investigation of the office ensues, allegedly opened under pressure from the White House to justify the firings.
"July 1993 [Vincent] Foster is found dead in a Washington area park. Police rule the death a suicide. Federal investigators are not allowed access to Foster’s office immediately after the discovery, but White House aides enter Foster’s office shortly after his death, giving rise to speculation that files may have been removed from his office.
"January 12, 1994 President Clinton asks Attorney General Janet Reno to appoint a special counsel to investigate his involvement in the Whitewater real estate venture and its relationship to Madison Guaranty, a failed Arkansas savings and loan.
"March 1994 Webster L. Hubbell abruptly resigns as associate attorney general after allegations are raised about his conduct at the Rose Law Firm. Two of Clinton’s top political advisers call business friends and line up more than $500,000 for Hubbell, including $100,000 from the Lippo Group. Hubbell is later convicted of fraud and serves eighteen months in jail.
"May 3, 1994 Clinton hires lawyer Robert S. Bennett to handle the sexual harassment lawsuit brought against Clinton by Paula Corbin Jones.
"August 5, 1994 A U.S. Court of Appeals panel refuses to reappoint [Robert] Fiske as special counsel, citing a possible conflict of interest because he was appointed by Clinton’s attorney general, Janet Reno. Kenneth W. Starr, a former federal appeals court judge and U.S. solicitor who worked in the Reagan and Bush administrations, succeeds Fiske as the Independent Counsel to investigate Whitewater-Madison matters. He reissues subpoenas for documents, such as the Rose billing records of Hillary Clinton." [12]
By the fall of 1994 it had become apparent both that there were serious ethical questions about the Clinton administration, and that a pattern was emerging of apparently withholding and possibly destroying evidence.
In 1994, the Republicans "nationalized" the Congressional elections by running on what they called the "Contract With America." The Republicans won control of both Houses of Congress.
Republicans had not controlled both houses of Congress since 1953-54, during the first term of the Eisenhower administration. Why did the American people give control of Congress to the Republicans in 1994? Elements of the "Contract With America" were certainly a factor. But on the issues alone, with the economy improving and the nation at peace, I don’t think you can account for a 52 seat Republican gain in the House. Not a single Republican incumbent Representative was defeated for re-election. It seems likely that one underlying reason for the 1994 Republican victory was the public’s desire to exercise what they saw as the only Constitutional check available to control the Clinton administration. In short, by 1994 the public lacked trust and confidence in Clinton, and they preferred a divided government, with a Republican Congress to keep the Clinton Administration under close supervision.
The Expectation Gap
Before Clinton was elected, the American people had a pretty good idea that he had been an adulterer. You could characterize the Sixty Minutes interview as a kind of an attempt to "inoculate" the electorate against rejecting them for private sexual misconduct - by generally implying that, "yes, Bill has committed adultery, we’ve worked it out," to avoid having to go into any sordid details. Although some Whitewater questions were raised during the 1992 campaign, Bill Clinton was presented to the American people as a man of at least "public" integrity. At the beginning of his presidency, Clinton promised the most ethical Administration in American history. With what we know now, it appears both of the Clintons had things to hide. Many people probably wonder something along these lines: "with all that was in his past, how could the Clintons have ever thought Bill Clinton could be elected President and survive the glare of national publicity? The answer is this: the Clintons thought the Nixon impeachment proceedings established as a precedent that a President cannot be impeached for "private wrongdoing" if it is not egregious. They may have felt that whatever they had done was more or less accepted in the context of Arkansas and Southern politics. Therefore, if push ever came to shove, their past was legally a non-issue. As we have seen, there is a basis for thinking this. However, during the 1992 campaign, the Clintons never attempted to "inoculate" the electorate against rejecting them for a whole range of possible "private wrongdoing" including criminal acts.
How could they have done this? They couldn’t. It couldn’t be done.
The central problem of the Clinton Administration from day one has been a fundamental, unbridgeable gap in expectations. The American electorate, with varying intelligence and education, had and has a generalized gut reaction against the idea of electing Presidents with a past that may have included criminal wrongdoing. Obviously, many people in the media, throughout the government, and in Congress also reject the idea that it is acceptable to have a past-or-present criminal President. However, we also have a post-Watergate generation of a highly intelligent elite in this country, including the Clintons, who believe that when push comes to shove, in the final Constitutional analysis, even a criminal past is legally irrelevant to serving as President if the wrongdoing is "essentially private" and not egregious.
I think the Clintons went forward into the 1992 campaign with the idea that they had much to offer the country. There must have been an undercurrent of doubt about the likely reaction to a knowledge of their past, by both the public, and by a Washington establishment that is highly educated, aware of legal and Constitutional subtleties, and more tolerant of ethical grey areas. But because the Clintons thought they were on sound legal and Constitutional ground in claiming that anything they had done in the past did not rise to the level of an impeachable offense, they probably concluded that as their Administration proceeded, both the Washington establishment and the media would weigh the legal significance and the consequent newsworthiness of any emerging evidence of past wrongdoing against the Constitutional standard for impeachment. It reasonably follows on this theory that while whatever turned up could be politically damaging, ultimately these issues could not ever rise to the level of an impeachment proceeding. In short, the Clintons appear to have believed that President Clinton, fully stipulating everything he had done in his past, was Constitutionally fully qualified to serve as President.
Presidential Campaign Finance Reform In Shambles: From 1994 to the 1996 Election
After the Watergate scandal, Congress passed and President Ford signed, a major reform bill for campaign finance, within weeks of President Nixon’s resignation. [13] From Watergate-related investigations it was found that a small group of about 1,200 donors had contributed over $50 million to President Nixon's campaign, including one donation of over $2 million. [14] As part of the Watergate reforms, the Federal Election Commission (FEC) was established to regulate campaigns. Disclosure requirements were established for all federal elections. A system of public financing was established for Presidential campaigns, including partial matching during the primaries and 100% funding after the nominating conventions. Contribution limits were established of $1,000 per individual, and $5,000 for Political Action Committees (PACs). Only individual contributions were allowed for Presidential campaigns. Arguably, the reformed system worked reasonably well for Presidential elections up to as recently as 1992.
In 1976 the Supreme Court decided on First Amendment grounds in Buckley v. Valeo, that while advertising directed specifically to electing a candidate could be regulated, so-called "issue advertising" was protected by the first amendment. The Court also held that wealthy individuals couldn't be prevented from spending any amount of their own money on their own campaign. [15] By the 1980’s the Campaign Finance reform of the 1974 Congress was starting to fall apart. Due to FEC advisory opinions, a new kind of contribution was permitted, so-called "soft money", which could be given directly to political parties, but not to individual campaigns, and for which there was no contribution limit. [16] Charles Lewis and the Center for Public Integrity have studied campaign finance in depth. In The Buying of the President 2000, the most recent of Mr. Lewis' series on campaign finance, he writes: "In 1995-96 the two parties raised $262 million in soft money — three times the 1991-92 total...In 1995-96, twenty-nine organizations spent $135 million to $150 million on ‘issue advocacy’ advertising in the presidential and congressional elections...". [17] The rule for so-called "soft money" was that it was only available for what was termed "party building" activities, such as get-out-the-vote and voter registration drives. Soft money was not to be used directly to support a Presidential campaign. This would violate the spending caps required by law for Presidential campaigns.
By election day 1996, the 1974 campaign finance reforms for Presidential campaigns were in shambles. Although the facts about the Clinton 1996 campaign financing emerged only slowly in 1997, and are still emerging, it is now apparent that the Clinton administration, including President Clinton, engaged in a massive, coordinated plan to raise money that would be used in political advertising for the benefit of the Clinton re-election campaign, circumventing spending limits on Presidential campaigns, and possibly using the White House for illegal fundraising activities. A series of questionable fund-raising activities were undertaken, including the so-called "White House coffees", and such things as overnight stays at the White House for large contributers. Over 1,400 people attended more than 100 White House coffees, and contributed over $26 million to the Democratic Party. [18] Ninty two of these coffees were held after White House legal counsel Abner Mikva's April 27, 1995 memo, issued to the White House staff, including the statements: "Campaign activities of any kind are prohibited in or from Government buildings...This means fundraising events may not be held in the White House; also, no fundraising phone calls or mail may emanate from the White House." [19] Newsweek reported in March 1997 that President Clinton had met with Democratic National Committee (DNC) finance chair Terry McAuliffe during Christmas of 1994, shortly after the disasterous Congressional election. The gist of McAuliffe's argument to Clinton was simple: raise more money, faster, than any previous Presidential candidate, and you will win in 1996. "Nine days later McAuliffe forwarded to the president a memo laying out a busy schedule of breakfasts, lunches and coffees for his key 'supporters.' The president's scribbled reply has already found its way into the annals of political excess. 'Yes, pursue all 3 and promptly,' he wrote. 'And get other names at 100,000 or more, 50,000 or more." [20] The Clinton campaign used a computer database dubbed WhoDB (White House Office Data Base) to track campaign contributors. According to Truman Arnold, DNC finance chair in 1995: "WhoDB helped him ensure that major donors were accorded a fair share of presidential perks, a reward system of Lincoln Bedroom sleepovers, foreign trips and government postings that helped the party hit a D.N.C. fundraising record of $125 million last year." [21]
The White House based fundraising was targeted to raise money for the Democratic Party. However, as Lewis shows in The Buying of the President 2000, the effect of the fundraising was to directly benefit the Clinton campaign: "As [Clinton political advisor] Morris testified, President Clinton was the ‘day-to-day operational director’ of the DNC-sponsored media campaign. He ‘worked over every script, watched each ad, ordered changes in every visual presentation, and decided which ads would run when and where.’" [22]
In short, the 1996 Clinton campaign was run, and financed, from the White House. Regarding Marsha Scott, who developed WhoDB, Time reported in March 1997 : "Of particular interest to congressional investigators is [Scott's] proposal that the White House also set up 'links' with government agencies, so it could obtain 'information/resources' for those early supporters, a plan that sounds very much like trading official favors for contributions." [23] Over 45 potential Senate Governmental Affairs Committee witnesses fled the country or involked the fifth amendment.
Copyright © 2000, Robert S. Carney Jr., 4232 Colfax Ave. So., Minneapolis, MN 55409. All rights reserved.