American Evita: Hillary Clinton's Path to Power Read online

  Items worth $250 or less did not require public disclosure, so it appeared that Hillary undervalued many of them with that figure in mind. An Yves St. Laurent men’s suit, for example, was listed as being worth $249—perhaps a tenth of its true cost. Hillary signed off on the final tally, and formally declared that the Clintons were taking more than $190,027 worth of furniture and “gifts” with them—compared to the $52,000 worth of furnishings George and Barbara Bush took with them. Eventually, government investigators would determine that Hillary and Bill were carting away merchandise valued at more than twice what they officially declared—in excess of $400,000 worth.

  “It was like watching Imelda Marcos stuff furs and jewelry into a pillowcase as she was getting ready to flee the presidential palace,” said one veteran White House steward. “A lot of us were very upset by what we were seeing.”

  So, it seemed, were congressional investigators. Under pressure, Hillary finally agreed to return $50,000 worth of gifts originally intended for the White House, and later anted up an additional $86,000 to cover the value of items given to them during their last few months in office.

  The flap over Hillary’s Imelda Marcos impersonation paled in comparison to Pardongate.HIL MUM ON PARDONS, screamed the front-page headline in the New York Daily News, while the rival New York Post blared BEG PARDON, BUT HILLARY IS LYING LOW. Time marveled at how “breathtaking” it was to watch “a shiny new presidency” buried in a “freak mudslide. The debris hurtled by so fast that the New York Times editorial page seemed to run out of synonyms for disgust, revulsion and abuse…there seemed to be no end to the bodies that might float down the swollen river.” Speaking for most of his colleagues on both sides of the aisle, Connecticut Congressman Christopher Shays characterized the pardon flap as “a really slimy affair. The more we look into it, the slimier we feel.”

  Hillary hunkered down and rode out the storm. Whenever she was asked about the pardons, she insisted she had nothing to do with them—that her husband was solely responsible for each and every one. Each new denial, couched in terms that made her sound like a victim, sounded much like the last: “I’m very regretful that it occurred, because I might have been able to prevent this from happening.” “I don’t know anything other than what has now come out.” “You know, I did not have any involvement in the pardons….” “I’m very disappointed. I’m very saddened, and I was very disturbed when I heard about it.” “When I found out about my brother…I was heartbroken and shocked.” “I knew nothing….”

  Yet there was no question that Hillary, who had been consulted by the President on everything from health care and education reform to Middle East policy and the bombing of Bosnia and Iraq, was, as one close Clinton associate put it, “deeply involved” in deciding who would and would not make the cut. “Are you kidding?” said another. “Everybody in the White House was talking pardons in those last few days. I mean, Roger Clinton and Hugh Rodham and Terry McAuliffe and Jesse Jackson and the Thomasons and about a hundred other folks were chatting up the Clintons about who was going to get pardoned—not to mention all the lawyers who were running around checking people out, and Hillary was the only one who didn’t know about it?”

  As the Clintons’ late Commerce Secretary Ron Brown once said in response to a friend’s question, “Is she in the loop? She is the loop.”

  Eventually, newly appointed Attorney General John Ashcroft, while condemning the pardons, would claim that he was powerless to do anything about them. The President’s clemency powers were absolute. Ashcroft did ask for reforms in the way pardons were processed in the future, however, “so a travesty like this doesn’t happen again.”

  While her husband wasted no time hitting the lecture circuit, Hillary burrowed into her work as a senator. She insisted that she was not reeling from the uproar over gifts and pardons. “I haven’t felt distracted from my job,” she said. But her colleagues disagreed. “You can see it on her face,” said one. “This has been very difficult for her.”

  Bill was apparently having a better time of it. Dining with former Democratic Senator Bob Kerrey, former White House lawyer Cheryl Mills, and others at trendy Babbo in Greenwich Village, Clinton roared his way through the retelling of an off-color joke involving former California Governor Jerry Brown and two lesbians. A C-SPAN microphone had picked up the joke the first time Kerrey told it to Clinton at a Bedford, New Hampshire, event in 1992, effectively sinking Kerrey’s presidential campaign. This time, the former President was laughing so loud that Mills reportedly had to ask him to quiet down.

  Hillary, meantime, busied herself with committee hearings, meeting with constituents, and the mountain of paperwork that came with being the cosponsor of 163 bills. “Many of my colleagues realize that sometimes they can get more attention,” she said, “if I’m involved.” More attention—and lots more cash. No sooner did she arrive on Capitol Hill than Hillary set up her very own Political Action Committee—HILLPAC—for the purpose of raising funds for Democratic candidates. Establishing a PAC of one’s own was a highly unusual move for a freshman senator. More often than not, it was seen as a first step toward a presidential run. While denying that she had any intention of seeking the presidency in 2004, Hillary nonetheless held on to most of the money HILLPAC took in.

  Indeed, Hillary’s growing war chest only served to fuel speculation that she was contemplating a run for the White House. On April 5, 2001, after delivering a brief speech to the American Society of Newspaper Editors, Hillary again told reporters that entering the race for president was “not something I’m going to be doing.”

  “So, Senator Clinton,” a reporter for the New York Post asked as she rushed toward her waiting car, “are you ruling out a run for president not just in 2004, but in 2008 and beyond?”

  “Yes,” Hillary replied.

  The answer stunned her aides, and when the Post ran its headline on the next day’s front page—HILL NO! CLINTON SAYS SHE’LL NEVER RUN FOR PREZ—there was, predictably, chaos in Hillaryland. Clinton’s aides urged her to issue a statement claiming she had been misunderstood, or that perhaps she had not heard the reporter’s question clearly. But Hillary, who was married to the master of the precisely parsed nondenial denial, came up with her own “clarification.” When asked the next day if she was really ruling out ever running for President, she answered, “I’m saying what I always said.” What she always said was, simply, that she intended to serve out her first full term as senator, which was to expire in 2006. Over the next several days, she would respond to these persistent queries with the same exact, carefully weighed words—“I’m saying what I always said.”

  Republican strategist Nelson Warfield was among the many who remained resolutely skeptical. “I just think this is the latest chapter in the Hillary Clinton saga,” he said. “I’m certain this does not end either her cogitation or the press’ speculation.”

  For the most part, Hillary tried to keep her head low as she adjusted to life in the Senate. At times, however, she was taken to task by her colleague Chuck Schumer for trying to upstage him. For his part, New York’s senior senator was no slouch when it came to the photo op; Schumer was so deft at self-promotion that other politicians who had been upstaged by him complained that they had been “schumed.” On several occasions when Hillary went ahead and unilaterally announced some piece of legislation benefiting their state, Schumer personally berated members of her staff. “Tell your boss,” he snapped at one of Hillaryland’s junior members, “that we had a deal to consult each other before making announcements. I’m sick and tired of her trying to hog the limelight.”

  The junior senator for New York apologized profusely, promising never to step on her colleague’s toes again. But according to one state party official who knew both senators, “Hillary knows exactly what she’s doing. There’s only so much credit to go around, and she wants it all. Besides, she doesn’t like him any more than he likes her.” Fuming over yet another perceived slight, Schumer spoke of Hillary in s
cathing terms. “It’s no secret,” the official said, “that he thinks she’s a bitch.” Privately, Hillary dismissed publicity-craving Schumer as “The Prima Donna.”

  Whatever animosity existed between Hillary and Schumer, it paled in comparison to what she felt for George W. Bush. By all accounts, Senator Clinton harbored what amounted to a profound hatred of the man who now occupied the White House. In private, Hillary often referred to George W. Bush as “Junior” or “Shrub”—the moniker employed by Texas Democrats—and inveighed against him for having “stolen” the election.

  Hillary, who had been feuding with her predecessor Barbara Bush for years, also had little use for her replacement. It didn’t help that during the campaign W portrayed his wife Laura as the anti-Hillary. “She’s not always trying to butt in, and you know, compete,” he said coyly. “There’s nothing worse in the political arena than spouses competing.”

  Barbara Bush also held up her school-librarian daughter-in-law as the antidote to eight years of scandal and controversy. She believed Laura would be different from Hillary because Laura “would rather make a positive impact on the country. And I’m not criticizing Mrs. Clinton. But it’s like oil and water…. They’re two different people. I think Laura thinks of others.”

  Hillary was accustomed to Barbara’s catty remarks, and viewed W’s beloved white-haired mother as a worthy adversary. The new First Lady was another matter. Hillary viewed Laura, said an aide in the New York Senate campaign, as “very nice, very dull, and not the brightest light on the porch.”

  One First Lady both women approved of was Jackie Kennedy. “She had the most marvelous taste,” said Laura, who set out to restore the residence so that it was “just the way that Jackie left it.” She promptly brought up Jackie’s favorite velvet-upholstered chairs from the White House cellar and pulled down the heavy print draperies the Clintons had installed in the upstairs yellow living room. By way of erasing the heavy-handed influence of Hillary’s Arkansas decorator Kaki Hockersmith (“Tacky Khaki” to some in the interior design business), Laura repainted the walls, moved furnishings and antiques from room to room, and brought hidden treasures out of storage. Most important, she moved the First Lady’s offices back to the East Wing, where all Presidents’ wives had had their offices prior to Hillary.

  Senator Clinton had no intention of sharing the spotlight with Laura Bush at the April 2001 gala opening of Jacqueline Kennedy: The White House Years, a lavish fashion exhibit at New York’s Metropolitan Museum. Caroline Kennedy, who presided over the event, was unaware that Laura had long admired her mother. Caroline virtually ignored Laura, thanking the new First Lady “for coming tonight” before moving on to other guests. Hillary, meantime, had studiously waited for Laura to leave before making her own entrance in a floor-length leopard-print taffeta gown by Oscar de la Renta. Heaping praise on Clinton, Caroline proclaimed her the woman who “interpreted the role of First Lady for our times.”

  Back in Washington, Hillary seethed as the Republicans systematically dismantled many Clinton-era policies she had helped put in place. She told the Democrats’ leader in the Senate, Tom Daschle, that it was time to open fire on Bush. The first step, she said, was to set up a War Room like the one she and Bill used to obstruct, intimidate, discredit, discourage, and destroy their opponents.

  Such strong-arm tactics were of little use on Capitol Hill, Daschle explained to the freshman senator. Diplomacy, backroom deals, and decorum were what got things done in the Senate. Hillary took Daschle’s advice—sort of. While she worked amicably with her colleagues on both sides of the aisle to accomplish legislative goals, Hillary also seemed to delight in attacking every administration official who appeared before one of the Senate committees she served on. After watching her take apart Secretary of State Colin Powell, one Republican spectator observed, “You have to hand it to that Hillary. She may be wicked, but she’s effective.”

  Hillary’s favorite target, of course, was the President. After he had been in office less than three months, Hillary lashed out at W for his policies on the environment, education, and health care. “He’s trying to turn back the clock fifty or sixty years,” she declared, “not just the Clinton Administration, they want to turn the clock back on the Roosevelt Administration…. The President’s been on a charm offensive, but his administration is on a harm offensive.”

  By this time, it appeared to Hillary that she might be able to put the pardon controversy to rest once and for all. Toward that end, she even cosponsored a bill with Pennsylvania Republican Arlen Specter aimed at tightening the rules on presidential pardons. Only a few months earlier, Specter had raised the possibility of impeaching Clinton again—even though he had already left office—over the pardon issue.

  Scandal reared its ugly head in April, however, when Denise Rich was suddenly telling her side of the pardon story on television and in People and Vanity Fair magazines. Although Rich denied that she had had an affair with the President, she coyly characterized their relationship in interview after interview as “very special.”

  Hillary was annoyed that, once again, tongues were wagging about her husband and another woman. But not so bothered that she would risk alienating a key New York fund-raiser. “Hillary looks the other away,” said a former Clinton staffer, “when big money is involved.”

  That was also true of other women—attractive women with deep, deep pockets—linked to Bill Clinton during this period. One of those mentioned in several published reports in the spring of 2001 was Patricia Duff, who numbered among her four ex-husbands Hollywood studio executive Michael Medavoy and billionaire cosmetics tycoon Ron Perelman. Duff became friends with Bill when she raised millions for his 1992 campaign, and was a frequent guest at the White House throughout the Clinton administration. Duff, who served as executive director of the Women’s Leadership Forum, signed on as co-chair of fund-raising for the President’s reelection campaign. She didn’t have to go far. With her then-husband Perelman, whose worth was estimated at over $2 billion, Duff threw a fund-raising bash in Palm Beach that netted $1 million. Bill rewarded Duff with a presidential appointment to the Library of Congress Trust Fund Board.

  While the beautiful Georgetown University graduate denied that there was ever any intimacy between them, or that there was ever even a time when she was alone with the President, rumors to the contrary persisted even after the Clintons exited the White House. It didn’t help that, after returning with her husband from one of her many stays in the Lincoln Bedroom, Duff gushed to guests at a Hollywood dinner party that Bill was “a full-service president.” When the remark leaked out, she hastily tried to explain that she was only complimenting Bill on the extent of his hospitality.

  The Clintons were nothing if not experts at spin control, particularly when it came to their marriage. Three years earlier, they had been photographed dancing in their swimsuits on a St. Thomas beach—a shot, Hillary claimed, that had been taken “unbeknownst to us” by a French photographer on a public beach across the bay. Hillary was satisfied that her response—“What fifty-year-old woman wants to be photographed from behind in her bathing suit?”—had convinced everyone that the tender moment captured on film was indeed genuine.

  Since, in Hillary’s mind, this ploy seemed to have worked so well before, the Clintons jetted off in April 2001 on a “top-secret” vacation in the Dominican Republic with friends Oscar and Annette de la Renta and a few other top Democratic Party contributors. The Clintons’ loving behavior would be duly reported by other guests at the exclusive Punta Cana resort, and as soon as she returned to Washington, Hillary burbled to the press about how romantic the getaway had been. “You know what was great about it?” she said, laughing. “There were no pictures of me in my bathing suit!” The Clintons would not actually be seen together in public until May—the first time since their stormy departure from the White House four months earlier.

  However, it was only a matter of months before Hillary was once again betrayed by her husband, w
ho apparently was very interested in seeing someone else in a bathing suit—a very skimpy bathing suit. Jetting to São Paulo, Brazil, for a $250,000 speaking engagement, Bill made a secret side trip to Rio de Janeiro on August 27, 2001. Once there, he and his Secret Service detail stopped off at the Blue Man beachwear boutique, where the former president spent $116 on two bikinis and three sarongs. Then, at 12:30 P.M., he checked into the $1,500-a-night Presidential Suite of the Copacabana Palace hotel. He left, hotel records would show, seven hours later.

  For the time being, Hillary knew nothing of the episode. Instead, she was coping with an embarrassing incident closer to home. That same month, her brother Tony was caught having sex with another man’s girlfriend and beaten to a pulp. Tony, recently separated from his wife Nicole, daughter of California Senator Barbara Boxer, was in the living room of the Rodham family’s summer cottage in Lake Winola, Pennsylvania, when he was reportedly caught in flagrante delicto. His assailant was charged with assault, criminal trespass, and burglary. When told of the incident, Hillary rolled her eyes and sighed. “What next?” she asked.

  That summer Hillary did some pummeling of her own, bashing President Bush as part of her plan to position herself as the Democrats’ attack dog. Denise Rich was still in the middle of her publicity blitz when Hillary ripped into Bush on judges, school construction, school testing, air quality, work-protection rules, energy, taxes, and abortion. She mocked his missile defense ideas, accused him of increasing military spending at the expense of social programs, and cast the Senate’s sole “no” vote on two of Bush’s Justice Department appointees. Not coincidentally, both men had been lawyers on the Senate Whitewater Committee.

  Dorothy Rodham, who was still bragging about how Hillary used to “beat up on” the boys in their Park Ridge neighborhood, was not at all surprised that her daughter embraced the role of political pit bull. With Chappaqua-based Bill on the lecture circuit and Stanford graduate Chelsea off to retrace her father’s footsteps at Oxford, Hillary could devote virtually all of her time to building a national power base of her own. Although in private she sometimes referred to her fellow Democratic senators as “wimps,” she was delighted to be the party’s point person when it came to skewering Bush.