An Interview with WJC

Below is an excerpt of an interview with Fox’s Major Garrett and former President Bill Clinton, which hits on the new book, “The Death of American Virtue” by law professor Ken Gormley. One of the revelations in it has to do with the investigation behind what happened when Lewinski was held by FBI agents.

“I wouldn’t have touched her with a 10-foot pole,” said the lawyer hired to examine the episode, Jo Ann Harris, breaking her silence about her findings on the effort to lure in Lewinsky for questioning. “The minute she says, ‘Can I call my lawyer?’ you stop…. And when she says it for the sixth or seventh time, you really stop….There are limits.” – Jo Ann Harris

Jo Ann Harris was appointed to investigate the alleged improper questioning of Monica Lewinski at a hotel in Pentagon City, just outside of Washington, D.C., on January 16, 1998. The same day A.G. Janet Reno approved an expansion of Starr’s investigation, and one day before Clinton was to testify in the Paul Jones case. Robert Ray, according to Gormley’s book, ran smack into Jo Ann Harris’s critical assessment of the handling of Lewinski, which he didn’t agree with, that led to one of Starr’s prosecutors getting an attorney to petition a judge to put the whole investigation by Harris under seal for reasons of privacy or some other nonsense.

As for the driver of impeachment, the late Rep. Henry Hyde, he wasn’t so picky about lies during Iran-Contra. What Hyde said at the time of Iran-Contra about lying.

“It just seems to me too simplistic to condemn all lying. In the murkier grayness of the real world, choices must be made.” – Rep. Henry Hyde (source: Washington Post, “The Lost Art of Lying,” by Michael Powell)

Ri-ight, and when it’s about sex, lies matter, because Hyde was after something different during Clinton’s day. The anti abortion crusader wanted his cultural scalp.

The rest is history.

GARRETT: Two quick questions about (INAUDIBLE). Ken Starr has said, if he was in your presence, he would say to you, “I’m sorry.” What would you tell Ken Starr?

CLINTON: Well, I’m sorry too. I’m sorry it happened. But I thought that — I haven’t read (INAUDIBLE) book. I read a few newspaper articles about it, I did talk to him. But I never thought — I thought Starr was caught up in a system that he was a willing participant in, but it was really bad.

When President Nixon was investigated, Leon Jaworksi had supported Nixon for president. When President Reagan was investigated, Lawrence Welch had supported President Reagan. When I was investigated, Bob Fisk was a career Republican, but he was a career prosecutor, first special prosecutor. So I didn’t mind being investigated — I knew there was nothing to Whitewater, everybody else did too. And so, I was fine about it.

Kenneth Starr was put in that position because he was politically opposed to me and Henry Cisneros, the HUD secretary, and Mike Espy, the Agriculture secretary, they both were opposed by people who were not only ardent republicans, investigated by people were ardent republicans, and had a personal conflict. So you had three of them there and they got to predictable results. They’re the only special counsels in the history of the special counsel law — every one has jury trials. They all got waxed when they went to court, and it’s because they politicized this whole thing to an extent never seen.

But I always through Starr was just an actor in a play that had been scripted for — to get the exact results it got, and I am sorry. I’m sorry it happened.

GARRETT: In an interview with my colleague Greta Van Susteren, Starr said that the investigation was done with honor and integrity, do you agree?

CLINTON: No. There are at least four people who have testified who have said that they were told in no uncertain terms that if they would say something damaging about me, that they wouldn’t go after them. And then, when they said, we don’t know anything, they were told it didn’t have to be true, they just had to say it. That is not honor and integrity.

There were things done in Arkansas by Mr. Ewing (ph) under Mr. Starr’s direction that were unforgivable, lots of them. And so no, I don’t not agree that it was done with honor and integrity. When you tell someone that — one person even said, Susan McDougal, they told her they should say something that was damaging to me even if it wasn’t illegal, just tell them anything and it didn’t have to be true. Now that’s not honor and integrity.

GARRETT: Last question, Mr. President, an yet, before you left office, you admitted to giving evasive answers and you gave up your law license ball lists (ph). What does that tell America about sum total of the investigation?

CLINTON: Well, first of all, this was an investigation about Whitewater. Kenneth Starr was put in for one thing, to make sure it went past the ’96 election. Mr. Gromley talks about how it was unbelievably slow. And they were desperate to find anything. I made a mistake, they tried to legalize it. What I did was wrong and I said it was wrong. Being evasive to them I thought was the only thing I could do at the time, but I regret very much the underlying misconduct which caused it. And I am sorry about that and I said it many times.

But it’s a great mistake to look at that whole thing and think that’s all it was about. This thing went on for years and years and years. I mean, on the day my mother died, the republican leaders were calling for a special counsel, and they never stopped. I went from my mother’s funeral to an important meeting in Russia and all they talked about was how we had to get to the bottom of this Whitewater thing. A deal that I lost money on, by the way.

There was — the whole thing was, if there had been a special counsel law in place, ironically, there never would have been a special counsel, because it didn’t meet the standards of any law every passed. And I trusted the justice system and I trusted the press to cover it right, and I didn’t realize what the real game was. I was my fault as much as anything else for agreeing to be investigated, but I knew I hadn’t done anything wrong. And so they just kept it going on and on and on. It was a nightmare. And I think, as a result of it, we’ll never have it again. The only good thing to come out of it was, it killed this whole system. I don’t think there’ll ever be another one like this again.