L. News of Job Search Failure
On October 6, 1997, according to Ms. Lewinsky, she was told that she would never work at the White House again. Ms. Tripp conveyed the news, which she indicated had come from a friend on the White House staff. Ms. Lewinsky testified:
Linda Tripp called me at work on October 6th and told me that her friend Kate in the NSC. . .had heard rumors about me and that I would never work in the White House again. . .. (Kate’s) advice to me was “get out of town.”(579)
For Ms. Lewinsky, who had previously considered moving to New York, this call was the “straw that broke the camel’s back.”(580) She was enraged.(581)
In a note she drafted (but did not send), Ms. Lewinsky expressed her frustration. She wrote:
“Any normal person would have walked away from this and said, `He doesn’t call me, he doesn’t want to see me–screw it. It doesn’t matter.’ I can’t let go of you. . .. I want to be a source of pleasure and laughter and energy to you. I want to make you smile.”
She went on to relate that she had heard second-hand from a White House employee “that I was `after the President’ and would never be allowed to work (in) the complex.” Ms. Lewinsky said she could only conclude “that all you have promised me is an empty promise. . .. I am once again totally humiliated. It is very clear that there is no way I am going to be brought back.” She closed the note: “I will never do anything to hurt you. I am simply not that kind of person. Moreover, I love you.”(582)
When terminating their sexual relationship on May 24, the President had told Ms. Lewinsky that he hoped they would remain friends, for he could do a great deal for her.(583) Now, having learned that he could not (or would not) get her a White House job, Ms. Lewinsky decided to ask him for a job in New York, perhaps at the United Nations–a possibility that she had mentioned to him in passing over the summer. On the afternoon of October 6, Ms. Lewinsky spoke of this plan to Ms. Currie, who quoted the President as having said earlier: “Oh, that’s no problem. We can place her in the UN like that.”(584)
In a recorded conversation later on October 6, Ms. Lewinsky said she wanted two things from the President. The first was contrition: He needed to “acknowledge. . . that he helped fuck up my life.”(585) The second was a job, one that she could obtain without much effort: “I don’t want to have to work for this position. . .. I just want it to be given to me.”(586) Ms. Lewinsky decided to write the President a note proposing that the two of them “get together and work on some way that I can come out of this situation not feeling the way I do.”(587) After composing the letter, she said: “I want him to feel a little guilty, and I hope that this letter did that.”(588)
In this letter, which was sent via courier on October 7, Ms. Lewinsky said she understood that she would never be given a White House job, and she asked for a prompt meeting to discuss her job situation.(589) She went on to advance a specific request:
“I’d like to ask you to help me secure a position in NY beginning 1 December. I would be very grateful, and I am hoping this is a solution for both of us. I want you to know that it has always been and remains more important to me to have you in my life than to come back. . .. Please don’t let me down.”(590)
IX. OCTOBER-NOVEMBER 1997: UNITED NATIONS’ JOB OFFER
Having learned that she would not be able to return to the White House, Ms. Lewinsky sought the President’s help in finding a job in New York City. The President offered to place her at the United Nations. After initial enthusiasm, Ms. Lewinsky cooled on the idea of working at the U.N., and she prodded the President to get her a job in the private sector.
A. October 10: Telephone Conversation
According to Ms. Lewinsky, the President telephoned her at approximately 2:00 to 2:30 a.m. on Friday, October 10.(591) They spent much of the hour-and-a-half call arguing. “(H)e got so mad at me, he must have been purple,” she later recalled.(592)
According to Ms. Lewinsky, the President said: “If I had known what kind of person you really were, I wouldn’t have gotten involved with you.”(593) He reminded Ms. Lewinsky that she had earlier promised, “(i)f you just want to stop doing this, I’ll. . . be no trouble.”(594)
Ms. Lewinsky said she challenged the President: “(T)ell me. . . when I’ve caused you trouble.”(595)
The President responded, “I’ve never worried about you. I’ve never been worried you would do something to hurt me.”(596)
When the conversation shifted to her job search, Ms. Lewinsky complained that the President had not done enough to help her. He responded that, on the contrary, he was eager to help.(597)
The President said that he regretted Ms. Lewinsky’s transfer to the Pentagon and assured her that he would not have permitted it had he foreseen the difficulty in returning her to the White House.(598) Ms. Lewinsky told him that she wanted a job in New York by the end of October, and the President promised to do what he could.(599)
B. October 11 Meeting
At approximately 8:30 a.m. on Saturday, October 11, according to Ms. Lewinsky, Ms. Currie called and told her that the President wished to see her.(600) Ms. Lewinsky entered the White House at 9:36 a.m. and departed at 10:54 a.m.(601) The President entered the Oval Office at 9:52 a.m.(602) Ms. Lewinsky met with the President in the study, and they discussed her job search.(603) Ms. Lewinsky told the President that she wanted to pursue jobs in the private sector, and he told her to prepare a list of New York companies that interested her.(604) Ms. Lewinsky asked the President whether Vernon Jordan, a well-known Washington attorney who she knew was a close friend of the President and had many business contacts, might help her find a job.(605) According to Ms. Lewinsky, the President was receptive to the idea.(606)
In a recorded conversation, Ms. Lewinsky said that, at the end of the October 11 meeting, she and the President joined Ms. Currie in the Oval Office. The President grabbed Ms. Lewinsky’s arm and kissed her on the forehead.(607) He told her: “I talked to Erskine (Bowles) about. . .trying to get John Hilley to give you. . .a good recommendation for your work here.”(608)
Later, Ms. Lewinsky and Ms. Tripp discussed their concerns about the President’s involvement in Ms. Lewinsky’s job search. Specifically, Ms. Lewinsky was nervous about involving the President’s Chief of Staff:
Ms. Lewinsky: Well, see, I don’t really think–I’m going to tell him that I don’t think Erskine should have anything to do with this. I don’t think anybody who works there should.
Ms. Tripp: I don’t see how that’s–how that’s a problem.
Ms. Lewinsky: Because look at what happened with Webb Hubbell.(609)
Ms. Lewinsky preferred that Vernon Jordan assist her in her job search:
Ms. Tripp: Well, I don’t remember during the Webb Hubbell thing, was Vernon mentioned?
Ms. Lewinsky: Yeah, but there’s a big difference. I think somebody could construe, okay?
Somebody could construe or say, “Well, they gave her a job to shut her up. They made her happy. . ..And he (Mr. Bowles) works for the government and shouldn’t have done that.” And with the other one (Mr. Jordan) you can’t say that.(610)
C. October 16-17: The “Wish List”
On October 16, Ms. Lewinsky sent the President a packet, which included what she called a “wish list” describing the types of jobs that interested her in New York City.(611) The note began:
“My dream had been to work in Communications or Strategic Planning at the White House. I am open to any suggestions that you may have on work that is similar to that or may intrigue me. The most important things to me are that I am engaged and interested in my work, I am not someone’s administrative/executive assistant, and my salary can provide me a comfortable living in NY.”(612)
She identified five public relations firms where she would like to work.(613) Ms. Lewinsky concluded by saying of the United Nations:
“I do not have any interest in working there. As a result of what happened in April ’96, I have already spent a year and a half at an agency in which I have no interest. I want a job where I feel challenged, engaged, and interested. I don’t think the UN is the right place for me.”(614)
In a recorded conversation, Ms. Lewinsky said she wanted the President to take her list seriously and not ask her to settle for a U.N. job.(615) She said she hoped “that if he starts to pick a bone with me and the U.N., he sure as hell doesn’t do it on the phone. . . . I don’t want to start getting into a screaming match with him on the phone.”(616)
In addition to the “wish list,” Ms. Lewinsky said she enclosed in the packet a pair of sunglasses and “a lot of things in a little envelope,” including some jokes, a card, and a postcard.(617) She said that she had written on the card: “Wasn’t I right that my hugs are better in person than in cards?”(618) The postcard featured a “very erotic” Egon Schiele painting.(619) Ms. Lewinsky also enclosed a note with her thoughts on education reform.(620)
Ms. Lewinsky testified that she felt that the President owed her a job for several reasons: Her relationship with him was the reason she had been transferred out of the White House; he had promised her a job and so far had done nothing to help her find one; and she had left the White House “quietly,” without making an issue of her relationship with the President.(623)
D. The President Creates Options
At some point around this time in the fall of 1997, Ms. Currie asked John Podesta, the Deputy Chief of Staff, to help Ms. Lewinsky find a job in New York.(624) Mr. Podesta testified that, during a Presidential trip to Latin America, he approached then-U.N. Ambassador William Richardson while aboard Air Force One and asked the Ambassador to consider a former White House intern for a position at the U.N.(626) At the time, Mr. Podesta could not recall the intern’s name.(627) Ambassador Richardson and the President both testified that they never discussed Ms. Lewinsky with each other.(628)
Ambassador Richardson returned from Latin America on Sunday, October 19.(629) Within a few days, his Executive Assistant, Isabelle Watkins, called Mr. Podesta’s secretary and asked whether “she knew anything about a resume that John was going to send us.”(630) Mr. Podesta’s secretary knew nothing about it and asked Mr. Podesta what to do; he instructed her to call Ms. Currie.(631) At 3:09 p.m. on October 21, Ms. Currie faxed Ms. Lewinsky’s resume to the United Nations.(632)
At 7:01 p.m., a six-minute call was placed to Ms. Lewinsky’s apartment from a U.N. telephone number identified in State Department records as “Ambassador Richardson’s line.”(633) Ms. Lewinsky testified that she spoke to Ambassador Richardson. A woman called, Ms. Lewinsky testified, and said, “(H)old for Ambassador Richardson.”(634) Then the Ambassador himself came on the line: “I remember, because I was shocked and I was . . . very nervous.”(635) The purpose of the call was to schedule a job interview at a Watergate apartment the following week.(636) At odds with Ms. Lewinsky, the Ambassador and Ms. Watkins both testified that Ms. Watkins, not the Ambassador, spoke with Ms. Lewinsky.(637)
A few days later, according to Ms. Lewinsky, the President called her. She had been upset because no one at the White House had prepared her for the Ambassador’s recent call and because she did not want the White House to railroad her into taking the U.N. job.(638) She reiterated that she was eager to pursue other opportunities, especially in the private sector.(639)
The President reassured her, promising that a U.N. position was just one of many options.(640)
Ms. Lewinsky spoke to the President again one week later. Ms. Lewinsky testified that she told Ms. Currie to ask the President to call her to assuage her nervousness before the U.N. interview.(641)
According to Ms. Lewinsky, on October 30, the night before the interview, the President did call. She characterized the conversation as a “pep talk”: “(H)e was trying to kind of build my confidence and reassure me.”(642) The President told her to call Ms. Currie after the interview.(644)
In his Jones deposition, the President indicated that he learned of her interview with Ambassador Richardson not from Ms. Lewinsky herself but from Ms. Currie.(645)
E. The U.N. Interview and Job Offer
On Friday morning, October 31, Ambassador Richardson and two of his assistants, Mona Sutphen and Rebecca Cooper, interviewed Ms. Lewinsky at the Watergate.(646) According to Ambassador Richardson, he “listen(ed) while Mona and Rebecca were interviewing her.”(647)
Neither Ambassador Richardson nor any of his staff made inquiries, before or after the interview, about Ms. Lewinsky’s prior work performance.(648)
On Sunday, November 2, Ms. Lewinsky drafted a letter to Ms. Currie asking what to do in the event she received an offer from the U.N.(649) She wrote:
“I became a bit nervous this weekend when I realized that Amb. Richardson said his staff would be in touch with me this week. As you know, the UN is supposed to be my back-up, but because VJ (Vernon Jordan) has been out of town, this is my only option right now. What should I say to Richardson’s people this week when they call?”(650)
Ms. Lewinsky asked Ms. Currie to speak to the President about her problem: “If you feel it’s appropriate, maybe you could ask `the big guy’ what he wants me do. Ahhhhh. . .anxiety!!!!!”(651)
Ms. Lewinsky also mentioned the President’s promise to involve Vernon Jordan in her job search:
I don’t think I told you that in my conversation last Thursday night with him that he said that he would ask you to set up a meeting between VJ and myself, once VJ got back. I assume he’ll mention this to you at some point–hopefully sooner rather than later!(652)
Before Ms. Lewinsky sent this letter, in her recollection, she received an offer from the U.N.(653)
Phone records reflect that, at 11:02 a.m. on November 3, a three-minute call was placed to Ms. Lewinsky from the U.N. line identified in State Department records as Ambassador Richardson’s.(654)
Ms. Lewinsky stated that she believes she spoke to Ambassador Richardson, who extended her a job offer.(655)
According to his assistant, Ambassador Richardson made the decision to hire Ms. Lewinsky. Ms. Sutphen testified: I said, are you sure; and he said, yeah, yeah, I’m sure, why. And I said. . . are you sure, though you don’t want to talk to anyone else. . . . And he said, no, no, I think it’s fine; why don’t you go ahead and give her an offer?(656)
Ambassador Richardson and Ms. Sutphen both testified that Ms. Sutphen, not the Ambassador, extended the job offer to Ms. Lewinsky. They recalled that the offer was made a week or 10 days after the interview, though Ms. Sutphen, when shown the phone records, testified that the November 3 call to Ms. Lewinsky probably was the job offer.(657)
Ms. Lewinsky testified that she told Ms. Currie about the offer and she probably also told the President directly.(658) Ms. Currie first testified that she had “probably” told the President about Ms. Lewinsky’s U.N. offer, then testified that she had in fact told him, then testified that she could not remember, though she acknowledged that the President was interested in Ms. Lewinsky’s getting a job.(659)
When the President was asked in the Jones deposition whether he knew that Ms. Lewinsky had received the offer of a job at the U.N., he testified: “I know that she interviewed for one. I don’t know if she was offered one or not.”(660)
F. The U.N. Job Offer Declined
Three weeks after she received an offer, on November 24, Ms. Lewinsky called Ms. Sutphen and asked for more time to consider the offer because she wanted to pursue possibilities in the private sector.(661) Ms. Sutphen told Ambassador Richardson, who, according to Ms. Sutphen, said the delay would be fine.(662) Over a month later, on January 5, 1998, Ms. Lewinsky finally turned down the job.(663)
X. NOVEMBER 1997: GROWING FRUSTRATION
Ms. Lewinsky met with Vernon Jordan, who promised to help her find a job in New York. November proved, however, to be a month of inactivity with respect to both Ms. Lewinsky’s job search and her relationship with the President. Mr. Jordan did not meet with Ms. Lewinsky again, nor did he contact anyone in New York City on her behalf. Ms. Lewinsky became increasingly anxious about her inability to see the President. Except for a momentary encounter in mid- November, Ms. Lewinsky did not meet with the President between October 11 and December 5.
A. Interrogatories Answered
On November 3, 1997, the President answered Paula Jones’s Second Set of Interrogatories. Two of those interrogatories asked the President to list any woman other than his wife with whom he had “had,” “proposed having,” or “sought to have” sexual relations during the time that he was Attorney General of Arkansas, Governor of Arkansas, and President of the United States.(664) President Clinton objected to the scope and relevance of both interrogatories and refused to answer them.(665)
B. First Vernon Jordan Meeting
In mid-October, the President had agreed to involve Vernon Jordan in Ms. Lewinsky’s job search.(666) In a draft letter to Ms. Currie dated November 2, Ms. Lewinsky wrote that the President had “said he would ask you to set up a meeting between VJ and myself.”(667) According to Ms. Lewinsky, on November 3 or November 4, Ms. Currie told her to call Vernon Jordan’s secretary to arrange a meeting.(668) Ms. Currie said she had spoken with Mr. Jordan and he was expecting Ms. Lewinsky’s call.(669) In Ms. Lewinsky’s account, Ms. Currie sought Mr. Jordan’s aid at the President’s direction.(670) Mr. Jordan likewise testified that, in his understanding, the President was behind Ms. Currie’s request.(671)
Ms. Currie testified at various points that she contacted Mr. Jordan on her own initiative; that the President “probably” talked with her about Ms. Lewinsky’s New York job hunt; and that she could not recall whether the President was involved.(672) In his Jones deposition, the President was asked whether he did anything to facilitate a meeting between Mr. Jordan and Ms. Lewinsky.
He testified: I can tell you what my memory is. My memory is that Vernon said something to me about her coming in, Betty had called and asked if he (Mr. Jordan) would see her (Ms. Lewinsky). . . I’m sure if he said something to me about it I said something positive about it. I wouldn’t have said anything negative about it.(673)
When pressed, the President testified that he did not think that he was the “precipitating force” in arranging the meeting between Mr. Jordan and Ms. Lewinsky.(674)
At 8:50 a.m. on November 5, Mr. Jordan spoke with the President by telephone for five minutes.(675) Later that morning, Mr. Jordan and Ms. Lewinsky met in his office for about twenty minutes.(676) She told him that she intended to move to New York, and she named several companies where she hoped to work.(677) She showed him the “wish list” that she had sent the President on October 16.(678) Mr. Jordan said that he had spoken with the President about her and that she came “highly recommended.”(679)
Concerning her job search, Mr. Jordan said: “We’re in business.”(681) In the course of the day, Mr. Jordan placed four calls to Ms. Hernreich (whom he acknowledged calling when he wished to speak to the President(682)) and one to Ms. Currie.(683) Mr. Jordan testified that he could not remember the calls, but “(i)t is entirely possible” that they concerned Monica Lewinsky.(684) Mr. Jordan also visited the White House and met with the President at 2:00 p.m. that day.(685) Again, Mr. Jordan testified that he had “no recollection” of the substance of his conversation with the President.(686)
On November 6, the day after meeting with Mr. Jordan, Ms. Lewinsky wrote him a thank-you letter: “It made me happy to know that our friend has such a wonderful confidant in you.”(687) Also on November 6, Ms. Lewinsky wrote in an email to a friend that she expected to hear from Mr. Jordan “later next week.”(688) The evidence indicates, though, that Mr. Jordan took no steps to help Ms. Lewinsky until early December, after she appeared on the witness list in the Jones case.
Mr. Jordan initially testified that he had “no recollection of having met with Ms. Lewinsky on November 5.”(689) When shown documentary evidence demonstrating that his first meeting with Ms. Lewinsky occurred in early November, he acknowledged that an early November meeting was “entirely possible.”(690) Mr. Jordan’s failure to remember his November meeting with Ms. Lewinsky may indicate the low priority he attached to it at the time.
C. November 13: The Zedillo Visit
On Thursday, November 13, while Ernesto Zedillo, the President of Mexico, was in the White House, Ms. Lewinsky met very briefly with President Clinton in the private study.(691) Ms. Lewinsky’s visit, which she described in an email as a “hysterical escapade,” was the culmination of days of phone calls and notes to Ms. Currie and the President.(692)
Over the course of the week that preceded November 13, Ms. Lewinsky made several attempts to arrange a visit with the President. On Monday, November 10, in addition to making frequent calls to Ms. Currie, she sent the President a note asking for a meeting.(693)
She hoped to see him on Tuesday, November 11 (Veterans Day), but he did not respond.(694) By courier,(695) she sent the President another note:
I asked you three weeks ago to please be sensitive to what I am going through right now and to keep in contact with me, and yet I’m still left writing notes in vain. I am not a moron. I know that what is going on in the world takes precedence, but I don’t think what I have asked you for is unreasonable.(696)
She added: “This is so hard for me. I am trying to deal with so much emotionally, and I have nobody to talk to about it. I need you right now not as president, but as a man. PLEASE be my friend.”(697)
That evening, November 12, according to Ms. Lewinsky, the President called and invited her to the White House the following day.(698) In an email to a friend, Ms. Lewinsky wrote that she and the President “talked for almost an hour.”(699) She added: “(H)e thought (N)ancy (Hernreich) (one of the meanies) would be out for a few hours on Thursday and I could come see him then.”(700)
The following morning, November 13, Ms. Lewinsky tried to arrange a visit with the President.
She called repeatedly but suspected that Ms. Currie was not telling the President of her calls.(701)
Around noon, Ms. Currie told Ms. Lewinsky that the President had left to play golf. Ms. Lewinsky, in her own words, “went ballistic.”(702)
After the President returned from the Army-Navy Golf Course in the late afternoon, Ms. Lewinsky told Ms. Currie that she was coming to the White House to give him some gifts.(703)
Ms. Currie suggested that Ms. Lewinsky wait in Ms. Currie’s car in the White House parking lot.
Ms. Lewinsky went to the White House only to find that the doors to Ms. Currie’s car were locked. Ms. Lewinsky waited in the rain.(704)
Ms. Currie eventually met her in the parking lot, and, in Ms. Lewinsky’s words, they made a “bee-line” into the White House, sneaking up the back stairs to avoid other White House employees, particularly Presidential aide Stephen Goodin.(705) Ms. Lewinsky left two small gifts for the President with Ms. Currie, then waited alone for about half an hour in the Oval Office study.(706) In the study, Ms. Lewinsky saw several gifts she had given the President, including Oy Vey! The Things They Say: A Guide to Jewish Wit, Nicholson Baker’s novel Vox, and a letter opener decorated with a frog.(707)
The President finally joined Ms. Lewinsky in the study, where they were alone for only a minute or two.(708) Ms. Lewinsky gave him an antique paperweight in the shape of the White House.(709)
She also showed him an email describing the effect of chewing Altoid mints before performing oral sex. Ms. Lewinsky was chewing Altoids at the time, but the President replied that he did not have enough time for oral sex.(710) They kissed, and the President rushed off for a State Dinner with President Zedillo.(711)
D. November 14-December 4: Inability to See the President
After this brief November 13 meeting, Ms. Lewinsky did not see the President again until the first week in December. Hoping to arrange a longer rendezvous, she sent the President several notes, as well as a cassette on which she recorded a message.(712)
Along with her chagrin over not seeing the President, Ms. Lewinsky was frustrated that her job search had apparently stalled. A few days before Thanksgiving, she complained to Ms. Currie that she had not heard from Mr. Jordan.(713) Ms. Currie arranged for her to speak with him “before Thanksgiving,” while Ms. Lewinsky was in Los Angeles. Mr. Jordan told her to call him the following week to arrange another meeting.(714)
In draft letters to the President, which were recovered from her Pentagon computer, Ms. Lewinsky reflected on the change in their relationship: “(B)oth professionally and personally, . . . our personal relationship changing has caused me more pain. Do you realize that?”(715) She asked for the President’s understanding: “I don’t want you to think that I am not grateful for what you are doing for me now–I’d probably be in a mental institute without it–but I am consumed with this disappointment, frustration, and anger.” Ms. Lewinsky rued the brevity of her November 13 visit with the President: “All you . . . ever have to do to pacify me is see me and hold me,” she wrote. “Maybe that’s asking too much.”(716)
