Clinton scandal stories have been breaking so fast — and so often, sometimes two and three of them on each day’s front pages — that we’re frankly having trouble keeping track of them all. And we get paid to do it. So we figure our readers could certainly use a helpful crib sheet. Here, then, is a quick day-by-day rundown on the most intense few days of presidential-sleaze revelations in more than 20 years. Keep in mind, if Bill Clinton were a normal president, any one of these stories would be considered a major big deal. At this rate, who knows what we’ll be summarizing next week.
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 5. President Clinton insists he has “no reason to believe” the Chinese government has attempted to purchase influence with the Democratic party. After this remark, NBC News reports that the first lady’s chief of staff, Maggie Williams, personally accepted a $ 50,000 campaign contribution from a Mr. Johnny Chung in 1995 — on White House property, the same week Chung escorted a Chinese gunrunner and other Communist officials into the Oval Office.
Also, the vice president’s office acknowledges that Al Gore “misspoke” two days earlier when he said he’d made White House fund-raising calls on a Democratic National Committee credit card. It was a Clinton-campaign credit card, the veep’s men now say, a correction that blurs the distinction between sleazy Democratic fund-raising generally and sleazy fund-raising directly on behalf of the president.
THURSDAY, MARCH 6. Newly installed Democratic party chairman Roy Romer says the White House maintained a special “bin” for fund-raising checks destined for the DNC. Then attorney general Janet Reno says the $ 50,000 check Maggie Williams deposited in this “bin” was actually too big to have violated the law. Sure, it’s illegal to accept a federal campaign contribution on White House grounds. But donations like Johnny Chung’s aren’t meant for particular federal campaigns; they’re “soft money,” meant for national parties as a whole. Had Chung given Williams $ 50 instead of $ 50,000, Janet Reno would already be escorting her colleague to the clink.
Oh, yeah: The New York Times reports that a group of China-linked businesses and Lincoln Bedroom overnight guests gave former associate attorney general Webb Hubbell more than $ 400,000 before he started refusing to cooperate with the Whitewater criminal investigation.
FRIDAY, MARCH 7. President Clinton declines to say that he has “never” asked anyone for money in the White House. “I’m not sure, frankly,” the president says. Time magazine reports that after the president’s press conference, a White House aide admitted Clinton had asked visiting donors for “support” — and that another Clinton “associate” conceded the president had ” pitched for funds” by telephone.
SATURDAY, MARCH 8. The Boston Globe reports that major Democratic contributors have been rewarded with joyrides on Air Force One.
SUNDAY, MARCH 9. The Washington Post reports that at least six members of Congress, including Democratic senator Dianne Feinstein of California, were warned by the FBI in 1996 that they had been “targeted” by China for ” illegal campaign contributions.” Government investigators believe there is ” conclusive evidence” and “no question” that Chinese funds were “laundered” into U.S. elections last year, according to the Post. Why, then, didn’t the White House know about all this? Doesn’t the FBI work for the president of the United States?
MONDAY, MARCH 10. It seems the FBI did alert the White House last year, through staffers at the National Security Council, about its concerns over illegal Chinese influence-peddling in federal elections. But White House aides complain that the president was kept in the dark about this NSC briefing — at the FBI’s request.
Several hours after the president personally complains about this in a press conference, the FBI issues a press release flatly contradicting the White House. Several hours after that, Clinton press secretary Mike McCurry stiffly says the FBI is “in error.”
Hillary Clinton tells reporters that Maggie Williams took Johnny Chung’s $ 50,000 because she is an excessively “courteous person.”
A number of newspapers report that two longtime Al Gore confidants helped shake down an impoverished Indian tribe in Oklahoma for consulting fees and more than $ 100,000 in contributions to the DNC in return for promised help with the administration in a land dispute.
TUESDAY, MARCH 11. Senior Justice Department officials tell reporters on background that Monday’s FBI press release disputing the president’s account of its 1996 heads-up on China was intemperate, hysterical, and out of bounds. Nevertheless, one of the two NSC staffers who attended the disputed FBI briefing suddenly retires — early — after 25 years of federal service.
Also: One of Webb Hubbell’s sugar daddies (see Thursday, March 6, above) now says Hubbell did tell people at the White House about the $ 400,000 he received during his time of disgrace, the president perhaps among them. In response, Clinton spinmeister Lanny Davis informs reporters that the president “thinks that at some point he may have heard” that some “old friends” might be helping Hubbell out. Six weeks earlier, Clinton strongly implied that Hubbell’s private financial arrangements were a complete mystery to him.
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 12. Attorney general Janet Reno tells a Senate appropriations subcommittee that the entire FBI/White House/China flap is merely a semantic “misunderstanding.” No need for an independent-counsel investigation, here or anywhere else, she says.
Justice is supposed to be blind, but this is ridiculous.
