Today’s decision by a biased judge and a skewed Manhattan jury highlights the enormous problem with America’s legal system. It comes down to political influence and money. When a former president is tried and convicted for misdemeanors long since expired under the statute of limitations and convicted of 34 felonies, it’s obvious that politics and not law are now the law of the land. And it portends problems for presidents past and future. Since Trump “hush payments” are all the rage, let’s take a look at Bill Clinton, Paula Jones, and Monica Lewinsky and those “hush payments.”
When I first arrived in the Clinton White House in the spring of 1996, I got busy immersing myself in my new experience, learning my job carrying the “nuclear football,” meeting the staff, and getting to know the Secret Service guys and girls. The first thing I immediately noticed only a few days into my duty was that there was a young female intern who had unusual access to the Oval Office. She was actually assigned to the Old Executive Office building and not the West Wing. But her security access badge matched mine, as the carrier of the nuke football who needed access to the president at all times. I asked one of my agent buddies who she was. He said, “Oh, don’t go there. That’s a close friend of the president.” That “close friend” was Monica Lewinsky. Coming from the Air Force, where they definitely frowned on that sort of stuff, my antennae went up.
Over the next several months, I saw a lot of Monica. Not as much as Bill did, of course, but a lot. One lazy Saturday afternoon, Clinton asked me to come to the Oval and place a phone call to the president of Egypt, Hosni Mubarak. It took a while to hook up the call with the Egyptian military aide. When I finally got Mr. Mubarak on the phone, I walked into the Oval to inform the president. As I did, I walked in on Bill and Monica actually hanging out in the Oval. I knew what was going on, the staff knew what was going on, and, yes, Hillary knew what was going on. The rest of the world didn’t.
While this affair was ongoing, Paula Jones was simultaneously suing Clinton for sexual harassment years earlier in Little Rock. I attended the Jones deposition with Clinton in D.C. and, for the first time, the lawyers for Jones raised the name Monica Lewinsky in their questioning. I knew the history and my Air Force eyebrows raised. Ultimately, as a result of that deposition, Clinton agreed to a payment of $850K to Jones to make her go away.
For the first time, in addition to Jones, Clinton immediately knew he had another problem with Monica. A few weeks later, the Drudge Report would shock the world with the news about Monica and the national media immediately picked up on it. For the second time in less than a month, Bill had a huge bimbo problem.
As fate would have it, and timing is everything, the following morning, I was the first appointment on Clinton’s schedule. It was 7:00 AM and I was there to update him on our nuclear plans and answer any questions he might have. As I walked into the Oval that morning, I saw Clinton seated at his desk, his head in his hands and his eyes bloodshot. I knew it was not going to be a happy day in the White House, so I asked him if I should come back later. He said, “Yes.”
As I was leaving, I turned and asked him to confirm he had the nuclear codes with him. It was standard procedure and a national security safety check. He confessed to me he’d lost them. He’d lost them. Never happened before, hasn’t happened since. As I drilled down, it turns out that, for a period of time, days, weeks, or months, who knows, Clinton didn’t have the necessary codes and didn’t tell anybody about it. He couldn’t remember how long it had been since he’d lost them, and he didn’t care. He was a neutered president because of his affairs. He appealed to me to not let the media know. I told him I wouldn’t (and I didn’t until I retired from the military and wrote “Dereliction of Duty”).
When I contacted the Pentagon, they were incredulous. It had never happened before. Being the American military, they hopped to and reproduced new codes that were then required to be disseminated not only to President Clinton but also to every military nuclear arm (missiles, submarines, and bombers). No easy task.
Initially, as you recall, Bill denied it publicly. Hillary blamed the “right-wing conspiracy.” Eventually, Clinton paid Paula Jones the $850K and found Monica a cushy job in NYC. Eventually, he’d be impeached and survive. Compare these crimes and Clinton’s malfeasance with the kangaroo court in NYC. One thing is not like the other.
This will only inflame the country and provide another case study of our completely broken law enforcement. We will rise and overcome. The Clintons escaped. So far.
It’s all in here.
