Rewriting History Part 9

Imagine my surprise a few weeks later, when Judge Woods ruled that Starr had no jurisdiction - just as the person threatening Clinton had wanted. The decision stank to high heaven; it was quickly reversed on appeal - and the appellate court took the unusual step of removing Woods from the case, so strongly did they object to his decision and suspect his motive for making it.

What had Clinton done? I wondered. Had he called the judge? Intervened in the proceedings? And possibly even committed an impeachable offense in the process? I had no idea. But my mind reeled at the lengths it seemed he would go to protect Hillary.

A year later I got another call, this time seeking a favor. This caller asked me to pa.s.s along a message from Jim Guy Tucker, who had been convicted and removed from office as Arkansas governor. "You tell that son of a b.i.t.c.h that he owes me a pardon. He owes me a pardon. He owes me a pardon."

I declined to pa.s.s the message on to Clinton. Let them both stew, I thought. I decided I didn't want to be involved in any more message-pa.s.sing, and that was the end of it.

Whitewater and the Madison Guaranty-Castle Grande scandals had each started with the corrupting pursuit of relatively small amounts of money. The corruption led to a lie, and the first lie, as it often does, led to another and another.

Will Hillary stop doing this kind of thing if she moves back into the White House? Her consuming need for money, and the frustrated sense of ent.i.tlement that it kindled, may have diminished since her Arkansas days, though the lesson of other presidents with similar money fixations is not encouraging. But what about the self-righteous perfectionism that led to the cover-up? Or Hillary's inability, indeed refusal, to admit the slightest degree of error?

This brittle defensiveness resonates through the pages of Living History. Hillary - or, rather, HILLARY - never does anything wrong. She is always perfect, always the victim. Others are always getting her wrong. As long as she refuses reflexively to admit to wrongdoing, though, she may be susceptible to such temptations in the future. A second Clinton presidency will always be at risk of falling into one of these endless scandals that delight Washington and drive the rest of us crazy.

Publisher and columnist Tina Brown has an interesting take on why many high-profile women tend to be perfectionists. Commenting on the Martha Stewart case, she said, "There is no doubt that women like Hillary, women like Martha, carry the freight of knowing exactly the kind of flack that's going to ensue if they put one misstep. Men are not fretted with that as much. Men could think, 'you know what? I'll go down. I'll say it was a mistake. You know, it will be fine. I'll get away with it.'... [But women think] 'Oh my G.o.d, I have made a mistake. I'm going to get torn from limb to limb.'. . . That's what made her [Martha Stewart] lie in the first place."

Hillary's own perspective on the Stewart verdict was more predictable. "It is often . . . that women in positions of visibility are held to another standard. I hope that wasn't in play here." Another high-profile woman caught under the harsh light of public scrutiny - and another cla.s.s action defense!

That same instinct to cover up wrongdoing seems to have been behind the Clintons' efforts to funnel money to Webb Hubbell, Hillary's former Rose Law Firm partner and Bill's a.s.sociate attorney general, even as he went to prison for overbilling, in a case brought by Starr for the main purpose of pressuring Webb to talk.

Hubbell had swindled the Rose Law Firm, including his partner, Hillary. Within a few months of his resignation from the Justice Department, though, the Clintons and their friends had helped him get more than $500,000 in consulting contracts.

In Living History, Hillary says that she didn't know about Hubbell's overbilling when she encouraged Clintonistas to arrange for this largesse, saying that "I a.s.sumed that Webb was also being falsely accused."

But the New York Times reported that "President Clinton's closest confidants, attorneys James B. Blair and David E. Kendall, were aware of the seriousness of legal problems facing former a.s.sociate Attorney General Webster L. Hubbell, even before he resigned in March 1994." According to the Times, "Blair was told [that the Rose] law firm . . . had strong proof of wrongdoing by Hubbell, and warned [the] Clintons that Hubbell needed to resign from the department as quickly as possible." So Hillary likely knew about the overbilling, three months before Webb quit. But she had to pretend she didn't know. Otherwise, how could she defend all the consulting deals she threw his way?

But Hillary would have been concerned about ensuring Hubbell's silence. As Jim McDougal said, "Webb Hubbell is a person who had all the doc.u.ments in his personal possession when they cleaned out the Rose Law Firm to come to Washington. He knows all the twists and turns ... he knows where the bodies are buried. Webb Hubbell is the guy they [the special prosecutor] have to get to talk."

In her attack on Richard Nixon in Living History, Hillary condemns him for "paying off witnesses to silence them or influence their testimony." How else would she describe the White House efforts to help get money to Webb Hubbell?

One other bit of housekeeping.

In Living History, Hillary writes that "In late 1995, d.i.c.k Morris came to see me to deliver a bizarre message: I was going to be indicted for something as yet undefined and 'people close to Starr' suggested I accept the indictment and ask Bill to pardon me before trial. I a.s.sumed Morris was carrying water for his Republican clients or contacts, so I chose my words very carefully. 'Tell your sources to report to Starr's people that even though I have done nothing wrong, I'm well aware that, in the immortal words of Edward Bennett Williams, 'a prosecutor can indict a ham sandwich if he chooses.' And if Starr does, I would never ask for a pardon. I will go to trial and show Starr up for the fraud he is."

She quotes me as saying: "Are you sure you want me to say that?" And she says she answered: "Word for word." The conversation she's referring to actually took place much later - in early 1997 - and over the phone.

President Clinton had asked me what I thought of the idea of pardoning Harold Ickes, who was the object of attack in the campaign fund-raising scandal, along with an array of Whitewater figures including Susan and Jim McDougal, Jim Guy Tucker, and others. He said he thought he could start the second term off completely clean, putting the problems of the first term behind him and moving on. He cited President George Bush's 1992 pardon of former Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger and others implicated in the Iran-Contra affair.

"But Bush was leaving the White House," I said. "You still have another term. You'll be badly hurt if you issue pardons. It won't kill the issue. It will merely fan the flames."

Clinton persisted: "But these people have done nothing wrong. They've racked up huge legal bills, and Starr will keep going after them unless I shut the whole thing down now with pardons." "Would you pardon Hillary, too?" I asked. "I might," he answered.

"You'll get killed for that. It would be like Ford's pardon of Nixon. You'd never live it down."

Worried that Clinton might be seriously considering such a disastrous course, I called Hillary and asked her how she would feel about a pardon. I did not say I was an emissary from Starr, and I wasn't. I had not discussed the matter with Starr - I didn't even know him, and had never spoken to him. I had merely talked to her husband about it. I didn't say she would be indicted, I only mentioned the possibility of a pardon that would prevent her from being indicted - a pardon I thought would be a mistake.

Her memory of her own reaction, though, is accurate: She rejected the idea of a pardon out of hand. "If he [Starr] wants to stoop that low, I'll fight to clear my name," she said. "I won't accept a pardon! I wouldn't let Bill pardon me! I'd just go into court and show Starr up for the fraud he is." I was relieved by her att.i.tude, and inwardly impressed by her courage. But I had no knowledge of anything going on within Starr's camp, and she is wrong to suggest I did.

I hadn't spoken to Starr, but as it happened I had heard from his people - in a manner of speaking. Several days after I returned home from the Democratic National Convention at the end of August 1996, the private security guards we had hired to keep the swarming media at bay outside our Redding, Connecticut, home informed us that two FBI agents were coming up our driveway - with papers in hand. It was a subpoena to Starr's grand jury in Washington. And it asked that I bring all papers and doc.u.ments related to my work for the Clinton campaign.

I was very suspicious about why Starr would want campaign doc.u.ments, particularly the weekly agendas I used as the outlines for my strategy meetings with the president. The agendas had nothing to do with Whitewater, Filegate, Travelgate, or any of the scandals. But they did contain our private, in-house campaign plans and polling data.

I was determined not to give him those doc.u.ments until the day after the election. I was not about to hand over our campaign play-book to a Republican prosecutor eight weeks before the balloting.

At Eileen's suggestion, I retained Jerry McDevitt from the Pittsburgh office of the law firm of Kirkpatrick and Lockhart as my attorney. She had met McDevitt during her brief foray into the world of professional wrestling, when she represented an odd but huge client, former wrestler David "Dr. Death" Schultz, who was locked in litigation with his former boss Vince McMahon of the World Wrestling Federation. McDevitt, who represented McMahon, was no member of the Washington establishment, which Eileen distrusted, but he had proven himself one h.e.l.l of a lawyer. Eileen told me she'd never met a more brutal, tenacious, obnoxious, talented, and effective lawyer. He was perfect for the job of taking on the special prosecutor.

Jerry immediately contacted the Starr prosecutors and arranged for a delay of several weeks while he moved to quash the subpoena. I told him I would never give Starr the agendas before the election, no matter what. Once the voting was over, they could have them.

But the prosecutors were pushing for me to immediately appear before the grand jury, agendas in hand. Jerry delayed it for several weeks, but at length I received another subpoena ordering me to appear on the Thursday before election day. Obviously, they wanted to make a show of having me testify on the weekend before the election. I was deeply determined not to hand over the agendas, and I was relieved when Jerry finally called to say that my testimony was postponed.

I did not hear from Starr's office again for eighteen months - until, in July 1998,1 was interviewed by the FBI at my New York City apartment with my old friend attorney David Lenefsky in attendance. (An accomplished New York litigator, David had worked with Jerry on the earlier subpoena issues.) The FBI wanted to know about a phone call I had with President Clinton in April 1996. I did not immediately remember the call; but when I checked my records, I realized that it had taken place on Easter Sunday. I had been in Paris with some family members. I remembered that I had talked to the president about advertising scripts. What could they want to know that for? I wondered. Only later did I learn the reason: This call was one of those that interrupted a Clinton/Monica moment; the FBI was trying to corroborate Lewinsky's testimony.

Several weeks later, I was finally required to testify at the Grand Jury in Washington about my conversations with the president after the Lewinsky story broke.

FAMILY AND FRIENDS.

The two most corrupt administrations in American history - those of Warren G. Harding and Ulysses S. Grant - were headed by presidents who probably never stole a dime for themselves.

Both Harding and Grant saw their administrations destroyed by the greed, poor judgment, and arrogance of their family and friends. Grant's brother-in-law, and the businessmen who hung around the president, got him into big trouble. Virtually every member of Harding's weekly poker game stole money from the nation - probably excepting poor old Harding himself. Both presidents crashed and burned because they trusted their friends and family, and because they couldn't say no.

As president, Hillary Clinton could have the same problem with her family, and with her friends.

Family Hillary has two younger brothers, Hugh and Tony Rodham.

These two are a piece of work.

Hugh Rodham persuaded President Clinton to pardon Carlos Anabel Vignali. All he was convicted of, after all, was shipping half a ton of cocaine to Minnesota. He got fifteen years. Former U.S. Attorney Todd Jones called Vignali "a major source in keeping a drug organization fed with dope." Charming.

But he had redeeming features. Vignali's father donated $150,000 to Los Angeles Democrats, and $10,000 to the national committee. More important, he paid Hugh Rodham $200,000 to get his son cleared. And it worked: Clinton commuted the drug dealer's sentence to time served.

Hugh also got more than $200,000 for securing a pardon for Almon Glenn Braswell, who was sentenced to three years in jail for touting a phony cure for baldness, and peddling a remedy for prostate problems, using photos of athletes like racer Richard Perry, football player Len Dawson, and Stan "the Man" Musial, all of whom sued him. Braswell received a full pardon from Clinton.

Tony Rodham, meanwhile, acted as a "consultant" for carnival owners Edward and Vonna Jo Gregory, who had been convicted of bank fraud in 1982. Tony arranged for the Gregorys to stage two carnivals on White House grounds, and to visit the Clintons at Camp David. The couple contributed $102,000 to Hillary and other Democratic causes. And they got pardoned.

Hillary's brothers aren't going away. If she runs for national office, they'll still be there licking their chops. If she can't handle their greed any better than she has in the past, she is in for a rocky ride if she ever becomes president.

Hillary says she simply didn't know about her brothers and the pardons. Barbara Olson catalogued her multiple denials in The Final Days: - "I did not have any involvement in the pardons that were granted."

- "I didn't know about it and I'm very regretful that it occurred, that I didn't know about it."

- "I don't know anything other than what has now come out and I did not learn about that until very recently."

- "I did not know my brother was involved in any way in any of this."

- "I did not know any specific information until late Monday night."

- "I love my brother. I'm just extremely disappointed in this terrible misjudgment that he made."

- "I was very disturbed when I heard about it."

- "If I'd had any knowledge or notice of it, I believe I might have been able to prevent it. ... I did not."

- "I don't personally have any information."

Doth the lady protest too much?

How likely is it that Hugh and Tony Rodham managed to persuade Bill Clinton to pardon their clients, without ever letting on to their sister what they were after?

Well, it's possible, theoretically at least. They knew she was running for Senate; they could have guessed that the pardons might prove embarra.s.sing to her. So they might have taken some measures to ensure plausible deniability for their sister.

But both Hugh and Tony were basically living at the White House at the time. And of course Bill himself knew they were lobbying for the pardons. Is it at all conceivable that Bill Clinton said nothing to his wife about the pardons her brothers were promoting? Is it possible he didn't know that the Rodhams were behind the pardons?

No and no. Each of these pardons left a long paper trail of investigations and argument. The Justice Department opposed them vigorously, as did the prosecuting attorneys who were involved. It is inconceivable that Bill Clinton did not know that Hillary's brothers were involved. To conclude that he was ignorant, one would have to believe that every single member of his staff, who handled these applications systematically, hid Hillary's brothers' involvement from him - and that neither brother ever b.u.t.tonholed Bill personally to press their case.

And is it credible that Bill didn't tell Hillary? After his wife had been elected to the Senate, is it conceivable that Bill took an action that might directly have implicated her brothers in a blatant conflict-of-interest and influence-peddling scheme - and did so without consulting her?

Knowing the Clintons, it seems highly unlikely. And yet: If we a.s.sume that Bill did tell Hillary, why did she let it happen, and risk the political fallout? It's conceivable that Hillary failed to antic.i.p.ate the furor that followed. And yet: Given the outcry she endured after her husband pardoned several Puerto Rican terrorists the year before - a move widely decried as an attempt to curry favor with the New York Hispanic voting bloc Hillary was courting at the time - she must have known how this new round of presidential forgiveness would look.

So is it possible that Hillary's brothers had a hold over her that made her agree to the granting of the pardons? Or made Bill understand that she had no choice?

Any way you look at it, the granting of pardons to three felons who were paying money to your brothers-in-law marked a low point in the American presidency.

Not surprisingly, Hillary's memoirs contain not one single word about the pardons. The HILLARY brand can't afford brothers who get paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to secure pardons for convicted felons.

Friends You can't pick your family. But you can choose your friends. And Hillary had a special friend: Harry Thomason, the Hollywood producer of Designing Women and Evening Shade, who produced many of the ads and videos for Bill Clinton's campaigns, ch.o.r.eographed the 1992 Democratic convention, and handled the pomp and ceremony of the Clintons' inaugural.

No doubt Harry thought all his hard work deserved recognition. And Thomason happened to be part owner of an air charter consulting firm.

Ann Coulter and others have doc.u.mented how vigorously Thomason pushed Hillary, and Hillary pushed David Watkins, to fire the White House Travel Office staff. Her tactics included getting former Rose Law Firm partner David Kennedy to investigate Billy Dale, the head of the Travel Office; as a result, Dale was charged with financial misconduct, though he was later acquitted.

What the sad Travel Office affair shows us is just how far Hillary will go to accommodate her friends - specifically, in this case, to reward Harry Thomason with some business. Unless Hillary Clinton wants her prospective presidential administration to be a replay of the Ulysses S. Grant story - where favors to friends ruined his years in office - Hillary had better rethink her relationships and rein in her desire to punish enemies and reward friends with official favors.

The Travel Office affair also demonstrates how Hillary's obsessive revisionism leads her into deeper and deeper trouble. It wasn't illegal for Hillary to fire the Travel Office staff. But rather than frankly admit that she wanted Bush's people replaced with her own, the HILLARY brand had to find some justification for firing them. HILLARY could not be tainted by a scent of political patronage. She had to cloak her ambition, and her perfectly human desire to reward her friends, in a garb of pseudo-morality - by pretending that the real reason was a finding of financial dishonesty.

But eventually things got serious. In 1995, Hillary testified under oath that she had not initiated the Travel Office firings. This was the turning point in the Travelgate story - not the initial action, but Hillary Clinton's clumsy attempt to cover it up.

In Living History, Hillary claims that she and Bill were "cleared" in the Travelgate investigation that followed. But that's exceedingly wishful thinking. In his final report, Special Prosecutor Robert Ray, who succeeded Kenneth Starr, reported that the evidence was overwhelming that Hillary Clinton's statements about the Travel Office were "factually inaccurate." As ABC's Peter Jennings reported, "The Independent Counsel said . . . that Mrs. Clinton gave false testimony about her role in the firing of White House travel workers seven years ago."

Fox News described Ray's report as "the strongest criticism of Mrs. Clinton from any independent counsel investigation so far. The issue for prosecutors was whether anybody in the White House tried to cover up alleged mismanagement of the firings. Under oath, Mrs. Clinton flatly denied any role and denied that she had any input . . . [But] Independent Counsel Robert Ray cited eight separate conversations between the first lady and senior staff and concluded: 'Mrs. Clinton's input into the process was significant, if not the significant factor influencing the pace of events in the Travel Office firings and the ultimate decision to fire the employees.'"

Why wasn't Hillary indicted? As the Fox News story reported, "Prosecutors decided not to seek perjury charges because they said a key element, intent, would have been difficult to prove. The report said that when Mrs. Clinton testified she did not have a role, she might not have understood the impact of her conversations on White House staff."

And in Living History Hillary seizes on exactly that difficulty, claiming that it was her "offhand comment" that led - inadvertently, of course - to the firings.

Hillary makes a poor-little-me case in her own defense: "I was still learning the ropes and still discovering what it meant to be America's first lady. . . . Suddenly the people around you spend a lot of time antic.i.p.ating what will make you happy. . . . Everything you say is amplified."

Most people make offhand comments. Hillary does not. She is never casual. Either she says nothing, or she says it emphatically. The idea of Hillary Clinton making an "offhand" comment about firing the Travel Office staff calls to mind Henry II's famous line, "Will no one rid me of this troublesome priest?" - which resulted in the a.s.sa.s.sination of Thomas Becket.

But the HILLARY brand can only wonder, in bemus.e.m.e.nt, at how easily a little miscommunication can lead to trouble - rather than learning any kind of lesson from yet another cover-up attempt that blew up in her face.

Gifts Nothing in politics is more dangerous than a gift. It sits innocently on a table in an anteroom, a thoughtful display of friendship from a true comrade. Or is it? Is that china set, or expensive lamp, or luxury golf bag, a token of friendship - or a bid for influence?

There is no duplicity to match that of the Washington power structure. When you're on top, they shower you with attention. When you fall, they run screaming in the other direction.

Bob Crandall, the former CEO of American Airlines, once told me the difference between New York and Washington: "New York," he said, "is tough but it's not mean. They will battle over every dime in the contract, and then afterward you'll go out to dinner together and become friends. Washington is not tough, but it is mean. To your face, they'll give you anything you want. And as you walk away, they'll shoot you in the back just because it's fun to watch you die."

There is a good reason for the legislation that bars senators and congressmen from receiving gifts valued at more than fifty dollars. Those wise to the ways of our nation's capital understand that gifts are the currency of bribery in Washington. Give a politician a paper bag full of twenty-dollar bills, and you insult his integrity. Hand him an oriental vase worth as much, and he'll consider you a friend. Most elected officials are very careful about receiving gifts. The implication of favoritism and influence peddling may adhere long after the gift itself is consigned to a closet shelf.

But Hillary Clinton showed no such care about accepting, and likely soliciting, almost $200,000 worth of gifts . . . and helping herself to many more presents that were intended not for her, but for the White House.

Most of this ma.s.sive deluge of gifts came in the few short weeks between her election to the Senate in November 2000, and her swearing-in during the first week of January 2001. Already elected, she felt politically free to take gifts, and before she took office she was legally able to do so. Soliciting presents in a way that defied tact and defiled taste, Hillary displayed an eagerness that verged on frenzy. Time was of the essence: Anxious to obey the letter of the law as she openly flouted its spirit, Hillary scrambled to collect every gift she could before the Senate ethics prohibition kicked in.

In Living History, of course, Hillary makes no mention of any such gifts. HILLARY doesn't take gifts.

In her final book, The Final Days, Barbara Olson included a list of some of the presents the Clintons acc.u.mulated. It's one thing to lump the gifts together and chalk it up to the eccentricity of the outgoing first lady. But to read each item - to absorb the amount of the "gift" - is to realize how ma.s.sive Hillary's circ.u.mvention of the Senate ethics rules really was: - Barbara Allen, Belfast, Northern Ireland, $650 watercolor of Clinton ancestral homestead - Georgetown Alumni, cla.s.s of 1968, $38,000 Dale Chihuly basket set - Arthur Athis, Los Angeles, California, $2,400 dining chairs - Dendez Badarch, Ulan Bator, Mongolia, $1,300 drawings of Mongolian landscapes - Robert Berks, Orient, New York, $2,500 bust of Harry Truman - Bruce Bernson, Santa Barbara, California, $300 golf putter - Mr. and Mrs. Bill Brandt, Winnetka, Illinois, $5,000 china - Ken Burns, Walpole, New Hampshire, $800 photograph of Duke Ellington - Ely Callaway, Carlsbad, California, $499 golf driver - Iris Cantor, New York, New York, $4,992 china - Robin Carnahan and Nina Ganci, St. Louis, Missouri, $340 two sweaters - Glen Eden Carpets, Calhoun, Georgia, $6,282 two carpets - Dale Chihuly, Seattle, Washington, $22,000 gla.s.s sculpture - Ted Danson and Mary Steenburgen, $4,800 china - Colette D'Etremont, New Brunswick, Canada, $300 flatware - Dennis Doucette, Coral Gables, Florida, $310 golf bag, clothing, book - Ronald and Beth Dozoretz, $7,000, dining room table, server, and golf clubs (Beth Dozoretz is a friend of Denise Rich, who spoke to the president about the Marc Rich pardon) - Martin Patrick Evans, Chicago, Illinois, $5,000 rug - Lee Picks, Cincinnati, Ohio, $3,650 Kitchen table and four chairs - Lynn Forester, New York, New York, $1,353 cashmere sweater - Paul Goldenberg, La Habra, California, $2,993 TV and DVD player - Myra Greenspun, Green Valley, Nevada, $1,588 flatware - Vinod Gupta, Omaha, Nebraska, $450 leather jacket - Richard C. Helmstetter, Carlsbad, California, $525 golf driver and b.a.l.l.s - Hal Hunnicutt, Conway, Arkansas, $360 golf irons - Ghada Irani, Los Angeles, California, $4,944 flatware - Jill and Ken Iscol, Pound Ridge, New York, $2,110 china and jacket - Mr. and Mrs. Walter Kaye, New York, New York, $9,683 cigar travel humidor, china cabinet, and copy of President Lincoln's - Cooper Union speech - David Kilgarriff, North Yorkshire, United Kingdom, $300 golf driver - Steve Leutkehans, Morton Grove, Illinois, $650 golf driver - David Martinous, Little Rock, Arkansas, $1,000 needlepoint rug - Steve Mittman, New York, New York, $19,900 two sofas, easy chair, and ottoman - Katsuhiro Miura, j.a.pan, $500 golf driver - Jan Munro, Sarasota, Florida, $650 painting of New York City - Brad Noe, High Point, North Carolina, $2,843 sofa - Margaret O'Leary, San Francisco, California, $595 pantsuit and sweater - Mr. and Mrs. Joe Panko, Concord, North Carolina, $300 three putters - Mr. and Mrs. Paolo Papini, Florence, Italy, $425 Italian leather box - Mr. and Mrs. Morris Pynoos, Beverly Hills, California, $5,767 cashmere shawl and flatware - Brian Ready, Chappaqua, New York, $300 painting of Buddy, the Clintons' dog - Denise Rich, ex-wife of fugitive Marc Rich, $7,300 coffee table and chairs (Ms. Rich also donated $450,000 to the Clinton Presidential Library, $72,000 to the Hillary Clinton campaign and committees supporting her candidacy, $1 million to the Democratic Party and its candidates, and $10,000 to the Clintons' legal defense fund) - David Rowland, Springfield, Illinois, $500 check signed by President Harry Truman in 1934 - Stuart Shiller, Haileah, Florida, $1,170 lamps - Steven Spielberg, $4,920 china - Sylvester Stallone, $300 boxing gloves - Mr. and Mrs. Vo Viet Thanh, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, $350 framed tapestry - Joan Tumpson, Miami, Florida, $3,000 painting - Edith Wa.s.serman, Beverly Hills, California, $4,967 flatware - Mr. and Mrs. Allen Whiting, West Tisbury, Ma.s.sachusetts, $300 painting - James Lee Witt, Alexandria, Virginia, $450 cowboy boots - Mr. and Mrs. Bud Yorkin, Los Angeles, California, $500 antique book on President Washington One might ask, how did all of these different people know to buy the same expensive china patterns? As ABC News reported on January 25, 2001, "Clinton supporters even took the extraordinary step of setting up an account akin to a gift registry with Borsheim's, a high-end jewelry and china dealership owned by billionaire financier Warren Buffett. . . . Clinton's friend Rita Pynoos of Beverly Hills, asked other supporters to give generously to help the first family launch their new life. A source close to one of those solicited confirmed Pynoos had suggested a $5,000 contribution. . . . Rather than send a check to the White House, the Clinton backer was asked to send a check to Borsheim's. The donor also was asked to rush the payment in before January 3, when Senate ethics rules would bar Sen. Clinton from receiving such gifts. Other supporters confirm they too were asked to contact Borsheim's."

In all, the Clintons received $190,000 in gifts. As Olson reports, "Mrs. Clinton pulled in over $50,000 of china and flatware." Mr. Clinton didn't fare as well, getting 6nly about $4,000 worth of golf equipment.

(Those golf clubs wouldn't have been overlooked by the president, though. When Eileen and I were preparing to go for a vacation in Morocco over Christmas 1995, the president told me to tell the King - if we b.u.mped into him - how much he loved the driver His Majesty had given him. "It takes ten strokes off my score, and n.o.body knows that it's the driver, not me," he said. The next year, the day after Elizabeth Dole delivered her riveting Oprah-like speech at the Republican convention, I spoke with Clinton and he was mad as h.e.l.l - not at the speech, but at the fact that his favorite golf driver had just broken. The man takes his golf seriously.) Asked by Tim Russert on Meet the Press whether the gifts were the result of an active solicitation, former White House Chief of Staff John Podesta confirmed that an appeal of some sort did, indeed, take place: RUSSERT: "In the final weeks, did friends of Mrs. Clinton not solicit others and say 'Would you please buy this silverware, these gifts for Mrs. Clinton for her new house?'"

PODESTA: "Yes, that happened."

So extensive was the negative publicity about the avalanche of gifts that the Clintons agreed to pay back $86,000, about half their value. As Olson notes, "no one explained exactly how that compromise was arrived at."

But these last-minute gifts, given voluntarily to the Clintons, account for only part of the spoils the Clintons plundered during their time at the White House. As Hillary prepared to leave Washington for Chappaqua, she and the former president took with them an additional $360,000 worth of gifts given to the White House itself, including $173,000 in art objects and books, $69,000 in furniture, $26,000 in golf items, and $24,000 in clothing. The Washington Post reports that the gifts even included 137 five-piece china settings, representing five patterns and costing $38,000.

Moreover, a House Committee charged that many of the gifts were undervalued - including "An Yves Saint Laurent suit valued at $249, slightly below the threshold for triggering public reporting. A Ferragamo coat worth $1,350 was valued at $800, a set of men's Spalding golf clubs and canvas bag accepted at a $200 value were worth $500 to $600, and a Tiffany silver necklace listed at $150 was worth $450 to $1,000."

When many of the original donors of these gifts learned that the Clintons had expropriated their donations to furnish their new house, they were outraged. Businessman Brad Noe, surprised that his $3,000 couch had made it to Chappaqua, was furious and said that he "would never give a gift to the Clintons." Eventually the Clintons were forced to return $28,000 of sofas, chairs, and other pieces of furniture to the White House.

Olson explains how the Clintons got away with their legal burglary: "While still in office, Bill and Hillary shipped seventy museum pieces, donated to the White House by prominent American artists, to the Clinton Presidential Library in Little Rock. The items were part of a White House Americans Craft Collection and featured a Dale Chihuly gla.s.s piece. . . . White House curator Betty Monkman said the decision to move them was made by 'Mrs. Clinton herself.'" Once these items were in the possession of the library, the compliant board of directors, appointed by Clinton, could do with them as they wished.

The looting continued. "In January, 2000, the Clintons began shipping furniture to their. . . Chappaqua home, despite [the fact that] they were government property, donated as part of a $396,000 White House redecoration project in 1993."

Former White House Counsel Vince Foster "sent a March 24, 1993, memo requiring that the gifts be accepted with formal acknowledgments, thereby making them government property."

Olson notes that "The Clintons reportedly returned 'a truckload of couches, lamps, and other furnishings taken from the White House.

Unfortunately, no one knows for sure how much the Clintons got away with. That information has been withheld despite numerous attempts for disclosure. All everyone knows is that they tried." Approximately $28,000 worth of gifts made to the White House were removed by the Clintons, even after the chief usher objected. These gifts, which had never been disclosed, included a hand-painted television armoire, a custom wood gaming table, and a wicker center table with a wood top.

This gifting orgy points up the raging materialism Hillary must have been holding in check throughout most of her husband's governorship and presidency. Once the Clintons were facing the loss of the opulent lifestyle they'd led since their days in the Arkansas Governor's Mansion, Hillary seems to have gone into a panic, anxious to hold on to as many of the luxurious trappings as she could.

And yet, once again, HILLARY has found a way to rewrite this bit of unflattering history. What caused the gift scandal? A "clerical error," according to Living History. While she doesn't mention the gifts she got before entering the Senate, she does defend herself against the charge that she appropriated White House gifts with one short sentence: "The culture of investigation followed us out the door of the White House when clerical errors in the recording of gifts mushroomed into a full-blown flap, generating hundreds of news stories over several months."

But those news stories weren't generated by any "clerical error." They were the direct result of the Clintons' decision to back a moving truck up to the White House and take tens of thousands of dollars' worth of furniture and other objects that belonged not to them, but to the American people. It was greed, not a bookkeeping mistake, that gave rise to the scandal - and it was only the ma.s.sive negative publicity that forced them to return as many of the gifts as they did.

Of all the Hillary scandals, this final one may come closest to suggesting the kinds of difficulties she, and the nation, might face if she should ever be elected president.

Why? For one thing, it is the most recent, so fresh that it can't be dismissed as an old story or the behavior of an immature young political wife. Many of Hillary's other scandals began far back into her husband's governorship; the cattle futures trades and Whitewater affairs date back to the late 1970s (though her efforts to cover them up penetrated deep into her husband's presidency). Other scandals, such as Travelgate and the FBI file episode, occurred in Bill's first term.