THIS FAR AND NO FURTHER
A Timeline of Events Surrounding the Radical Right's Attempt to Subvert American Democracy
Written and Compiled by Black Max
1993
Late 1993
- Late 1993: Right-wing radio host and former Bush speechwriter Tony Snow introduces Linda Tripp to literary agent Lucianne Goldberg.
Whitewater / Lewinsky and related "scandals"
Tripp is one of a number of low-level White House employees hired by Bush and retained by the Clinton administration; Tripp, a devoted conservative, has little but contempt for her new bosses, and calls White House counsel Bernard Nussbaum, her immediate supervisor, and two of his associates "the Three Stooges." Co-workers characterize her as an inverterate gossip and self-aggrandizer who, in the words of Marvin Kalb, "saw conspiracies behind every door and a sex scandal in every closet." Goldberg is looking for authors and material for anti-Clinton publications, with an eye to writing her own sexy "tell-all" book slamming the Clintons. She is, according to Kalb, "a literary agent, writer of salacious novels, and conservative political junkie who had once worked as a researcher at Kennedy's White House and ended up as a Nixon spy on George McGovern's campaign plane. She was a natural wheeler-dealer with a flair for public relations and she conspired with the press, the prosecutors, and the Jones lawyers -- all in a non-stop effort to destroy Bill Clinton." (Executive Intelligence Review, Marvin Kalb) - Late 1993: Pat Matrisciana, the founder of Citizens United for Honest Government and Creative Ministries and a right-wing documentary film maker,
Whitewater / Lewinsky and related "scandals"
is introduced to Arkansas con man and Clinton-basher Larry Nichols by a former NBC cameraman, John Hillyer, hired by Matrisciana to scout Arkansas for anti-Clinton material. Nichols fascinates Matrisciana with his wild and unsubstantiated tales of Clinton's myriad wrongdoings. "Larry just loves to talk," says one Little Rock journalist. "He's literally a bullsh*t artist.... If Bill Clinton has this amazing charm, Larry has a similar ability to sit down with somebody -- maybe not a smart, skeptical person -- but, say, a small-town banker or a right-wing radio talk show host, and persuade them to believe almost any damn thing he comes up with. He's witty. He can make you laugh." Matrisciana is more than willing to buy what Nichols is selling. - Early in 1994, Matrisciana releases a documentary film entitled Circle of Power that is widely distributed through Jerry Falwell's Liberty Alliance. The film features Nichols talking to the camera about the "countless people who mysteriously died" at the hands of the Clinton political machine. Nichols's scandalous accusations are lifted almost verbatim from an obscure Web site, "The Clinton Body Count," posted by Indianapolis lawyer Linda Thompson and later thoroughly debunked on the Snopes Urban Legends Web site. Thompson runs the American Justice Federation, a for-profit group that propagates right-wing conspiracy theories and sells videos and newsletters. The site contained, at the time Nichols borrowed from it, the names of 34 people who died under what Thompson terms mysterious circumstances, including four federal agents killed in the Branch Davidian shoot-out in Waco, Texas, a Democratic strategist who died of a heart attack, a friend of White House advisor Mack McLarty who died in a ski accident, a Little Rock lawyer who crashed his single-engine plane, and others. The video, promoted on Falwell's radio and television shows as Jerry Falwell Presents Bill Clinton's Circle of Power, coincides with an open letter by former House representative William Dannemeyer citing the list of mysterious deaths and demanding a congressional investigation. (Snopes, Joe Conason and Gene Lyons)
