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
1994
February
- February: Senator Don Riegle,
Gulf War
a Democrat, testifies before the Senate and reveals his knowledge of large US shipments of dual-use biological and chemical agents to Iraq that may have been used against US troops in the Gulf War. These agents are likely one of the main causes of the illness known as Gulf War Syndrome. (Iran Chamber Society)
Paula Jones accuses Clinton of sexual impropriety
- February 11: At the annual convention of the Conservative Political Action Committee,
Whitewater / Lewinsky and related "scandals"
Paula Jones accuses Bill Clinton of sexually molesting her during his tenure as governor of Arkansas. Jones's testimony has fluctuated wildly from originally denying that any such incident occurred, to alleging that any sexual liasons between her and Clinton were mutually agreeable, to her final story that she was molested against her will. (The American Spectator article that "outed" her quotes her as saying she wanted to be Clinton's "regular girlfriend.") Jones is encouraged by right-wing sources to file a lawsuit against Clinton, and offer to provide her with free legal counsel. Jones will solicit money from conservatives around the country, ostensibly for her legal defense fund. At least $100,000 of that money will be unaccounted for and never go to pay legal fees, a fact found objectionable by one of Jones's legal sponsors, the Rutherford Institute. In November 1997 Jones will sign a contract with a direct-mail agency that promises her $200,000 more. Her own lawyers later admit that her legal fund was "mishandled." $50,000 of her defense fund will come from an organization known as the Fund for a Living American Government (FLAG); the organization's single member, William Lehrfeld, is the primary counsel for the Arkansas Project. - The Jones press conference is a featured event at the CPAC, as is an announcement by Arkansas state troopers Larry Patterson and Roger Perry of the formation of a "Troopergate Whistleblower Fund," complete with toll-free phone number for donations (their representative, attorney Cliff Jackson, will eventually admit to clearing $40,000 from the fund, all of which they pocketed). Jackson organizes both the troopers' appearance and Jones's press conference. All of Jones's expenses -- travel, lodging, etc. -- are paid for by the Legal Affairs Council, who earlier claimed to have raised $300,000 for Oliver North's Iran-Contra defense. The night before the conference, Patterson and Perry are presented with $1000 checks from the LAC, and they meet the two men behind Citizens United, Floyd Brown and David Bossie. A number of Republicans, including Newt Gingrich and G. Gordon Liddy, come by to greet the two troopers and Jones. The press conference itself is staged and orchestrated by Craig Shirley, a professional publicist and consultant to the Republican National Committee.
- Jones, a low-level employee of the Arkansas Industrial Development Commission, says that on May 8, 1991, while she is working a state-sponsored "quality management" conference at Little Rock's Excelsior Hotel, she was approached by one of Governor Bill Clinton's bodyguards, state trooper Danny Ferguson. Ferguson told Jones that she makes "the governor's knees knock," according to her story, and told her that Clinton would like to meet with her in his suite. Jones says she viewed the invitation as an opportunity to advance her career in state government. Minutes later, after Ferguson escorted her to the suite and left her alone with Clinton, she says the governor complimented her on her body and her hair, then committed three "unwanted sexual advances" upon her, each more aggressive than the last. Jones claims that Clinton asked her for "a type of sex," which she refuses to reveal but that most assume to be oral sex. Jones says that she was so upset and shaken by the encounter that she left the AIDC conference and went home. According to affidavits, she told two friends of the unwanted advances. Her lawyer, Danny Traylor, says that she chose to reveal the encounter after almost three years of silence because of David Brock's "Troopergate" expose in the American Spectator. She was shocked to see herself, identified only as "Paula," mentioned in the story, where she is described as one of Clinton's willing conquests. Brock wrote that, according to Ferguson, Jones had volunteered "to be Clinton's regular girlfriend if so desired." She is now going public to clear her name.
- Traylor and Jones leave out a few pertinent details. A few weeks earlier, Traylor had phoned Little Rock businessman and Clinton supporter George Cook to tell him to pass along the message to the Clintons that "if [Jones] did not get money...she would embarrass [Clinton] publicly." Traylor suggested that $25,000 would make Jones disappear from public view, and perhaps a television appearance in a show by Clinton friend Harry Thomson, a successful TV producer. Cook later testifies that he told Traylor any such deal was "preposterous" and informed Clinton's lawyers; Jones later says that she knew nothing of Traylor's attempt to squeeze Clinton, and has no interest in either money or a television career. Traylor also fails to reveal that he and Jones have agreed to split any future proceeds from any book, movie, or TV deals based on her story. Nor does he mention that Jones's sister Charlotte, along with Charlotte's husband Mark Brown, have repeatedly attempted to talk Jones out of her claim, which they call "a stupid lie." Charlotte calls Jones's motivation "simple greed," and says that her sister told her just before she left for Washington, "either way it went, it smelled [like] money."
- Jones herself has something of a reputation in Little Rock. The daughter of a strict fundamentalist lay preacher and garment worker, she grew up in a household which eschewed "worldly" temptations such as television, movies, dancing, fashionable clothes, and makeup. When her father died, the then-19-year old Jones, then Paula Corbin, took advantage of her newfound freedom, dating men recklessly and staying away from home to party. Her brother-in-law Mark Brown says he has long worried about her flirtatious sexuality and her almost random choice of boyfriends, which she seemed to go through with great frequency. (One of those boyfriends would later sell semi-nude pictures of Paula Jones to Penthouse magazine; Brown had seen the pictures years before, when she boldly displayed them to her family.) A number of her former boyfriends dub her a "wild child," promiscuous and bold. Her first serious job is at the AIDC, where she earns the derisive nickname "Minnie Mouse" for her short skirts, squeaky voice, and flirtatious manner. Her husband Steve Jones, who apparently attracted his future wife because of his slight resemblance to Elvis Presley, likes to display risque pictures of her to his coworkers. Steve Jones is also a firm Republican who bears a powerful animosity towards Bill Clinton. His coworkers say that Jones never spoke of any sexual harassment by Clinton towards his wife: "steve would have been screaming bloody murder if something happened to Paula," a friend later tells the press. "He would have made us aware that Clinton was a scumbag." Those who know the couple believe that Steve pushed Paula into pursuing a vendetta against Clinton in order to either promote his political views or his non-existent acting career, or perhaps both.
- In the eyes of most reporters and commentators, the Jones press conference is a fizzle. By surrounding her with ultraconservatives, lawyers Jackson and Traylor have ensured that her motives come under question and her story discounted. Veteran Republicans realize that Traylor lacks the skill and experience to handle such a potentially explosive story. Also, Jackson errs in giving the exclusive rights to Jones's story, not to the reliable William Rempel of the Los Angeles Times, but to Washington Post's Michael Isikoff, who, though thoroughly disenchanted with Clinton and believing that Jones is telling the truth, fails to argue the story into print with his much less credulous editors. (The decision not to print the Jones story until months later precipitates Isikoff's departure for a position at Newsweek.) A reporter for London's Sunday Telegraph, the thoroughly discredited Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, says that Isikoff's failure to get the story in print spurs Jones's decision to file a lawsuit against Clinton. In March 1994, Evans-Pritchard meets with a coterie of anti-Clinton operatives aboard the houseboat of fierce white supremacist Everett Ham; there, an inebriated Traylor tells him of the upcoming lawsuit, and admits that he will need legal assistance if the lawsuit is to go forward. (Executive Intelligence Review, H.R. Clinton, James Carville, Joe Conason and Gene Lyons)
- February 11: Michael Isikoff is a Washington Post investigative reporter who had spent the entire 1992 presidential campaign in Little Rock, Arkansas, and 1993 as well.
Whitewater / Lewinsky and related "scandals"
Isikoff has developed a healthy distaste for Bill Clinton, and revealed in 1993 that the Clinton campaign had paid a private investigator over $100,000 to "keep tabs" on the so-called "bimbo eruption" surrounding the Clinton campaign and failed to inform the FEC about the payouts; most of the $100,000 was paid out after the 1992 election, incurring Isikoff's mounting curiosity about Clinton's sex life, and he ground out one story after another about Clinton, each more critical than the last. Marvin Kalb writes, "Each of his stories about Clinton, Whitewater, or Troopergate contributed to his Rolodex of colorful stories, and with each story he kept returning to one question: Was Clinton just reckless woth women, or was he pathologically incapable of controlling his sexual urges? His instinct told him that Clinton was both a liar and a philanderer and that the two were related." Isikoff was a valuable resource for the Clinton-haters: a journalist who was bent on finding "dirt" on Clinton who worked for the putatively liberal Washington Post. Kalb writes, "They cultivated and used Isikoff, and he cultivated and used them. Each met the other's needs, a perfectly normal arrangement between a source and a reporter. Over the next couple of years, however, Isikoff allowed routine cooperation to evolve on more than one occasion into unhealthy collaboration." - On the morning of February 11, right-wing GOP political consultant Craig Shirley phones Isikoff with the news of Paula Jones's public accusations against Clinton. Shirley wants to generate as much media "buzz" as possible -- live coverage on CNN, front-page stories in all the major newspapers, excerpts from the press conference on the nightly news. Instead, Jones plays coy with the reporters at the conference, refusing to provide any real details and relying on unfounded accusations of sexual misconduct on then-governor Clinton; the news media barely notices the press conference. Isikoff, like many reporters, is entirely dissatisfied with the "all sizzle and no steak" conference, and demands details from one of his favorite Little Rock sources, lawyer and veteran Clinton-hater Cliff Jackson. Jackson, prepared for Isikoff's demands, tells the reporter a sleazy story of Clinton dropping trou and demanding oral sex from Jones, who righteously refused; Jackson "proves" his tale by providing Isikoff with signed affidavits from two of Jones's friends who vouch that Jones confided in them after the supposed encounter. Post managing editor Len Downie, no friend of Clinton's, convenes a meeting of the editorial staff to decide whether or not to run Isikoff's story. Downie decides to run the story if more content and verification can be had. White House aide George Stephanopoulos says the story is ridiculous and points out, rightly, that Cliff Jackson is anything but reliable. Former state trooper Danny Ferguson, who was alleged to have brought "a woman named Paula" to Clinton's hotel room that eventful evening, refuses to comment on the story. Right-wing muckraker David Brock, who broke the Troopergate story in the American Spectator, refuses to corroborate the story except in the most general sense. Even another reporter interviewing Jones fails to come up with anything more specific. Though he believes in the essential truth of Jones's allegations, Downie refuses to run the story, saying he needs more verification.
- The story continues to sit for a month on Isikoff's desk; in fact, the conservative, Moonie-owned Washington Times first publicizes it by running ideological attacks on the Post for its refusal to run Isikoff's story. In May, the Post will report on the Jones case through its articles on Clinton's hiring of lawyer Robert Bennett; Isikoff will resign from the Post and take a position with Newsweek, where he will continue his crusade against Clinton, though Isikoff will not write a Whitewater- or scandal-related story until July 9, 1995, when the White House leaks some Whitewater-related documents from Vince Foster's office to Isikoff in hopes of convincing the reporter that there had been no cover-up.
- Even though it would not be until 1998 when Isikoff began producing his blizzard of Clinton sex-scandal reports, Isikoff will doggedly pursue the story the entire time, "all the while persuading himself that it was not the sex that propelled him to investigate the president's private life; rather, it was Clinton's lying about it," writes Marvin Kalb. "Of one thing there can be no doubt: it was Isikoff's story. He was a key player (at times, the key player) in the unfolding of this historic scandal. His reporting forced the actions, strategy, and timetable of other lead actors in the drams. He was, for a journalist, in very heady terrain. 'What do you do when you find yourself sucked into a story?' Isikoff asked rhetorically toward the end of his book [Uncovering Clinton, published in March 1999]. 'What happens when you become beholden to sources with an agenda? There are no easy answers here.'" Isikoff will choose, consciously or not, to abandon any pretense of journalistic objectivity and become a key player in what Hillary Clinton later calls "the vast right-wing conspiracy" to destroy the Clinton presidency.
- Isikoff will come to rely heavily on the Jones lawyers, including the two experienced conservative Washington attorneys who took over the case before the official filing in May 1994, Joseph Cammarata and Gil Davis. Cammarata and Davis will represent Jones until September 1997, when they quit over Jones's refusal to accept a $700,000 out-of-court settlement offer; by this point, the two will have racked up over $800,000 in billings and see little chance of ever being paid. After Cammarata and Davis, Jones will be represented by a trio of religiously fundamentalist attorneys from the right-wing Rutherford Institute, Donovan Campbell Jr, Wesley Holmes, and Jim Fisher. Even more important than these "lawyers of record" is the secret legal team advising Jones, a group of young right-wing extremists from prestigious law firms in Chicago, New York, and Philadelphia, who steer the case from behind the scenes. This secret legal team, sarcastically dubbed the "elves" by team member Ann Coulter, would recommend lawyers for Jones and, later, provide a lawyer for Linda Tripp as well. Isikoff stumbles upon the identities of two of the "elves" in August 1997: Coulter, a right-wing lawyer and columnist for Human Events, and George Conway, a New York lawyer who wanted to conceal his anti-Clinton activities from his friends among the Clinton administration. The other three members of Jones's secret legal team are Richard Porter, a former aide to then-Vice President Dan Quayle; former Philadelphia prosecutor Jerome Marcus; and Nelson Lund, who formerly clerked for Supreme Court justice Sandra Day O'Connor. Porter, Marcus, and Lund are all graduates of the conservative-leaning University of Chicago Law School. Also involved in giving advice to Jones's legal team is special prosecutor Kenneth Starr. Starr's involvement is, by necessity, completely under the table, as public knowledge of his work with the Jones legal team would destroy any perception of his objectivity. Starr has already consulted at least six times with Jones lawyer Gil Davis. Unfortunately, Clinton and some White House officials know nothing of Starr's behind-the-scenes involvement with the Jones legal team, and believe that Starr, while a known conservative, is a fair and honorable prosecutor. Many Clinton backers oppose Starr's appointment, but will be unable to overcome Clinton's own misguided support for Starr. (Marvin Kalb)
CIA officer Aldrich Ames caught spying for USSR
- February 22: The Justice Department charges CIA counter-intelligence officer Aldrich Ames with spying for the USSR.
Cold War
It is shown that beginning in 1985, Ames spied for the former Soviet Union, and among other information, provided the KGB with the names of American intelligence sources behind the Iron Curtain. At least 100 sources were compromised by Ames's information, and at least 10 were executed. Ames, who spied strictly for money, was paid over $2.5 million by his Soviet handlers, and his opulent lifestyle eventually cast suspicion on him. Partially because of the CIA's reluctance to admit that the agency had a "mole," and partially because of embarrassment over the Iran-Contra scandal, the CIA took an unusually long time to finally "out" Ames. Ames also passed two polygraph tests administered to him, which casts doubt on the efficacy of polygraph assessment. With the help of the FBI, Ames is finally caught. He will be found guilty and sentenced to life imprisonment; his wife, Rosario, will get five years as his accomplice. (Wikipedia)
