the story was written and researched by a conservative reporter named david brock, who had made a name for himself two years earlier by attacking anita hill during the clarence thomas supreme court hearings. well, it was a right wing body of opinion, which didn t like bill clinton and which was hell-bent to go after him. with backing from billionaire richard mellon scaife in pittsburgh, thespectatorhad begun a nonstop assault on the clintons that they internally referred to as the arkansas project. the initiative began in the days following the death of vince foster in the summer of 1993. but the troopergate article raised the stakes. there was a great pushback from the clinton white house and its defenders. one of the lines that was used by the clinton camp is, if this is really all true, where are the women? it was two sentences buried deep within the article that would prove to be the biggest bombshell. brock wrote clinton had eyed a woman at a reception at the
thank you very much. there was a lot of excitement among democrats. they had been out of power for 12 years, and here was this young upstart governor from arkansas. came out of nowhere. but on january 17th, just before the all-important iowa caucuses and new hampshire primaries, the first clinton scandal erupted. i was bill clinton s lover for 12 years. and for the past two years, i have lied to the press about our relationship to protect him. now he tells me to deny it. clinton and his wife, hillary, are hoping to deal decisively with the gennifer flowers story. [ chuckles ] your thoughts. she didn t tell the truth. i have been in new hampshire and mississippi and louisiana, allowing real voters i can t find any citizen who will ask me a question about this. an air of crisis is hovering over the clinton campaign. the campaign s response would foreshadow the clinton playbook on scandal management deny and return fire. all i can tell you is it isn t a true stor
for his papers. mr. nussbaum is denying them access. his position was, i m just trying to do what any lawyer would do to protect the interest of their client. but what are those records? you know, are they relevant to madison? are they relevant to whitewater? what are those? the behavior of the president s aides would lead to years worth of unanswered questions about the nature of the documents that had been in foster s possession. but while some things were removed from the office, others seemed to suddenly appear. six days after mr. foster s death, a torn-up note is found in the bottom of his briefcase. vince foster s handwritten letter of distress before his suicide was found in a briefcase in his white house office, torn into more than two-dozen pieces. white house press secretary dee dee myers says the note appeared to confirm suicide because of despair about his high-pressure job. it did show him to be in a distressed state of mind, a troubled state of mind, per
became president clinton. in order to pay bills for these 12 different entities, either jim mcdougal or one of his employees would write a check from account a to account b, creating the appearance of money that did not exist. lewis wrote the first of many criminal referrals related to mcdougal s savings and loan and sent it to federal prosecutors. but it went nowhere. we ultimately, in october of 93, received a letter from paula casey, the new u.s. attorney in the eastern district of arkansas. that letter stated, we are declining your madison guaranty referral. meanwhile, the country was transfixed by drama unfolding on the other side of the world. on october 3rd, united states army rangers and elite delta force operators had set out on a mission to capture a corrupt warlord in mogadishu, somalia.
suicide, did little to silence the conspiracy theorists. i was asked within the last month by someone, you don t think foster killed himself, do you? and i said, yes. we re convinced. the right wing did not like that. they wanted to believe it was murder. what the american public wouldn t know for many months was that the tragic death of the president s old friend was only part of the story that night. the response inside the white house and the legal and political maneuvering in the hours and days to come would put the presidency in danger. the intrigue and the hustle-bustle of the white house came to a halt today. president clinton canceled his public schedule after learning the tragic death of his childhood friend and white house lawyer vincent foster. the president shared a private moment in the west wing with his senior staff and then stepped into the rose garden to address the nation. and it is very important that his life not be judged simply by how it ended, b