American Evita: Hillary Clinton's Path to Power (26 page)

Hillary went ahead with her plan and registered with a suitably low-profile store, Borsheim’s, in Omaha. On a fund-raising trip to Nebraska that December, she ducked into the store to peruse the merchandise. Again, she wanted to take advantage of the small window of time between her election to the Senate and her swearing-in, when she would be barred from accepting any gift valued at more than fifty dollars.

On January 19, 2001, Hillary watched from an upstairs window as two twenty-six-foot-long vans pulled up to the White House. Pushing dollies through the broad corridors of the second-floor residence, movers hauled away all the items Hillary had tagged—which now also included three television sets, a DVD player, a china cabinet from insurance tycoon Walter Kaye (who happened to be the man who first delivered Monica Lewinsky to the Oval Office), two Dale Chihuly glass sculptures worth $60,000, two Lenox bowls valued at over $50,000, $22,000 worth of china (Spode), $18,000 in silverware (Fabergé and Stafford), as well as individual decorative objects fashioned by Tiffany, Cartier, and Waterford.

Items worth $250 or less did not require public disclosure, so it appeared that Hillary undervalued many of them with that figure in mind. An Yves St. Laurent men’s suit, for example, was listed as being worth $249—perhaps a tenth of its true cost. Hillary signed off on the final tally, and formally declared that the Clintons were taking more than $190,027 worth of furniture and “gifts” with them—compared to the $52,000 worth of furnishings George and Barbara Bush took with them. Eventually, government investigators would determine that Hillary and Bill were carting away
merchandise valued at more than twice what they officially declared—in excess of
$400,000
worth.

“It was like watching Imelda Marcos stuff furs and jewelry into a pillowcase as she was getting ready to flee the presidential palace,” said one veteran White House steward. “A lot of us were very upset by what we were seeing.”

So, it seemed, were congressional investigators. Under pressure, Hillary finally agreed to return $50,000 worth of gifts originally intended for the White House, and later anted up an additional $86,000 to cover the value of items given to them during their last few months in office.

The flap over Hillary’s Imelda Marcos impersonation paled in comparison to Pardongate.
HIL MUM ON PARDONS
, screamed the front-page headline in the New York
Daily News,
while the rival
New York Post
blared
BEG PARDON, BUT HILLARY IS LYING LOW
.
Time
marveled at how “breathtaking” it was to watch “a shiny new presidency” buried in a “freak mudslide. The debris hurtled by so fast that the
New York Times
editorial page seemed to run out of synonyms for disgust, revulsion and abuse…there seemed to be no end to the bodies that might float down the swollen river.” Speaking for most of his colleagues on both sides of the aisle, Connecticut Congressman Christopher Shays characterized the pardon flap as “a really slimy affair. The more we look into it, the slimier we feel.”

Hillary hunkered down and rode out the storm. Whenever she was asked about the pardons, she insisted she had nothing to do with them—that her husband was solely responsible for each and every one. Each new denial, couched in terms that made her sound like a victim, sounded much like the last: “I’m very regretful that it occurred, because I might have been able to prevent this from happening.” “I don’t know anything other than what has now come out.” “You know, I did not have any involvement in the
pardons….” “I’m very disappointed. I’m very saddened, and I was very disturbed when I heard about it.” “When I found out about my brother…I was heartbroken and shocked.” “I knew nothing….”

Yet there was no question that Hillary, who had been consulted by the President on everything from health care and education reform to Middle East policy and the bombing of Bosnia and Iraq, was, as one close Clinton associate put it, “deeply involved” in deciding who would and would not make the cut. “Are you kidding?” said another. “
Everybody
in the White House was talking pardons in those last few days. I mean, Roger Clinton and Hugh Rodham and Terry McAuliffe and Jesse Jackson and the Thomasons and about a hundred other folks were chatting up the Clintons about who was going to get pardoned—not to mention all the lawyers who were running around checking people out, and Hillary was the only one who didn’t know about it?”

As the Clintons’ late Commerce Secretary Ron Brown once said in response to a friend’s question, “Is she in the loop? She
is
the loop.”

Eventually, newly appointed Attorney General John Ashcroft, while condemning the pardons, would claim that he was powerless to do anything about them. The President’s clemency powers were absolute. Ashcroft did ask for reforms in the way pardons were processed in the future, however, “so a travesty like this doesn’t happen again.”

While her husband wasted no time hitting the lecture circuit, Hillary burrowed into her work as a senator. She insisted that she was not reeling from the uproar over gifts and pardons. “I haven’t felt distracted from my job,” she said. But her colleagues disagreed. “You can see it on her face,” said one. “This has been very difficult for her.”

Bill was apparently having a better time of it. Dining with former Democratic Senator Bob Kerrey, former White House lawyer
Cheryl Mills, and others at trendy Babbo in Greenwich Village, Clinton roared his way through the retelling of an off-color joke involving former California Governor Jerry Brown and two lesbians. A C-SPAN microphone had picked up the joke the first time Kerrey told it to Clinton at a Bedford, New Hampshire, event in 1992, effectively sinking Kerrey’s presidential campaign. This time, the former President was laughing so loud that Mills reportedly had to ask him to quiet down.

Hillary, meantime, busied herself with committee hearings, meeting with constituents, and the mountain of paperwork that came with being the cosponsor of 163 bills. “Many of my colleagues realize that sometimes they can get more attention,” she said, “if I’m involved.” More attention—and lots more cash. No sooner did she arrive on Capitol Hill than Hillary set up her very own Political Action Committee—HILLPAC—for the purpose of raising funds for Democratic candidates. Establishing a PAC of one’s own was a highly unusual move for a freshman senator. More often than not, it was seen as a first step toward a presidential run. While denying that she had any intention of seeking the presidency in 2004, Hillary nonetheless held on to most of the money HILLPAC took in.

Indeed, Hillary’s growing war chest only served to fuel speculation that she was contemplating a run for the White House. On April 5, 2001, after delivering a brief speech to the American Society of Newspaper Editors, Hillary again told reporters that entering the race for president was “not something I’m going to be doing.”

“So, Senator Clinton,” a reporter for the
New York Post
asked as she rushed toward her waiting car, “are you ruling out a run for president not just in 2004, but in 2008 and beyond?”

“Yes,” Hillary replied.

The answer stunned her aides, and when the
Post
ran its headline on the next day’s front page—
HILL NO
!
CLINTON SAYS SHE’LL
NEVER
RUN FOR PREZ
—there was, predictably, chaos in Hillaryland. Clinton’s aides urged her to issue a statement claiming she had been misunderstood, or that perhaps she had not heard the reporter’s question clearly. But Hillary, who was married to the master of the precisely parsed nondenial denial, came up with her own “clarification.” When asked the next day if she was really ruling out ever running for President, she answered, “I’m saying what I always said.” What she always said was, simply, that she intended to serve out her first full term as senator, which was to expire in 2006. Over the next several days, she would respond to these persistent queries with the same exact, carefully weighed words—“I’m saying what I always said.”

Republican strategist Nelson Warfield was among the many who remained resolutely skeptical. “I just think this is the latest chapter in the Hillary Clinton saga,” he said. “I’m certain this does not end either her cogitation or the press’ speculation.”

For the most part, Hillary tried to keep her head low as she adjusted to life in the Senate. At times, however, she was taken to task by her colleague Chuck Schumer for trying to upstage him. For his part, New York’s senior senator was no slouch when it came to the photo op; Schumer was so deft at self-promotion that other politicians who had been upstaged by him complained that they had been “schumed.” On several occasions when Hillary went ahead and unilaterally announced some piece of legislation benefiting their state, Schumer personally berated members of her staff. “Tell your boss,” he snapped at one of Hillaryland’s junior members, “that we had a deal to consult each other
before
making announcements. I’m sick and tired of her trying to hog the limelight.”

The junior senator for New York apologized profusely, promising never to step on her colleague’s toes again. But according to one state party official who knew both senators, “Hillary knows exactly what she’s doing. There’s only so much credit to go
around, and she wants it all. Besides, she doesn’t like him any more than he likes her.” Fuming over yet another perceived slight, Schumer spoke of Hillary in scathing terms. “It’s no secret,” the official said, “that he thinks she’s a bitch.” Privately, Hillary dismissed publicity-craving Schumer as “The Prima Donna.”

Whatever animosity existed between Hillary and Schumer, it paled in comparison to what she felt for George W. Bush. By all accounts, Senator Clinton harbored what amounted to a profound hatred of the man who now occupied the White House. In private, Hillary often referred to George W. Bush as “Junior” or “Shrub”—the moniker employed by Texas Democrats—and inveighed against him for having “stolen” the election.

Hillary, who had been feuding with her predecessor Barbara Bush for years, also had little use for her replacement. It didn’t help that during the campaign W portrayed his wife Laura as the anti-Hillary. “She’s not always trying to butt in, and you know, compete,” he said coyly. “There’s nothing worse in the political arena than spouses competing.”

Barbara Bush also held up her school-librarian daughter-in-law as the antidote to eight years of scandal and controversy. She believed Laura would be different from Hillary because Laura “would rather make a positive impact on the country. And I’m not criticizing Mrs. Clinton. But it’s like oil and water…. They’re two different people. I think Laura thinks of others.”

Hillary was accustomed to Barbara’s catty remarks, and viewed W’s beloved white-haired mother as a worthy adversary. The new First Lady was another matter. Hillary viewed Laura, said an aide in the New York Senate campaign, as “very nice, very dull, and not the brightest light on the porch.”

One First Lady both women approved of was Jackie Kennedy. “She had the most marvelous taste,” said Laura, who set out to restore the residence so that it was “just the way that Jackie left it.” She promptly brought up Jackie’s favorite velvet-upholstered
chairs from the White House cellar and pulled down the heavy print draperies the Clintons had installed in the upstairs yellow living room. By way of erasing the heavy-handed influence of Hillary’s Arkansas decorator Kaki Hockersmith (“Tacky Khaki” to some in the interior design business), Laura repainted the walls, moved furnishings and antiques from room to room, and brought hidden treasures out of storage. Most important, she moved the First Lady’s offices back to the East Wing, where all Presidents’ wives had had their offices prior to Hillary.

Senator Clinton had no intention of sharing the spotlight with Laura Bush at the April 2001 gala opening of
Jacqueline Kennedy: The White House Years,
a lavish fashion exhibit at New York’s Metropolitan Museum. Caroline Kennedy, who presided over the event, was unaware that Laura had long admired her mother. Caroline virtually ignored Laura, thanking the new First Lady “for coming tonight” before moving on to other guests. Hillary, meantime, had studiously waited for Laura to leave before making her own entrance in a floor-length leopard-print taffeta gown by Oscar de la Renta. Heaping praise on Clinton, Caroline proclaimed her the woman who “interpreted the role of First Lady for our times.”

Back in Washington, Hillary seethed as the Republicans systematically dismantled many Clinton-era policies she had helped put in place. She told the Democrats’ leader in the Senate, Tom Daschle, that it was time to open fire on Bush. The first step, she said, was to set up a War Room like the one she and Bill used to obstruct, intimidate, discredit, discourage, and destroy their opponents.

Such strong-arm tactics were of little use on Capitol Hill, Daschle explained to the freshman senator. Diplomacy, backroom deals, and decorum were what got things done in the Senate. Hillary took Daschle’s advice—sort of. While she worked amicably with her colleagues on both sides of the aisle to accomplish legislative goals, Hillary also seemed to delight in attacking every administration official who appeared before one of the Senate committees she served
on. After watching her take apart Secretary of State Colin Powell, one Republican spectator observed, “You have to hand it to that Hillary. She may be wicked, but she’s effective.”

Hillary’s favorite target, of course, was the President. After he had been in office less than three months, Hillary lashed out at W for his policies on the environment, education, and health care. “He’s trying to turn back the clock fifty or sixty years,” she declared, “not just the Clinton Administration, they want to turn the clock back on the Roosevelt Administration…. The President’s been on a charm offensive, but his administration is on a
harm
offensive.”

By this time, it appeared to Hillary that she might be able to put the pardon controversy to rest once and for all. Toward that end, she even cosponsored a bill with Pennsylvania Republican Arlen Specter aimed at tightening the rules on presidential pardons. Only a few months earlier, Specter had raised the possibility of impeaching Clinton again—even though he had already left office—over the pardon issue.