Hillary! Because What Difference Does it Make?

Watching Hillary get a Liberty Medal on September 10, the day before the anniversary of the attack on the United States soil and the more recent murder of our ambassador and others in Benghazi, I think it's time to review the record of a woman whose life is marked by deceit and professional failure and ask about the sanity and judgment of her ardent supporters.

Hillary came to public attention with her graduation speech at Wellesley College.

from "Sell Out' by, David Schippers:

Because of the nature of the alleged offenses, both the [Kathleen] Willey case and the Broaddrick case were important -- if the charges could be proven -- in establishing a pattern of obstruction, perjury, and witness tampering. In the Willey case in particular, the President had given a deposition in which he emphatically denied the allegations. Julie Steele, a former friend of Willey's, had testified against her, saying that Willey had encouraged her to lie.

To avoid the media, Al Tracy, Nancy Ruggero, and I met with Willey and her lawyer, Daniel Gecker, at a restaurant in Fredericksburg, Virginia, midway between Washington and Willey's home in Richmond.

The story Willey told us is one I came to believe. If we had been able to call live witnesses in the Senate trial, I would have called her to the stand.

We first met Clinton at the Richmond airport during the 1992 campaign. He gave a short speech and shook hands. He also gave Willey a hug. A friend had this captured on videotape. A short time later Clinton had his aide Nancy Hernreich get Willey's telephone number.

Later that afternoon, Willey was surprised to receive a telephone call from Clinton. He told her he would be in Williamsburg, Virginia, for the evening, without his wife, and that he could get rid of his Secret Service detail. Willey didn't respond. At about 6 PM Clinton called again with the same offer. Willey refused to meet him.

Two days later Willey and her mother attended a large rally on the grounds of the Virginia State Capitol in Richmond. Clinton was present, so Willey approached him and introduced her mother. Clinton talked to her mother will caressing Willey's neck and hair.

On Election Night, 1992, Willey, her husband, her two children, and a friend attended a victory celebration in Little Rock, where she met the President-elect and congratulated him.

About a week later, Clinton called her at home. He was attending a party in Washington and wondered, "Do you think you could come up here and see me?"

"Like how?"

"I mean could you come up and spend some time with me."

Willey told him she was not sure, and he dropped the subject. Later, he worked as a volunteer on several inaugural events, in the White House Correspondence Office, and in the White House Social Office.

After her husband's death, she obtained a part-time job working for White House Counsel Bernard Nussbaum.

~snip~ Discovering that her husband -- who was slipping into depression -- had put the family into deep financial straits, Willey desperately sought a better paying job. She asked for an appointment to see the President. On November 28, 1993, the day before she met with Clinton, her husband disappeared. She didn't yet know that he had committed suicide.

Kathleen Willey told us -- in detail -- everything that happened from the moment she met Clinton in the Oval Office until she met Linda Tripp and other White House staffers immediately after the encounter. There is no need at this point, when they are so well known, to go over the sordid details again.

Shortly after Willey went public, The White House -- in an action one federal judge ruled was illegal -- released several letters she had written to the President. The letters evinced no animosity. To the contrary, Willey seemed interested in supporting the President, and some of the letters were written after her encounter with the President in the Oval Office. The White House said the letters proved Willey was lying about the groping incident. Releasing the letters may have violated the Privacy Act and could have been an abuse of the Presidency. But before I could call Kathleen Willey as a witness in an impeachment inquiry or trial, I needed an explanation.

Willey told us that it wasn't until after her husband committed suicide that she learned how dire her financial straits were. She was an unemployed widow, deeply in debt, with two children.

The last time Kathleen had met with the President, she had stalked away angrily after having been groped by him. But in her desperation, she saw the President as the one powerful person who could quickly set her up in a well-paying job. Perhaps, she thought, if I write conciliatory letters to Clinton, giving the impression that all is forgiven and that I hold no grudge, I could reopen the dialogue, and he will help me find a good job. Willey had no intention of ever going public with the President's misbehavior.

Willey discussed what to do with her lawyer and friend Daniel Gecker. He knew about the groping incident and warned her that anything she wrote would need to be completely innocuous, without the remotest suggestion of a backmail, extortion, or veiled threat or suggestion that she wanted a job in exchange for keeping quiet. Kathleen understood. To ensure that nothing she wrote could be misconstrued as a threat, Willey had Gecker review and approve the letters.

In 1994 Kathleen was invited to attend a World Summit in Copenhagen, and in 1995 she represented the United States at a biodiversity summit in Jakarta, Indonesia. She was totally unqualified for either position.

But bad things happened after Willey was subpoeaned to give a deposition in the Paula Jones case. This story was even more shocking than the President's alleged assault on a married woman.

On July 31, 1997, Gecker received, without warning, a fax from the office of the President's attorney. Both Willey and her attorney, who was present during our interview, confirmed to us that it was a document entitled "Statement of Kathleen Willey" and that it came with the instruction that she was to read it as a public statement. It said: "The President of the United States never sexually harassed me in any way, and I have always considered myself to be on excellent terms with him." She ignored the request.

In August 1997 the groping incident was reported in the Drudge Report and Newsweek. Around this time she received a phone call from an acquaintance who was a major financial donor to President Clinton. He told her to avoid giving a deposition if she was subpoenaed in the Jones case and to deny that anything had ever happened because only two people knew and "all you have to do is deny it, too."

Willey was subpoenaed in the fall of 1997 but wasn't actually called to testify until January 10, 1998. Shortly after she received the subpoena, Gecker was visited by one of the President's lawyers. Gecker told Kathleen the gist of the meeting: Clinton's lawyer was suggesting she avoid testifying by taking he Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination. Gecker told Clinton's attorney that his client wouldn't take the Fifth because she had done nothing wrong.

A short time after that initial meeting, Gecker told us, he received an unsolicited package from the President's lawyers. It contained a form affidavit, a form motion to quash the deposition subpoena, and a memorandum of law in support of the motion to quash.

A short while before Willey was scheduled to testify, Gecker received another visit from the same lawyer. This time Gecker was told that he was only "a real estate lawyer" and that Kathleen Willey should really be represented by a top criminal attorney. Gecker responded that he was perfectly capable of handling a deposition and that he could not see any possible reason that Kathleen needed a criminal lawyer. Gecker added that even if she wanted such a lawyer, Willey was broke and could not afford the fees charged by top Washington criminal lawyers. The President's attorney offered that she wouldn't need to worry about fees because "we will take care of that."

After that conversation, Gecker reported, he received a call from one of the best criminal lawyers in Washington about representing Kathleen Willey. When Gecker again mentioned that she had no money, the lawyer replied that there would be no fees to pay.

Gecker conveyed this to Willey. She was frightened and convinced that if she testified she would be indicted by Janet Reno's Justice Department. She had seen how Billy Dale of the White House Travel Office had actually been indicted and tried for crimes he had not committed, reportedly because he had gotten in the way of the Clinton administration. She had seen the smears and attacks on Paula Jones. To add to her fears, she felt intimidated by events that followed.

Shortly before her January 10 deposition, Willey came out of her Virginia home to find all of her tires flat. Her mechanic asked, "Who the hell did you tick off? Your tires were flattened with a nail gun."

In another incident, a man called -- supposedly from the local electric company -- saying her electricity would be turned off that evening so they could run some tests. Later that afternoon, she called the electric company to find out how long the tests would last. She was told there was no plan to interrupt service and no record of anyone calling her.

Kathleen lives in a semirural area. The anonymous caller was reminding her that she was vulnerable and alone.

As the deposition of Kathleen Willey got closer, the intimidation increased. One day her cat, Bullseye, disappeared. On January 8, two days before she was to testify, Willey was walking her dogs in a secluded area early in the morning. A man in a jogging suit approached her.

JOGGER: Good morning, did you ever find your cat?

WILLEY: No, we haven't found her yet.

JOGGER: That's too bad. Bullseye was his name, wasn't it? [This shocks Willey, because she has not revealed the cat's name to anyone.]

JOGGER: Did you ever get those tires fixed?

WILLEY: They're fine [Kathleen starts to edge away and look around for help.]

JOGGER: So,---and---[Willey's children's first names]? [Kathleen walks faster toward her house.]

JOGGER: And our attorney, Dan, is he okay?

WILLEY: He's fine

JOGGER: I hope you're getting the message.

Willey was terrified. She turned and ran. The jogger called after her, "You're just not getting the message, are you?"

As a result of that meeting, Kathleen feared that she, her children, and her lawyer were at risk of physical harm. She told Gecker about the jogger but didn't mention the not-too-veiled threat against Gecker himself. As she put it, "He was my only hope--I didn't want to lose him." Willey confessed that even during the deposition she was contemplating whether to lie or to tell the truth and possibly suffer terrible consequences.

The deposition began as scheduled. However, before the questioning began, the President's lawyer said, "You know, I've talked to the President, and he just thinks the world of you. You don't really think this was sexual harassment. It wasn't unwelcome, was it."

"Not only was it unwelcome, it was unexpected."

In the room during the deposition were the court reporter, the Jones attorneys, the President's attorney, Daniel Gecker, Kathleen Willey, and the presiding judge.

Gecker saw that Willey was nervous. When the Jones attorneys asked about the incident in the Oval Office, she looked terrified. Gecker asked for a short recess to consult with his client. He took Kathleen aside and told her they were about to go into the heart of the subject.

"Kathleen, there is no turning back, what are you going to do."

"I'm going to tell the truth, the whole truth," she answered, with tears in her eyes. She went back and answered every question put to her.

The next morning, Willey stepped outside to pick up the newspaper. There on the porch, within a few feet of the front door, the skull of a small animal lay facing her.

I asked Willey if she would be willing to testify. As she looked at Gecker, I could see real fear in her eyes. He said it was up to her.

I confessed that we couldn't vouch for the tactics of the President's lawyers, but we would not embarrass her.

Okay, if I'm subpoenaed, I'll testify."

Because of that meeting, we planned to have Kathleen Willey and Dan Gecker as witnesses at the Senate impeachment trial.

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