25 years ago today: The U.S. Senate acquitted President Bill Clinton
Larry Flynt and I did an unpleasant job, but we made a difference
In his best-selling book, American Rhapsody, author Joe Eszterhas published a chapter, "Larry Flynt Saves the Day," in which he wrote:
The pornographer saved the president by threatening to reveal other acts of pornography committed by—this time Republican—politicians. Larry Flynt was a hero, a self-appointed, self-financed Kenneth W. Starr. . . . He'd brought in a crack investigative reporter, Dan Moldea, who'd exposed Ronald Reagan's questionably close ties to Hollywood mogul Lew Wasserman and Teamster money, to run his million-dollar project.
Eric Dezenhall of Dezenhall Resources in Washington, D.C.—a respected conservative and a successful crisis manager for individual clients and corporations under siege—wrote in Damage Control, his best-selling business book:
The Republicans' worst nightmare came when Flynt retained investigative reporter Dan E. Moldea, who had been standing up to Mafia kingpins, assassins, and corrupt union bosses for decades. Moldea, who made no bones about sympathizing with President Clinton's struggle, proceeded to systematically expose the sex lives of Republican congressional leaders on the grounds that they were not qualified to judge Clinton's morality. Regardless of where one stands on the political spectrum and the techniques employed on both sides of the Clinton wars, one thing soon became clear: The strategy worked.
During the fall of 1998, porn king Larry Flynt and I, two admitted sinners, entered the impeachment frenzy and helped to derail the dreams and schemes of the GOP and The Moral Majority to remove the President from office.
This is the fifth in a series of columns—featuring updated excerpts from my memoir, Confessions of a Guerrilla Writer—about a little-known backstage drama in the Clinton impeachment battle that featured Larry and me. The first three parts focused on Clinton’s impeachment in the U.S. House, December 16-19, 1998, during which we had a major impact, culminating with the resignation of U.S. House Speaker-designate Bob Livingston. The fourth part detailed our activities during the Senate trial—January 7 to February 12—where twelve U.S. House Managers, acting as prosecutors, presented their case against President Clinton to U.S. Senators who served as members of the jury. Conviction required a two-thirds vote of the full Senate.
This is part five, highlighting the events that led to the acquittal of President Clinton and its immediate aftermath. Larry and I were part of the action from beginning to end, and we made a difference. See:
Part 1: “Going after the U.S. House Speaker-Designate”
Part 2: “The phone call, the bombshell”
Part 3: “The Speaker-Designate Bob Livingston resigns”
Part 4: The US. Senate trial, January 7 to February 12, 1999
Part 5: 25 years ago: U.S. Senate acquitted President Bill Clinton
The retaliation
Reporter Peter Baker of the Washington Post, who covered the impeachment drama, told Terry Gross, the host of NPR’s Fresh Air:
Well, there was a real atmosphere of fear among congressmen, particularly Republicans. Just the fact of Larry Flynt out there was terrifying to them. . . . [A] number of the managers, the people who would prosecute the president in the Senate trial, were convinced that they were the next target. . . . So there was a real atmosphere of fear that these people were living through at the time.
After my role in Bob Livingston’s resignation as U.S. House Speaker-Designate was revealed by Newsweek just before the Senate trial opened, the GOP launched a full-scale attack against Larry and me, engineered by the Republican National Committee (led by Jim Nicholson), the right-wing Landmark Legal Foundation (led by Mark Levin), the Wall Street Journal’s editorial page (led by Robert Bartley), the Washington Times (Bill Sammon), and Fox News (led by Bill O’Reilly), along with televangelist Jerry Falwell. In fact, the RNC, in cooperation with Levin and Landmark, filed criminal charges against Larry and me with the U.S. Department of Justice.
For nearly a year, Larry and I were under investigation by the Public Integrity Section of the DOJ’s Criminal Division. Specifically, we were accused of blackmail, extortion, jury tampering, obstructing the Senate impeachment trial, and contempt of Congress. If indicted and convicted, we were each facing five years in federal prison, along with a steep fine.
Of course, Flynt and I denied all the charges.
Defending my actions, as well as my association with Flynt, I told the Washington Post: "There was a right-wing attempt to overthrow the executive branch of government, and I thought I could be sacrificed. . . . This was important enough for me to risk being destroyed."
Under siege
On January 22, after I had returned to Los Angeles at Flynt’s request, Allan MacDonell, Flynt’s top lieutenant, confirmed a news report that Senator Robert Byrd (D-West Virginia), perhaps the President's harshest critic among Democratic senators, had just announced that he would propose a motion to dismiss the entire impeachment case. Byrd's resolution had no chance of passage in the Republican‑controlled Senate. However, the senator had placed the situation in context, saying, “I am convinced that the necessary two-thirds for conviction are not there and that they are not likely to develop."
MacDonell, Flynt’s top lieutenant, gave the news to Flynt's trusted attorney, Alan Isaacman, and me. The three of us then called Flynt, who was very sick at home, and put him on the speakerphone in Isaacman's conference room.
Undaunted, MacDonell wanted to move forward with more outings, insisting that we had to make good on our promise to finish what we had started, including the publication of the Flynt Report, which, at first, had been planned but, in recent weeks, had been placed on hold.
Isaacman, who also spoke for me, told Flynt that Byrd's proposed resolution, regardless of whether it passed or failed, guaranteed that the Democrats would remain firmly behind the President and not vote to remove him from office. The votes were simply not there. And we had already helped to derail any calls for his resignation.
After a brief pause, Larry sided with Isaacman and me. He then declared an official cease-fire. "The politics of personal destruction have to end now," Flynt told us. "The least we can do is show some good faith and make the first move."
Later that day, I voluntarily left Flynt's payroll and returned to my life in Washington. But, before doing so, I advised Flynt to make a public announcement of his decision to end the project—even though there were still some tense moments ahead before the end of the Senate trial.
Soon after, the February 8 issue of Newsweek—which reported that Larry Flynt's public approval ratings were higher than those of both Kenneth Starr and Congress—quoted Flynt, saying: “My idea was to expose hypocrisy, but now if I released any more, it would just be to embarrass people."
Even though many of our supporters were disappointed that we didn't reveal all the information we had collected, Flynt's finest hour, in my opinion, came when he finally said, "That's it. No more."
We no longer had the stomach to go for the throat—unless the President was suddenly convicted and removed from office.
The acquittal
On Friday, February 12, 1999, even though the President's survival was assured, some drama was still clear and present as the Republican-controlled Senate, which had spent the past three days in closed session, voted on the reduced two counts of perjury and obstruction of justice.
In the anticlimactic finale, the President's enemies failed to receive a simple majority for either remaining count—let alone the two-thirds required to remove him from office. On Article One, the perjury count, 45 senators voted guilty, and 55 voted not guilty. On Article Two, the obstruction of justice count, 50 senators voted guilty, and 50 voted not guilty.
At 12:39 P.M., Chief Justice William Rehnquist, who had presided over the trial, announced that the President had been acquitted.
After the Senate's verdict, a contrite and repentant President Clinton spoke to the nation, saying, "Now that the Senate has fulfilled its constitutional responsibility, bringing this process to a conclusion, I want to say again to the American public how profoundly sorry I am for what I said and did to trigger these events and the great burden they have imposed on the Congress and the American people. . . . This can be and this must be a time of reconciliation and renewal for America."
As the President walked away from the podium, a reporter shouted out, "In your heart, sir, can you forgive and forget?"
Clinton stopped and returned to the microphone, replying, "I believe any person who asks for forgiveness has to be prepared to give it."
After watching the President's speech on television, I just sat on the couch in the living room of my apartment for a few moments, thinking about everything that had happened over the past two years, as well as what the President had just said during his brief address.
For me, it started in the spring of 1997 with the research of my book about the suicide of Deputy White House Counsel. Upon its release in April 1998, I engaged in a battle with Kenneth Starr’s Office of the Independent Counsel over the alleged illegal leaks to Washington reporters who had taken sides against President Clinton and were identified by the OIC as “confidential informants.” And then, when I joined The Flynt Project in November 1998, I began my investigation of Speaker-designate Bob Livingston, among many others.
The aftermath
After the President’s remarks, I really did not believe that this mess was finally over, but I truly wanted it to be.
As I started to think about how I could end this matter as far as I was concerned, I looked back at my desk in an adjacent room and the file cabinet next to it. Then, I stood up, went to the cabinet, and opened the top drawer.
I pulled my "J. Edgar Hoover file,” which contained the hard copies of all the leads and materials that had been fed to me by people inside and outside the Flynt operation.
Putting all of this material in three large boxes, I carried them to my car and drove to the Virginia home of Dan Wexler, one of my best friends. Upon arriving, I went into his den where he and his wife, Arlene, already had a fire in their fireplace.
While my friends watched in disbelief, I took every document, one‑by‑one, and placed them on the fire.
When I completed my task about ninety minutes later, I looked back at my friends and smiled, saying with considerable satisfaction, "Now, as far as I'm concerned, it's finally over."
BTW: Realizing that we had done nothing illegal, the DOJ did not indict either Larry or me.
Two days after the President's acquittal, the New York Times referred to my work without mentioning me, saying:
The shock waves of the Livingston resignation spread far beyond the West Wing of the White House and had a sobering effect on members of Congress of both parties who might have been contemplating calling for Mr. Clinton to step down in the aftermath of the impeachment vote.
Fearful of the entire government unraveling, very few members of Congress joined a clamor for Mr. Clinton's resignation.
The President's critics had demanded a public showdown on the issue of morality—and we had given it to them.