Den of Sleaze

Jeff Taylor from the June 1996 issue

(Page 3 of 3)

Stewart is also fascinated here by the White House reaction to Troopergate in late 1993. Stories on Bill's late-night romps through Little Rock, from his former state patrol body guards, shattered that holiday season. The frenzy of activity by the president and Wright which resulted in a partial recantation by one of the troopers has never been explained. Stewart notes its oddity, but sheds no new Light on it.

He seems genuinely bewildered by the White House's behavior. This is also a strike against the Clintons, who have held that only right-wing crackpots could find anything strange about the administration's handling of these events.

Stewart relies on the recollections of former White House counsel Nussbaum for much of the play-by-play during this period. It makes sense to go to Nussbaum, a man obviously tossed over the side by the Clintons, to find someone willing to talk. But Nussbaum gets away with distancing himself too much from White House eagerness to gather information on the Resolution Trust Company investigation into Madison.

Testimony before the Senate Whitewater Committee in February shows the Whitewater Response Team, of which Nussbaum was a member, to have been very active. In January 1994, the team formed around newly arrived Deputy Chief of Staff Harold Ickes. Ickes had no trouble ordering Nussbaum's assistants to research various issues of import. Of vital importance the first few weeks of 1994 was the RTC investigation. Ickes set White House lawyers to studying the statute of limitations question. Ickes also discussed the RTC's investigation with the president.

The White House has always maintained it was RTC chief Roger Altman who came to them to "brief" them on the statute of limitations. But now it appears the response team was much more proactive. Perhaps not in the league of Nixon's plumbers, but not spectat ors either. The facts are still being spun, and Nussbaum may not come out the gruff hero Stewart makes him out to be.

The one mystery Blood Sport cannot clear up is, Why did Thomases ever approach Stewart with the idea of doing a Whitewater book? Is it possible that as late as March 1994 Thomases too was in the dark as to the extent of the Arkansas paper trail? Is a critical book released in early 1996 supposed to inoculate the Clintons for the November campaign? Did she seriously misjudge Stewart's willingness to look for the truth?

Even if Blood Sport was supposed to be part of the cover-up, it delivers more than enough facts to confront Clinton supporters with unpleasant truths. From that start, the whole truth may finally emerge.

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