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The next day, a Saturday, she was invited for a visit with
Clinton, according to the report. They met in the study and
discussed jobs. He told her to prepare a list of New York
companies she wanted to work for. She suggested that the
hyperconnected lawyer Vernon Jordan might help. Clinton was
receptive. He also told her that he had asked White House chief
of staff Erskine Bowles to get her old boss, legislative affairs
director John Hilley, to write a recommendation.
On Oct. 16, Lewinsky sent Clinton a "wish list" of jobs she'd
like in New York. Later that fall, U.N. ambassador Bill
Richardson decided to interview the former intern in Washington.
The night before the meeting, she says, Clinton called to boost
her confidence. Eventually, Richardson offered her a job. She
turned it down.
It fell to Jordan to find the right job. In his testimony, he
claimed to have received assurances from Lewinsky and Clinton
that there was no sex. But Lewinsky testified that Jordan knew
"with a wink and a nod that I was having a relationship with the
President." Just after the Oct. 11 meeting in which Monica
suggested to Clinton that Jordan help her find a job, Clinton
spoke to him by phone. Clinton has testified that it was Currie
who brought Jordan into the effort. But Lewinsky testified that
Currie called Jordan at the President's initiative. Jordan, who
met Lewinsky in November, said he assumed the same.
Jordan moved slowly at first; he had no contact with Lewinsky
for more than a month. But by Dec. 6, Clinton had even more
reason to placate the woman: his lawyers showed him a list of
witnesses the Jones team was planning to call. Among them was
Lewinsky. On Sunday, Dec. 7, Jordan met with the President at
the White House. Jordan denied that Lewinsky or the Jones case
was discussed, but four days later he was meeting with Lewinsky
for the second time, giving her the names of three business
contacts. Later that day he called three executives to recommend
her.
In that meeting, Jordan got a clue, if he needed one, that
Lewinsky was more than an acquaintance of Clinton's. She said
she got angry at Clinton "when he doesn't call me enough or see
me enough." Lewinsky says he told her to take her frustrations
out on him rather than on Clinton. "You're in love, that's what
your problem is," he said. After the meeting, Jordan says, he
called Clinton and told him that he would try to get Lewinsky a
job in New York.
The President was now devoting a lot of attention to the Monica
problem. After 2 a.m. on Dec. 17, he called her at home and told
her she was on the witness list. According to Lewinsky, he told
her that "it broke his heart" to see her listed. But if she were
subpoenaed, he said, "she could sign an affidavit to try to
satisfy the inquiry and not be deposed." He also went over what
Lewinsky calls one of the "cover stories" they had discussed as
the affair unfolded: her frequent visits to the White House were
to see her friend Currie. Starr calls this a case of subornation
of perjury. Clinton testified that he didn't recall saying it.
Over the next couple of days, the twin worries of affidavit and
job only grew. So did Jordan's role. On Dec. 18 and 23, Lewinsky
interviewed at two New York firms contacted by Jordan. On Dec.
19, she was served with a subpoena to testify in the Jones case.
On Dec. 22, Jordan took Lewinsky to her new attorney, and the
two discussed her job prospects, the subpoena and the Jones case
during the ride in his limousine.
For a man who claimed to see no connection between jobs and
affidavit, Jordan was at the intersection of both. Immediately
after she was subpoenaed, on Dec. 19, Lewinsky called Jordan,
who invited her to his office. Ten minutes after she arrived, he
received a call from Clinton and spoke for four minutes. A
minute later, he called the attorney he had chosen for Lewinsky,
Francis Carter. Monica gave Jordan more reason to suspect an
affair at that meeting when she asked him about the future of
the Clintons' marriage. Concerned that she seemed "mesmerized"
by Clinton, Jordan says, he asked if there was a sexual
relationship. She denied it--but told the grand jury she thought
Jordan knew of the affair and was asking her not what had
happened but what she would tell Paula Jones' lawyers. Jordan
said he took her reply literally. When he met with Clinton that
night, Jordan testified, he asked him if there was a sexual
relationship. Jordan says the President replied, "No, never."
Three days later, when Jordan escorted Lewinsky to Carter's
office, he was again confronted with the true nature of the
relationship. She told him she was worried about someone's
eavesdropping on her phone calls with Clinton, which would be a
problem because "we've had phone sex." At the same time, she
says, she showed him gifts Clinton had given her. (Jordan denied
it.)
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