Day Of Deliverance

(3 of 7)

That same afternoon Bob Bennett, who doesn't look happy even when he is, was sitting in his office rereading a deposition in the Jones case. He had forsworn any more distraction: no more talk, no more shows, no more press conferences. The next time anyone would see him, he would be in a courtroom. He was sure he had a winning hand, the best one he'd had since having to give up his poker games with Justice Antonin Scalia to represent the President.

Then the phone rang. It was a clerk from Judge Wright's office, saying that in 30 minutes the judge would issue her ruling in the case. She was granting the motion for summary judgment. It was all over. Bennett had taken a lot of criticism for not settling earlier and avoiding the entire Circus of 1998. But he was convinced all the dirt would have found its way out anyway, and any settlement that included an apology, which Jones' husband had insisted on, would have been seen as an admission of guilt that Clinton would never escape.

Bennett hung up and immediately called White House counsel Charles Ruff. Ruff transferred him to the military operator so that Bennett could tell the President himself. And while Bennett was waiting for a line to the President in Senegal, it occurred to him that he had better check and make sure someone wasn't pretending to be Wright's clerk for an April Fools' joke. He put his hand over the phone and asked his associate Amy Sabrin to call the judge's chambers and make sure about the ruling. She did, and by the time Bruce Lindsey answered and handed the phone to the President, Bennett was ready to start spreading the news. At first Clinton too thought it was a trick. "You gotta be kidding!" he shouted, and then said, "If I was there, I would give you a big kiss. But then you'd have to sue me."

Later in the afternoon, there was a transatlantic conference call between the advisers traveling with the President and those left behind at the White House, during which the order was given: no high-fiving or gloating in public. They didn't send anyone out to the talk shows that night, and Bennett gave only a brief sidewalk press statement. Spokesman Mike McCurry went out to address the members of the press corps traveling with Clinton, was reluctant to say whether the President had so much as smiled at the news, and then urged that they all break for dinner.

While the subdued reaction was carefully choreographed, it reflected some mixed emotions. Surprise and relief to be sure, but sauced with some fury at what the past three years--and especially the past three months--have done to everyone's life, as if a decision voiding a civil action somehow voided the alleged facts of the case. Having lived with this case for so long and having seen the damage it inflicted on Clinton and his presidency, deputy chief of staff John Podesta had mixed emotions. He told friends privately that "part of me wants to celebrate, and part of me wants to punch someone."