-Caveat Lector-
www.capitolhillblue.com/Feb1999/021299/payback021299.htm
Despite denials, Clinton is planning a full
campaign of retribution
By Daniel J. Harris
Capitol Hill Blue
Despite official denials, the Clinton White House has collected new
dossiers, complete with financial records, FBI investigative information
and IRS reports on House impeachment managers and other perceived
enemies of the administration, Capitol Hill Blue has learned.
"It's payback time and payback will be a bitch," one White House aide
said Thursday. "This won't be a gloat-free zone. It will be a 'get even'
zone."
Some White House aides worry privately that the President's lust for
revenge will be so great it will create a new scandal and charges of
abuse of power.
"I've seen FBI and IRS files on members of Congress, complete
dossiers on reporters and more," one worried aide admitted. "This is
really scary."
As the Senate prepared to acquit Clinton on charges of perjury and
obstruction of justice and end four weeks of impeachment trial, the
White House is prepared to launch a campaign of terror against those
who tried to remove the President from office.
At the center of this campaign will be White House smearmeister
Sidney J. Blumenthal, who recently got caught lying about his efforts to
smear former White House intern Monica Lewinsky.
"There are new files from the investigators, files from the FBI and IRS
financial information on Hyde, Barr, Hutchinston and others," one
source confirmed Thursday night. "We will get even."
Another source said Blumenthal has been working on the campaign "at
the expense of everything else. This is Sid's bailiwick and he is ready to
serve his President."
According to White House sources, the revenge list includes not only
the 13 House managers, but Senators, journalists and others that
Clinton feels need to taste revenge at the hands of the White House.
Those on the list include:
Rep. Henry Hyde and the other 12 House impeachment
managers;
Rep. Dan Burton of Indiana, a frequent Clinton critic;
Senator Tim Hutchinson of Arkansas, brother of House
impeachment manager Asa Huthinson;
Newsweek reporter Mike Isikoff, who developed the original
story on Monica Lewinsky and the Linda Tripp tapes;
Larry Klayman, founder of Judicial Watch, which has filed both
legal cases and investigative material against Clinton;
"The list is long and growing," one aide said. "There will be blood on
the floor before this affair is over."
A Thursday New York Times article said Clinton was prepared to put
all his efforts into defeating as many of the House impeachment
managers as possible in the 2000 elections and restore control of
Congress to the Democrats.
The Times article infuriated Republicans, who accused the president of
arrogantly seeking revenge against the 13 House ``managers'' who
pressed allegations of perjury and obstruction of justice on the floor of
the Senate.
The flap demonstrated that even as Clinton's impeachment trial draws
toward an expected acquittal in the Senate, it is becoming a powerful
theme for both parties ahead of the 2000 elections.
White House spokesman Joe Lockhart told reporters Clinton would
work hard to help Democrats recapture control of the U.S. House.
Democrats, the minority party in the House since January 1995, need
to capture seven seats to win an outright majority.
But Lockhart said there was no strategy of targeting the House
Republican managers. Lockhart noted that many of them hold safe
seats, adding that the prospect of Democratic control of the House was
motivation enough for the president.
``I can't think of a worse, more dumb strategy than going after people
based on whether they were a House manager or not,'' Lockhart said.
``We're going to go out, do the best we can at articulating a message,
and do it based on where we think we can win seats.''
However, other White House aides told Capitol Hill Blue that Lockhart
was lying.
"The payback has been in the planning stages for weeks," one said.
"The President is not a man to take this without fighting back. There will
be retribution against those who tried to take him down."
The Times cited unidentified Clinton advisers as saying the president
was determined to work for a Democratic victory in the House as an
affirmation of his legacy. The Times quoted the advisers as saying
Clinton was particularly angry at the 13 managers, believing they
needlessly prolonged the impeachment trial, which is expected to end
with his acquittal Friday.
The White House has been trying hard publicly to keep expressions of
vindication to a minimum and has said there would be no gloating over
an acquittal.
But privately, aides say Clinton is unrepentant and angry and wants
revenge for the attempts to remove him from office.
"The President doesn't feel any remorse over what has happened," one
aide said, "but he is angry...very, very angry."
Lockhart said it was still unknown how Clinton would respond publicly
to the Senate vote.
But Republicans leaped on the Times story as a sign that Clinton had no
sense of contrition over the impeachment drama, which stemmed from
his sexual affair with former White House intern Monica Lewinsky.
Rep. Christopher Cannon, a Utah Republican and one of the trial
managers, said any electoral vendetta by Clinton represented ``the
height of arrogance.''
``What the president is doing is wrong. What happened to repentance,
atonement and contrition? This is gloating,'' Cannon told reporters.
The Republican National Committee put out a news release saying,
``How does Clinton spell contrite? R-E-V-E-N-G-E.''
Lockhart sought to distance the White House from the Times article,
saying Clinton has ``thousands'' of advisers who claim to speak on his
behalf to the press.
He said the White House did not intend again to portray the
impeachment as a partisan venture, as it did when the House passed
two articles of impeachment in December.
Lockhart said that Clinton, as he appears in political events with an eye
toward the 2000 races, will stress, in addition to his policy agenda, a
need to put ``progress over partisanship.''
This was a theme sounded by Clinton repeatedly in the 1998 off-year
elections, when Democrats scored a surprising gain of five seats in the
House that was attributed to voter disgust with Republican
impeachment tactics.
Republicans have heard many voices this week citing or alluding to
impeachment as a reason voters should reject them.
Vice President Al Gore, in an initial fund-raising letter sent this week for
the 2000 presidential campaign, cast the race as a choice pitting his
agenda of social and economic issues against ``the forces of
divisiveness, extremism and personal destruction that threaten to engulf
Washington.''
The liberal activist group People for the American Way Wednesday
said it would target for defeat 68 House Republicans who voted to
impeach Clinton and who represent districts the president carried in
1996.
The Times article quoted Clinton supporter David Geffen, a Hollywood
mogul, as saying many in his circle would spend ``time and money'' to
defeat Rep. James Rogan of California, one of the House managers.
On the other hand, former vice president Dan Quayle, exploring a run
for the 2000 Republican presidential nomination, charged this week that
Gore was ``attached at the hip'' to Clinton and would have to explain to
voters why Clinton ``trashed the White House.''
--Reuters News Service contributed to this report
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