FORMER PRESIDENT BILL CLINTON ON NOT CAPTURING BIN LADEN: 'At least I tried. That's the difference between me and some, including all the right wingers. They ridicule me for trying. They had eight months to try, they did not try. I tried. So I tried and failed'...
My picnic with Bill
How one reporter gave Clinton heartburn over Chinagate
Posted: September 24, 2000
1:00 a.m. Eastern
Editor's note: In the fall of 1999, President Bill Clinton endured something to which he was not accustomed -- a member of the news media challenging him with tough questions about issues of concern to the American people. WorldNetDaily Washington bureau chief Paul Sperry, then a reporter with Investor's Business Daily, went toe-to-toe with the president during a picnic on the White House south lawn. The widely publicized confrontation caused Clinton so much consternation that Sperry was subsequently banished from the White House.
The following was originally published as the cover story for WorldNet Magazine in February 2000.
By Paul Sperry
© 2000 WorldNetDaily.com
WASHINGTON -- There's probably no finer place to throw a party than the South Lawn of the White House, and no better time to do it than on a mild and breezy day in early fall. And there's probably no guest more grateful for such a free fete than the Washington press corps.
My colleagues will climb over each other to get to a table full of rubbery hoagies, soggy chips and stale Budweiser. Doesn't matter what it is, really, so long as it's free.
But this. This was hog's heaven for the cheap scribes who filed onto the White House grounds that Friday night in September for a Cajun party in their honor. What a spread. On red-checkered picnic tables spanning the length of the plush green lawn, beckoned trays of jambalaya, boudin and boiled shrimp.
And the bars, under colorful tents, were stocked full of liquor. No kegs here. Black-tie-clad help poured your favorite libation from bottles. Forget Budweiser; they had Guinness Stout and other imported brews. Fine reds and whites, too, and highballs. All free.
Zydeco tunes skipped across the crowd of giddy guests. As the sunny day faded to dusk, the soft lights of the White House portico glowed behind us. Intoxicating. What a night.
But, for me, there was still something wrong with this party -- namely, the host.
President Clinton, the function's main attraction, was due to make a cameo appearance at any moment. Despite having to wade through 40-plus scandals over the previous seven years, my cohorts in the press were all atwitter at the prospect of pumping Clinton's arm and snapping shots of him with their spouses and kids.
Just 48 hours earlier, four FBI agents had testified before the Senate that Justice Department lawyers had stopped them from pursuing leads back to Clinton in the ongoing campaign-finance investigation.
Not only that, agents swore that lawyers for months had blocked their request to ask a judge for a warrant to search the Little Rock, Ark., office of Clinton fund-raiser Yah Lin "Charlie" Trie. Agents sifting through his trash found that key records subpoenaed by the Senate had been shredded.
Among the torn-up documents: checks from Asian donors to Clinton's legal defense fund, Democratic National Committee donor lists, travel records for Chinese money men and statements from Chinese bank accounts. There was also a FedEx slip showing the White House had sent two pounds of documents to Trie just two months before a 1997 Senate probe of Chinagate kicked off.
What's more, one agent said 27 pages of notes detailing her struggles with Justice over the Trie case were ripped out of spiral notebooks after she turned them over to her superiors.
The explosive testimony was ignored by most of the media. But I couldn't shake it from my mind, no matter the occasion. Was Clinton's attorney general covering for him in one of the gravest probes in U.S. history, one with national security implications? Did Clinton have any knowledge of it?
Sometime after 6 p.m., the president emerged from the Oval Office. Dressed in a suit, he strolled down the walkway, only to disappear through a doorway. His aide Sidney Blumenthal strolled on and joined the crowd. At his side was Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass. (I ran into Markey later in the evening inside the White House. He was giving his wife and father a tour. Markey's now all over the TV talk shows flacking for Vice President Al Gore's campaign.)
The suspense built as the guests closed in around a loose rope line that stretched from the edges of the Oval Office area to the stage where the band played. Then, at last, Clinton came out of the White House wearing what can only be described as a get-up -- tight black pullover shirt, tight black pants with a big silver-buckle black belt and black cowboy boots.
Strutting past me, he looked like a bad imitation of Johnny Cash. Or was it an over-the-hill Elvis? Tom Jones? Whatever, the silver-haired devil made a beeline for the stage, climbed up on it and drawled on about how great it was for all of us to be there with him on such a wonderful night listening to such great music. At that, a guest tried to hand a tenor saxophone up to him. Several painted-up women pushed their way to the stage. By the way, Clinton remarked, "Hillary wanted to be here with y'all, but she's up in New York tonight." Wink-wink.
Little did he know that in just a few minutes, a rude guest would give him a Maalox moment to remember and probably spoil any entertainment plans he had for the evening.
As Clinton worked the rope line on his way back toward the White House, it was hard not to be taken up in the electricity of the moment. Everyone was having such a good time. And a buoyant Clinton was working the crowd, yucking it up like no one can. At one point, he was even wearing baubles around his neck. Husbands were offering up their wives and children for grip-and-grin shots. Photojournalists were camped out like paparazzi. Why not? A notorious celebrity was in their midst. Even one of my reporters was snapping shots with his instamatic -- for his wife.
I stood there slack-jawed, watching one powerful journalist after another clamor like so many fawning teen rock-idol fans to grasp the hand of the most corrupt president in U.S. history.
So many scandals, so many unanswered questions -- so many unasked questions. National security at stake. That little boy there, that little girl over there ... your sons, your daughters. Don't you care what this president has or hasn't done with our military secrets?
Maybe I just cared too much. Relax. Yes, have a good time; it is a party after all. Don't be so serious. Loosen up.
But just as I was about to give in to the perverse euphoria, suspending disbelief about the harmlessness of old Slick like everyone else around me, I recalled a Proverb I'd read that morning -- "Do not envy wicked men, do not desire their company" -- and I closed my eyes for strength.
It was my turn to meet the celebrity president. As he approached me, I politely, if coolly, asked him when he would hold his next formal press conference. It had been several months since his last and he's had fewer than any recent president. I admit I was trying to agitate the proper forum for questions about the FBI agents' charges. But, to me, this was still a rather innocuous question, even within the supposedly neutral zone of a party. A relevant question, too, given the gathering. Other hard-nosed reporters surely were wondering when they'd get another crack at Clinton.
Or so I thought. My simple question was rewarded with boos and hisses from the adoring Clinton groupies around me. So much for the adversarial press.
But that was nothing compared with Clinton's reaction to my inquiry about his next press confab. In an instant, his 100-watt charm shut off, replaced by a taunting belligerence. "Why?" he barked.
"Because the American people have a lot of unanswered questions," I replied, struggling to hold my bladder. At that point, he moved back down the rope, pulling up square in front of me, and demanded, "Like what?"
"Well, like illegal money from China and the campaign-finance scandal ..."
What happened over the next 10 minutes was nothing short of a "scene." The party-goers collapsed in around us. I watched the blood rush to Clinton's gargantuan face as he launched into a tirade against ex-Republican National Committee Chairman Haley Barbour, the FBI, Bob Dole and Republicans in general. All the while, he tried to belittle me by making faces (to get a rise out of his fans) and intimidate me by getting in my face.
And now I can see how he can do that to people. Clinton's not just intellectually intimidating, he's physically imposing. He's tall (6-2) and big-boned.
Luckily, I'm the same height and was able to stand toe-to-toe and eye-to-eye with him. I'll never forget the maniacal look in his bloodshot eyes. There was a moment, fleeting, where I sensed he wanted to try to take a swipe at me. I was getting full frontal Clinton. His volcanic temper, hidden so well from the public by his handlers, erupted less than 12 inches from my eyes.
Clinton always is game for a debate. That I asked him hard questions at a party wasn't what ticked him off. It's what I asked him about. He clearly doesn't want to talk about the mother of all scandals -- Chinagate.
He also may have been thrown by my grasp of the facts. I'd been tracking the Beijing-tied Lippo Group's influence in the Clinton White House since 1996 and have been suspicious of the probity of Attorney General Janet Reno's special task force since she let John Keeney Sr. set it up -- a month after the election -- to look into Lippo's influence.
Keeney's son is none other than a defense attorney for John Huang, the former Lippo executive and convicted Clinton-Gore fund-raiser. Junior, who's also a long-time Democratic National Committee lawyer, cut Huang a deal with daddy's old task force that got him no jail time and immunity from prosecution for espionage.
Clinton also was unprepared for my tenacity. Other reporters may back down after he singes their eyebrows with a verbal fusillade. Dummy me, I hung in there for more abuse, challenging his answers, following up with more questions. Which only made him madder.
Take, for instance, the exchange we had after I asked him what he thought of the FBI agents' charges two days earlier that they'd been blocked from following trails back to the White House in the Chinagate probe. (When I first mentioned the agents, he acted dumb: "What FBI agents?")
"The Eff-Bee-Ahh," Clinton said, his tone dripping with contempt and suspicion. "What do you think of the FBI?"
I don't have an opinion, sir. My question is to you.
"Yeah, the FBI wants you to write about that rather than write about Waco," a reference to lingering questions about the agency's role in the 1993 fire that killed Branch Davidian separatists in Waco, Texas.
It was an extraordinary remark. The president was questioning the motives and veracity of his own agency.
I piped up that these were career FBI agents. One had been with the agency 25 years. And they made these charges under oath.
"Are you suggesting they're not telling the truth, Mr. President?" I asked.
Clinton's face turned a darker hue of red, almost the purplish color of raw hamburger meat that's been left out on the counter. Changing the subject, he attacked Republicans for their own fund-raising woes.
After Clinton had had enough of me, he tried to move on. But, I pressed, reminding him that he still hadn't answered my original question: When will you have another formal news conference?
"You just had one," he snapped.
With that, I turned around and knifed my way through the crowd that had gathered. Two women -- one from AP, then another from CNN -- rushed up to me. Both asked what got Clinton so angry.
"Why'd he turn so red?" asked one. Good question, I said, then replayed the exchange for them. Both asked for my card, though neither of their news agencies filed a story.
Before grabbing a plate of Cajun food and a much-needed cold one, I scribbled down what Clinton had told me on some White House napkins and left the grounds soon after. As I made my way to the Metro station, I realized my knees were a bit wobbly.
Still dazed by the time I got home, I trudged in the front door and only half-jokingly told my wife to prepare for an IRS audit. As I did radio shows around the country over the next few weeks, I found I wasn't the only one with that thought. Except callers weren't fooling.
Some warned me to get my tax forms in order and "not to take any plane trips." They were concerned I'd pay a heavy price for "standing up to the scary occupant of the White House," as one put it.
Another radio caller reckoned "there is a lot of info from FBI files being used to leverage reporters." (That's actually not so far-fetched. White House correspondents have to submit to background checks.)
One wise guy actually posted a phony Washington Post obituary on the Internet.
"Paul Sperry, the Washington bureau chief of Investor's Business Daily, was found in the swimming pool of his Richmond, Va., home early this morning," the prankster wrote. "He had apparently shot himself in the head in his living room before throwing himself fully clothed into the pool. A .45-caliber bullet was found in his skull and he was holding the suicide weapon, a 9 mm automatic with the serial numbers filed off.
"His notes and home computer were found burning in a trash can," he added. "Police were alerted to the body by an anonymous tip. No foul play is suspected."
I'm of the mind that the president and first lady, both of whom have strangely gone out of their way to remind the public that they've "even been accused of murder," like that people think that. It breeds fear, and fear makes those who might otherwise confront the Clintons with the facts think twice about doing so.
Still, after taking calls into the wee morning hours, such thoughts didn't exactly help me sleep over the next several days as the story grew legs.
Saturday night, Sept. 25: As I was typing up my story, James Grimaldi, a reporter for the Seattle Times, called me at home. He had been covering the Microsoft trial in Washington but he was working on another story -- mine -- and had a few questions for me.
Turns out Grimaldi was standing right next to me during the exchange with Clinton. He heard the whole thing and we compared notes. He said he was filing a story for the Times' Sunday edition. At first, I was frosted seeing that Grimaldi would beat my story. My paper at the time, Investor's Business Daily, only publishes Monday through Friday and Monday's paper is put to bed on Friday. So my story wouldn't run till Tuesday.
Even so, I was thankful that another major paper would corroborate the interview.
"The blood was rushing in and out of his face," Grimaldi observed over the phone. "He actually blew up. His initial blow-up was unexpected and unanticipated."
He counted at least 10 exchanges, "back and forth." Not one question I asked, he said, was "rude" or "disrespectful," although the entire impromptu interview could be construed as such. He also said Clinton "was baiting you" into asking more questions.
At one point, Grimaldi said the official White House photographer standing behind Clinton shouted: "This is so inappropriate! This is so inappropriate!" I never heard him. Clinton's own shouting must have drowned him out.
Tuesday night, Sept. 28: The Drudge Report posted a story at the top of its website: "Fight Club: Furious Clinton Orders Reporter Banned After Grilling!"
I would love to ask him face to face how much Osama bin Laden had to deposit into his Cayman Island account each time he refused to take him, and see what his reaction would be.
Exactly. I am still waiting for someone in the MSM to ask that lying, professional con-artist WHY he TURNED DOWN BIN LADEN THREE TIMES!