Unlikeable: The Problem With Hillary (9 page)

Marc was more than a friend of the family; he was a friend with benefits.

He met with a series of wealthy investors who had close ties to Bill and Hillary and apparently brought them closer still. The investors included Lloyd C. Blankfein, the CEO of Goldman Sachs, which had paid Bill $1.35 million for eight speeches. Another investor, hedge-fund manager Marc Lasry, was a major donor to Hillary's 2008 presidential campaign. A few years after Chelsea graduated from Stanford University, Lasry was more than happy to give her a job at his fund, Avenue Capital.

Investigative reporters at the
Times
dug up several other examples of Mezvinsky investors who had close relationships with Bill and Hillary.

“Rock Creek Group, a Washington-based investment advisory firm, placed $13 million from the California Public Employees' Retirement System and another public pension fund with Eaglevale in late 2011 and early 2012,” the
Times
reported. “Rock Creek's chairwoman, Afsaneh Beschloss, attended state dinners at the Clinton White House in the late 1990s and was a panelist in the annual meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative.”

After a dinner with Greece's prime minister, Mezvinsky bet big on a turnaround of the country's economy. He invested millions in Greek bank stocks and Greek debt.
He lost his shirt—and the shirts of his investors—and in 2014 Eaglevale acknowledged, “Our recent predictions regarding Greek politics have proved incorrect.”

“Investing in Greece is stupid,” Larry Kudlow, an economist and a CNBC senior contributor, told the author of this book. “Doing it on the basis of a dinner with an ultra-weak prime minister who was a temporary figurehead is even stupider. Plus, the Clinton insiderism of the dinner, and the hedge fund's money raising, is so typically sleazy.”

CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 14

IMAGINING “HILLARY 5.0”
IMAGINING “HILLARY 5.0”

Hillary Clinton has enlisted a Coca-Cola marketing whiz to help brand her expected presidential campaign.

This is quintessential Clinton. The most politically savvy couple in America has a penchant for seeking out the latest shiny toy, a magic bullet to make everything work.

—Albert R. Hunt, Bloomberg View

I
n the weeks leading up to Hillary's announcement that she was running for president, her mansion at 3067 Whitehaven Street was the scene of feverish preparations.

Day after day, a whirl of experts passed through Whitehaven's Secret Service checkpoint, where world-famous economists, bow-tied academics, burly union bosses, political
machers
, and Democratic Party grandees were required to open their briefcases for inspection and, in some cases, endure full-body pat-downs. The experts came from every quarter of the fractious Democratic Party, but most of them—like progressive economists Joseph Stiglitz and Alan Krueger—came from the Elizabeth Warren populist wing.

Hillary was shedding her reputation as a “centrist” and returning to her ideological roots on the Far Left. And no one—not even Elizabeth Warren—had more impressive credentials. As a twenty-something student at Yale Law School, Hillary had worked as a summer intern for the radical left-wing law firm Treuhaft, Walker and Burnstein, and befriended the leftist community organizer Saul Alinsky.

“It is easy to forget that for years, Mrs. Clinton weathered criticism that she was too liberal, the socialist foil to her husband's centrist agenda,” noted the
New York Times
. “Economists in the Clinton administration referred to the first lady and her aides as ‘the Bolsheviks.'”

Hillary's tutorials with the experts were usually held in Whitehaven's spacious dining room. She would show up looking tired and bedraggled and dressed in sweats or a muumuu. Visitors noticed that her hands visibly shook. She did not look healthy. Some came away from their encounter with Hillary wondering if she possessed the strength and vitality necessary for the demands of a nineteen-month-long political campaign.

She'd listen to the experts, ask questions, take notes, and then disappear through the French doors with a wave and a forced smile. No one could tell which of the advisers had scored a homerun with Hillary and which ones had struck out.

One of the first casualties of these meetings was the Spielberg likeability lessons.

Everyone agreed they weren't working.

“For more than a decade, Mrs. Clinton has tried to swat away a persistent concern about her ability to connect with voters,” noted the
New York Times.
“‘Saturday Night Live' recently captured that problem in a sketch featuring an actress playing Mrs. Clinton, who said of herself at one point, ‘What a relatable laugh!' Years of security-infused Bubble Wrap around her travels and a wealthy lifestyle have done little to pull Mrs. Clinton closer to voters.”

“Given that [Hillary] has been in public life since 1992, it's a bit incongruous to consider that
her speaking style is often so lacking,” wrote the
Washington Post
. “She has yet to master ‘the big speech,' which is part of the toolbox of any major politician.”

When Hillary spoke in public, she still had trouble making eye contact with her audience. Her eyes wandered from the text of her speech or her talking points to some unfocused spot on the ceiling and back again. Her voice was flat and uninflected. She was at her worst with members of the media; in the presence of journalists, she came across as scripted, charmless, and defensive.

“Her speaking style hasn't improved,” wrote Sean Trende, the senior election analyst for RealClearPolitics. “If anything, she's lost a step from 2008.”

In exasperation, Hillary quit taking the likeability lessons.

“I decided I had enough with the camera and the recordings and the coaches,” Hillary told a friend. “I got so angry I knocked the fucking camera off its tripod. That was the end of my Stanislavski period.”

Some of the biggest names in the world of corporate marketing strategy—Wendy Clark of Coca-Cola and Roy Spence of the Austin-based ad firm GSD&M—showed up at Whitehaven.

“People familiar with Clinton's preparations said Clark and Spence are focused on developing imaginative ways to ‘let Hillary be Hillary,' as one person said, and help her make emotional connections with voters,” reported the
Washington Post
. “Their job is to help imagine Hillary 5.0—the rebranding of a first lady turned senator turned failed presidential candidate turned secretary of state turned . . . 2016 Democratic presidential nominee. . . . In their mission to present voters with a winning picture of their likely candidate, no detail is too big or small—from her economic opportunity agenda to the design of the ‘H' in her future campaign logo.”

When the new logo—a blue “H” with a rightward-facing red arrow—was unveiled in April 2015, it received a unanimous thumbs-down from art directors and graphic designers. The
New Yorker
ran a cartoon that showed two people gazing at a Hillary campaign poster with the “H” logo and a caption that read:
“I'm just not entirely sure a big red arrow pointing right is the best logo for a Democratic candidate, is all.”

Kristina Schake, Michelle Obama's former communications chief, was recruited to help Hillary become “authentic.” Schake had softened Michelle's ballsy image by having her “mom dance” with Jimmy Fallon on TV, plant a White House vegetable garden, and schlep around a Target store in suburban Alexandria, Virginia.

It was unclear how Schake intended to rehabilitate Hillary, who posed a far greater public-relations challenge than Michelle had. Clinton insiders said that Schake might send Hillary to a shopping mall, and might even have Hillary appear on the Food Network. It seemed unlikely, however, that Schake would ask Hillary to follow in Michelle's footsteps and break it down in hip-hop style.

But then, you never knew.

Schake must have remembered that, back in 1998, at the height of the Paula Jones sexual harassment suit against Bill Clinton, Hillary agreed to be photographed in a bathing suit on the beach in Saint Thomas, slow dancing with her horndog husband.

In any case, turning Hillary into a loveable Everywoman “who cares about people like me” wasn't going to be easy.

As the
New Yorker
's Elizabeth Kolbert wrote about Hillary:
“A reputation for disingenuousness would seem to be particularly damaging, since any attempt to dislodge it is bound to be construed as another piece of insincerity.”

Hillary was as skeptical of the rebranding campaign as she had been of the Spielberg likeability lessons. She told friends that they reminded her of the numerous efforts that had been tried in the past—and that had failed—to make her warm and fuzzy.

“That,” she said, “isn't me.”

CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 15

WOULDA, COULDA, SHOULDA
WOULDA, COULDA, SHOULDA

I asked Hillary why she had chosen Yale Law School over Harvard. She laughed and said, “Harvard didn't want me.” . . . She explained that . . . [a Harvard] professor looked at her and said, “We have about as many women as we need here. You should go to Yale. The teaching there is more suited to women. . . .”

. . . I told Hillary . . . I would have urged her to come to Harvard. She laughed, turned to her husband, and said, “But then I wouldn't have met him . . . and he wouldn't have become President.”

—Alan Dershowitz,
Taking the Stand

O
n March 8, 2015, Bill Plante, CBS News senior White House correspondent, asked Barack Obama a direct question: When did he first learn that Hillary Clinton had used a private e-mail address, rather than the government system, while she served as his secretary of state?

“The same time everybody else learned it, through news reports,” the president replied.

That was the same answer Obama had given on numerous other occasions when something went haywire on his watch.

Back in 2009, an Air Force One plane made an unauthorized photo-op pass over the Statue of Liberty. When did Obama learn about it?

“
We found out about, uh, along with all of you
,” he said.

The Fast and Furious gun-running operation in Mexico?

“
I heard on the news
,” he said.

General David Petraeus's sex scandal?

Same way
.

The IRS decision to target conservative political groups?

Same
.

The Justice Department's seizure of AP News reporters' phone records?

Ditto
.

The National Security Agency's spying operation on friendly foreign leaders?

Ditto
.

The Veterans Affairs scandal?

Ditto
.

According to Obama, no one ever bothered to tell him what was up. He was in the dark, out of the loop, clueless. The buck didn't stop at his desk.

Or . . . there was another explanation.

He wasn't telling the truth.

That was certainly the case in the matter of Hillary's e-mails, as I learned exclusively in the course of researching this book.

“The White House explicitly warned Hillary early on in her tenure that using her private e-mail account for government business was problematic and possibly illegal,” said a source who
discussed the e-mail controversy with Valerie Jarrett. “People in the White House knew what Hillary was doing, because they saw her e-mails daily. Including the president. But she ignored their warnings.

“When the
New York Times
broke the story about Hillary's e-mails, the Obamas were very happy,” this source continued. “Gleeful really. As far as they're concerned, Hillary and Bill brought this on themselves through sheer hubris. Valerie told me, ‘The Clintons act like they're living in another century where everybody turns a blind eye. But they don't anymore.'”

Indeed, the story of Hillary's use of a private e-mail server did not come as a surprise to those who had followed her history of subterfuge and deception.

The story revived memories of past Clinton cover-ups: Whitewater, Chinagate, Travelgate, Hillary's lost billing records, the Vince Foster mystery, Filegate, Bill's perjury during the Monica Lewinsky scandal, Pardongate, the looting of White House furniture.

It exhumed the old storyline about Hillary's lack of honesty and trustworthiness and raised fresh doubts among prospective voters and deep-pocketed liberal donors, who wondered if they were backing the wrong horse in 2016.

It kindled the hopes of Hillary's potential Democratic rivals—Martin O'Malley, Joe Biden, Lincoln Chafee, Jim Webb, Bernie Sanders, and perhaps even the darkest of dark horses—Bill de Blasio and John Kerry.

And it gave fresh insight into the blood feud—both personal and political—between the Clintons and the Obamas.

When Valerie Jarrett was asked by a Bloomberg reporter if Obama had received e-mails from Hillary, she left Hillary to twist in the wind.

“That I don't know,” she said. “I do know, obviously that President Obama has a very firm policy that emails should be kept on government systems. He believes in transparency.”

Jarrett was not being truthful about what President Obama knew and when he knew it.

Back in 2012, a few months before the end of Hillary's term as secretary of state, Jarrett had summoned her to the White House to read her the riot act on a whole range of issues that the president found vexing—the Clinton Foundation's acceptance of foreign donations, Hillary's use of a private e-mail server, and Hillary's relationship with Sidney Blumenthal, a longtime Clinton fixer and undercover agent.

According to Jarrett's later recollection, which she shared with a close associate, she told Hillary that Obama considered Blumenthal to be a
“thug.” During the 2008 primary campaign, Blumenthal leaked malicious stories to the press that accused Obama of being a drug-using Marxist with a hidden sex life. As a result, the victorious incoming Obama administration had barred Blumenthal from working for Hillary in the State Department.

Now, Jarrett said, pacing the floor of her office and lecturing Hillary as though she were a schoolgirl, it had come to the
president's attention that Hillary had ignored his directive and was in frequent contact with Blumenthal. That was unacceptable. Hillary had to cut off all communications with Blumenthal immediately.

Hillary sat stock still, staring out the window and not saying anything.

Jarrett then moved on to the next subject—Hillary's use of a private e-mail account. This was not the first time the issue had come up, Jarrett reminded Hillary. Four years ago, when Hillary first arrived at the State Department, she had been specifically warned about the security ramifications of using a private e-mail account. At the time, Jarrett went on, Hillary had given her word that she would end the use of private e-mails and instead use the authorized government account.

And yet, just the other day, the president had received an e-mail from Hillary's private account. He was furious and wanted to know why his orders had been ignored.

According to Jarrett's account of the meeting, Hillary acted bemused but made no excuses and didn't apologize.

Jarrett then raised the issue of foreign donations to the Clinton Foundation. Here was an example, she said, of something Hillary had explicitly promised in writing not to do, and was doing anyway. Hillary had struck a solemn agreement with the president. Didn't she take the president of the United States seriously?

At that, Hillary stood up and said, “This conversation is going nowhere. This meeting is over.”

And she turned her back on Jarrett and walked out of the office.

In the early spring of 2015, shortly after the
Times
broke the story about Hillary's use of a private e-mail account, someone found an old ABC
20/20
report that had been available on YouTube for the past several years and that explained why Hillary had gone to such trouble to conceal her State Department e-mails.

“As much as I've been investigated and all of that, you know,” Hillary said on the video, “why would I—I don't even want—why would I ever want to do e-mail?”

In a deliberate effort at concealment, Hillary had violated State Department rules by using a private e-mail account that was linked to a server at her home in suburban Chappaqua. Under departmental rules, employees could only use private e-mails for official business if they immediately turned them over to the government to be archived.

Hillary did nothing of the sort.

She held on to her private e-mails for six years—four years as secretary of state and two more years after she left the State Department.

Hillary had to know she was in violation of the department's rules, since the State Department's inspector general had criticized one of her own ambassadors for doing the same thing.

“It is the department's general policy that normal day-to-day operations be conducted on an authorized information system, which has the proper level of security controls,” the inspector general wrote about a rule that was put on the books four years before Hillary arrived at Foggy Bottom.

“Based upon my first-hand involvement in a number of things during the Clinton administration, I have absolutely no doubt that Secretary Clinton well knows the operation of the Freedom of Information Act and knows what, frankly, what she was doing,” said Dan Metcalfe, who oversaw the implementation of the Freedom of Information Act at the Department of Justice. “There is no doubt in my mind and in the minds, frankly, of people at the National Archives and Records Administration, what she did was contrary to the Federal Records Act.”

“Her admitted destruction of more than 30,000 emails sure looks like obstruction of justice—a serious violation of the criminal law,” wrote Ronald D. Rotunda, who was assistant majority counsel to the Senate Watergate Committee. “Mrs. Clinton should know about obstruction [of justice]: Congress enacted section 1519, making the crime easier to prove, in 2002, as part of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. As senator, she voted for the law.”

The media's demand for a full accounting by Hillary opened the floodgates of criticism. But she let days go by and failed to come forward with an explanation.

“Lack of speed kills in this case,” warned David Axelrod, the architect of Barack Obama's 2008 White House victory. “However this [e-mail scandal] turns out, this problem is being exacerbated by the lack of answers from the Clinton campaign . . . and it would be good to get out there and answer these questions.”

But Hillary hadn't given a political press conference (as opposed to a foreign policy press conference) in more than seven years, and her handlers were afraid she was rusty. They worried she'd say something that would get her into even hotter water. She was stiff from lack of practice, they said, forgetting that Hillary had never mastered the rope-a-dope of a live political press conference.

So she delayed and delayed.

Her silence only fed the most alarming suspicions.

Had Hillary's use of a private e-mail account jeopardized national security?

Did
[email protected]
have the same level of security employed by the government's e-mail system?

How did she know that her e-mail server hadn't been hacked?

Finally, Hillary caved under the overwhelming pressure and agreed to meet the press.

Dressed in a gray coat dress that looked a size too big for her, she emerged from a meeting at the United Nations, walked down a long hall past a copy of
Guernica
, Picasso's unsparing black, white, and gray masterpiece, and took up a position in front of twenty-five TV cameras. She looked nervous, defensive, and annoyed, as though this was the last place in the world she wanted to be. She had a hard time meeting the eyes of individual reporters, fifty of whom were gathered in a scrum behind a rope.