Eight Questions About Monica, Etc.
The writer Edward Jay Epstein has sent Chatterbox the following e-mail
message, subject: "Preliminary Concerns I Have About Monica and Other Babes
From Beverly Hills."
1. Monica's roots may be relevant. Her mother, Marcia Lewis (a k a
Lewinsky), a former Hollywood Reporter reporter, wrote a book about "The
Private Lives of the Three Tenors." In the cover blurb, to help sell books, she
teasingly suggests that she had an affair with Placido Domingo. The claim was
false.
2. Monica achieved her internship not through her scholarship at
Lewis & Clark College but through the intervention of Walter Kaye, who
donated enough to the Clinton campaign to be invited to sleep in the White
House. Was this the reason she later got Jordan's attention?
3. Can anyone really believe Vernon Jordan, the ultimate Washington
insider (and survivor), would recklessly tell a 24-year-old to perjure herself
when he has so many safer, legal ways to achieve the same end? For example,
getting her a lawyer, who, like all lawyers, would let her know her full
scenario of options. (I can't.)
4. Is it coincidental that prior to befriending Monica, Linda R.
Tripp had engaged a literary agent, Lucy Goldberg, who specializes in expos,s
of Clinton's sex life and had copies of the tapes? And what was Tripp's
interest in writing on the Vince Foster case?
5. Did Tripp tip off the Paula Jones gang about Monica? If so, did it
lead to the following three events: 1) Monica called Clinton's secretary to
alert POTUS that she was about to be deposed. 2) Clinton returned the call on
her voice mail. 3) Clinton dispatched Jordan to find out why Paula Jones was
about to depose Monica.
6. Would Jordan have helped Monica get a job at Revlon if he knew a)
she was about to perjure herself at his request and b) his help could be
construed as a bribe to facilitate the perjury? Or would he have helped her if
she assured him that she had had no affair with Clinton, and he was therefore
merely helping an ex-intern with fund-raising connections who, if disposed of
and deposed in a friendly manner, would be one less problem.
7. Which elements of Monica's story suggest she is given to telling
the truth?
a) Her affidavit: She never had sex with Clinton;
b) Her alleged statement to Vernon Jordan: She never had sex with
Clinton;
c) Her recorded statement: She always lies
d) Her recorded statement: She had sex with Clinton over a one-year period.
8. Will it emerge that she had previously falsely charged that other
powerful men in her life, like her high-school and college professors, had had
sex with her?
