Hickman Ewing does a pretty dead-on impression of Bill Clinton. But
then he’s had more practice than most people.
One of the highlights of Ewing’s six-year tenure with the Office
of the Independent Counsel was playing Clinton in moot court on three
occasions. With his Southern drawl, rambling speaking style, and Memphis
roots, the former federal prosecutor was an easy choice for Ken Starr and his
staff.
When the lawyers in moot court asked their polite questions about
Monica Lewinsky, Ewing as Clinton hemmed and hawed and filibustered so well
that the prosecutors eventually sharpened their questions enough to elicit the
famous sordid details of the Lewinsky affair that led to Clinton’s
impeachment.
That was Ewing’s singular footnote to history but only one of
several important contributions he made to the Whitewater investigation. He
interviewed Bill and Hillary Clinton several times at the White House and ran
the Arkansas phase of Whitewater that convicted Webster Hubbell, Jim and Susan
McDougal, and former governor Jim Guy Tucker.
Ewing talked at length with the Flyer at his Germantown
home (and for the first time in the Memphis media) about the Clintons,
Lewinsky, the McDougals, Starr, and Linda Tripp.
In his study there are pictures of his father, a legendary high
school football coach, as well as Ken Starr and various politicians, including
Richard Nixon, Lyndon Johnson, Howard Baker, and, yes, Bill Clinton. The
Clinton picture, he is quick to point out, was a gag gift, while the Nixon and
Johnson shots are there because they are standing alongside a member of his
wife’s family.
The bookcase is full of religious books. Ewing is a lay minister,
and opponents occasionally accused him of religious zealotry during trials.
There is one full shelf of books about Whitewater and the Clintons, including
three of Ewing’s personal favorites — First in His Class by David
Maraniss, Blood Sport by James Stewart, and The Truth at Any
Cost by Susan Schmidt and Michael Wiesskopf — and several others he
considers biased from either the left or the right.
Ewing is mentioned in most of them, often at length. He has also
been profiled in a front-page story in The Wall Street Journal, dubbed
“slowpoke prosecutor administering water torture” by columnist
William Safire of The New York Times, picked (incorrectly) as Starr’s
successor by Newsweek, and called “Clinton’s Other Pursuer”
in a long article in The New Yorker by Jeffrey Toobin. His picture
graced the front page of The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette when he was one
of five speakers to eulogize Jim McDougal. The stocky, white-haired Ewing was
also seen on network television several times, walking grimly along at Starr’s
side or uttering a clipped “no comment.”
This was a case of the rest of the country coming to know a man
that Memphians have known quite well since Ewing was a star athlete at
Whitehaven High School in the 1960s. After graduating from Vanderbilt and
serving in the Navy, Ewing came back to Memphis and made his mark as the
prosecutor who convicted Ray Blanton, Dana Kirk, and Rickey Peete, and
unsuccessfully prosecuted Harold Ford Sr. He had just finished playing himself
as prosecutor in a television mock trial of James Earl Ray when he was hired
by the Office of the Independent Counsel in 1994. Curiously, although he was
something of a star in the Republican-controlled Justice Department in the
Eighties, he had been to the White House only twice before 1995 and never met
a U.S. president until he met Clinton.
Ewing’s enforced silence for much of the last seven years was
somewhat unusual for him. He was always good for a quote or two outside the
courthouse during his Memphis trials, and he tells a story in a rambling,
colloquial style that left no doubt that anyone but him would play Bill
Clinton in the OIC’s moot court.
He has another notable attribute, as his adversaries can
attest.
“I remember stuff,” he drawls.
In fact that could be his epitaph. He has a remarkable memory for
sports, local trivia, history, and especially legal matters, which served him
well as a prosecutor. He has no plans, however, to write his own Whitewater
book. At 59, he is taking it easy, unsure when or how he will resume his law
practice, and reliving his childhood. He plans to compete in the Senior
Olympics, where he has previously won as many as five events, including the
50-meter dash, baseball throw, 400-meter walk, and even the Scrabble
event.
Following are excerpts of his comments about the famous people he
met and the events he helped shape over the last six years.
The Whitewater Investigation
Whitewater is a real misnomer. The real investigation is called
“In Re Madison Guaranty Savings and Loan.” Did [the Clintons] commit
any crimes in the 1982 to 1986 period? We didn’t have sufficient evidence to
prove beyond a reasonable doubt that they committed crimes. A much more
serious question related to whether there was obstruction of justice and
perjury relative to the investigation. That was a much closer question. Let me
give the Clintons the benefit of the doubt. Jim and Susan McDougal controlled
two banks. The question is: Did the Clintons have guilty knowledge? They
certainly had knowledge of some of the transactions, but I’d say it was
questionable whether they had criminal intent.
April 22, 1995: First Meeting With the Clintons
At the White House
Bob Fiske, the independent counsel before Ken Starr, was doing a
great job. Bob had already subpoenaed records from the Clintons. It wasn’t
like Ken made up a new game plan. He adopted a game plan from Fiske, which he
inherited from the Justice Department. We were the fourth prosecutor on the
investigation. So we had a number of different subjects to ask about. My part
was primarily about Mrs. Clinton’s work at the Rose Law Firm. There was an
allegation by James McDougal that he gave business to Hillary at the behest of
the Clintons.
We had two hours with the president and two hours with the first
lady. It was four days after the Oklahoma City bombing. The lawyers for
Clinton were telling us, “You have two hours with the president because
he is really busy. He has got to make a speech. He just met with some kids
from Oklahoma City.” It was a pretty somber occasion. Clinton is very
personable. He comes in and shakes everybody’s hand. He gave us a little tour
of the Treaty Room. Then he leaves and after 15 minutes she comes in. I am the
main questioner on her. After 10 minutes, there is a knock on the door. A Navy
steward’s mate comes in and says something I couldn’t hear. Mrs. Clinton
doesn’t look very happy. In my opinion she looks perturbed at the situation.
The guy walks over to the closet and comes out carrying the president’s golf
clubs. It turned out he was playing golf that afternoon. It was almost like,
“Bill, we’re trying to be serious here and give them two hours each, and
now they know you’re going out to play golf.” It was kind of
humorous.
The Clintons
He is a master of the “aw shucks” personality. He
claimed to have a better memory than [Hillary]. And I will say that the
subject matter I was asking him about wasn’t that critical to him. Although he
answered one question in a way that he said he didn’t recall, and I thought he
probably did recall. My impression when I got through that day was they’re
not telling us exactly like it is.
Hillary was, in my opinion, more reserved, maybe a little
friendlier than she’s painted to be. I think they’re both very professional,
but I found over this investigation, when you’re dealing with really high-
powered lawyers, they tell their clients not to volunteer anything. I don’t
say I wouldn’t give somebody the same advice — “Answer the question,
don’t start rambling.” And some lawyers will tell their clients that if
they aren’t 100 percent sure to just say they don’t remember. In my opinion,
their claims of “I don’t remember” on certain things were very
dubious. I didn’t fully appreciate it the first time. Let’s put it this way. I
wasn’t satisfied they told everything exactly straight. As time went on some
of the answers they gave [in that interview] were some of the most
troubling.
Centipedes and Elvis
The second time we were at the White House was July 22, 1995. As
soon as the president comes in he shakes everybody’s hand, calls everyone by
name. The court reporter took about five minutes to set up, so he’s just
talking. And he’s talking about Elvis. How Elvis was his favorite singer
growing up. Then he points to his lawyer, David Kendall, and says, “Who
is yours?” And Kendall says Little Richard. Then he’s talking about
critters: “I remember cutting grass in Hot Springs, we had black widow
spiders; we had brown recluse spiders and snakes; we even used to get
centipedes and break ’em in half and watch ’em go in different directions.
Y’all probably did that too.” And he looks around and nobody’s looking at
him and they’re thinking, What are you talking about? I’m kind of standing
across the table and he says, “Well, Hick, I bet y’all used to do that in
Memphis, didn’t you?” I said, “No, Mr. President, we didn’t do that
in Memphis.”
Jim and Susan McDougal
I dealt with Jim at length after he was convicted. If everything
Jim said was true, then the Clintons violated the law in several respects.
Obviously you don’t take the word of a convicted felon who’s got problems
unless there is lots of documentation and paperwork to back it up. So we tried
to find paperwork and chase out leads. We found some, but we had not reached a
final decision on both Clintons at the time of his death. So it hurt us in a
way, but you couldn’t charge either one of them based on just Jim
McDougal.
Susan said on Geraldo one night that I murdered her
husband. [She said] Jim McDougal was in federal prison and the only one he
would talk to was Hickman Ewing. And he had called Mr. Ewing and said ‘You
need to help me because they’re not giving me my medicine,’ and Ewing said, ‘I
don’t care,’ and he died that night.
And of course that is a total lie. I’m really at that point the
closest person to Jim McDougal that there is. I spent a lot of time with Jim,
and I’d say most of his friends had deserted him. When he went to prison, I
was really his contact with the outside world. Not only was he a valuable
witness for us but, you know, you develop a relationship. I had been down to
Texas to see him in prison about 10 days before he died. I had just written a
lengthy letter to the Parole Commission on his behalf. So when he dies, I get
the call and I’m just sick. So when Susan says he was calling me, saying,
They’re not giving me my medicine. I don’t know where she gets that, but it’s
just not true.
Kenneth Starr
Part of Ken’s problem toward the end was he had such negative
ratings because he was being demonized. They — and I mean the Clintons, James
Carville, Sidney Blumenthal, Geraldo — did a very good job of spinning things
to demonize Ken Starr. They had a lot invested in that. I think they probably
had a lot invested in me too.
Starr is a prince of a guy. He reminds me in ways of Mike Cody.
Ideologically they are from different briar patches, if you will, but I know
Mike actually met with Ken when he was considering hiring me. Ken is one of
the most personable guys you will ever meet — a gentleman, brilliant guy,
smartest guy I’ve ever met as far as intellect and law. I’ve always said that
when you’re investigating someone who holds political office, if you don’t
have the law, you argue the facts. If you don’t have the facts, you argue the
law. And if you don’t have the law or the facts you attack the prosecutor. I
told Ken, The people that are attacking us, that gives you a clue that maybe
they don’t have the law or the facts. I told Ken I had been through this many
times with Rickey Peete, Harold Ford, Dana Kirk, Governor Blanton. But it was
difficult for him.
Monica Lewinsky
That’s what’s ironic about this whole Lewinsky thing. We’re down
here doing a white-collar crime and corruption investigation and we had a
number of delays because of privilege claims that were not meritorious. If
Susan McDougal had come in in September 1996 and answered all the questions,
we would have made decisions on the president and first lady some time in 1997
and we’d have been through. We wouldn’t have even been working on this when
the Monica stuff came up.
The Linda Tripp Tapes
We were trying to decide where the appropriate place was to
charge Webb Hubbell. Ken tells me to come into his office. So we go in his
office and we get on a conference call with Jackie Bennett and that is the
first I hear about it. I didn’t even know [Monica Lewinsky’s] name. Tripp
tapes Lewinsky that day. They send the tapes to Little Rock to be transcribed.
They hand-deliver them. FBI agents brought them down. So the next day my
personal secretary and another secretary transcribe that 4-hour tape. Of
course my secretary is typing this and she’s got on earphones and she says,
You won’t believe this stuff! This girl’s mother ought to be shot! Because
Monica says, “Well, Linda says, I can’t go in there and lie because I’m
under oath, and I’ve taken an oath before God.” Then Monica says,
“Well, you know, God is good, and God doesn’t want anybody to be hurt,
and so if [telling the truth] would hurt anybody then you’re not supposed to
tell the truth.” And my secretary is saying, Can you believe this
stuff?
Did Monica “Save” Hillary?
Our grand jury in Little Rock was going to end in May. So the
next morning after we transcribe the tape, Bob Bittman of our office has come
to Little Rock to help me get to the finish line in making the final decision
on the president and first lady. When that transcript of Linda Tripp’s tape is
finished, Bob goes to Washington and never comes back. As I like to say in
biblical terms, Bob got raptured. Instead of us having 10 people, we are down
to about six. I’ve said this facetiously to some extent, Monica saved
Hillary.
The Blue Dress
I’m there the day they bring the blue dress in. You can see the
spot on there. You don’t know for sure it’s semen, but it could be. You talk
about keeping something under wraps. Well, we sent it to the lab. I didn’t
know the results when we did the moot court. Then the morning our people went
over to question Clinton, Ken called Jackie Bennet, Sol Wisenberg, and me and
says, “Bob [Bittman] and I are the only ones who know this. Two weeks ago
the FBI reported to Bob in our office that in fact it was semen.” So Bob
called David Kendall and says we want to take the president’s blood sample.
Kendall says, “You said you wouldn’t do that unless you have some basis
to believe.” And Bob says, “We’ve got some basis to believe.”
Bob and a female FBI agent go to the White House. They call the president out
of a dinner party and Bob tells me Clinton was red in the face and so mad
because he has got to give his blood sample. Look — he knows. He
knows.
Playing Bill Clinton
In Moot Court
The first time, we had about 30 people in the room and Bob
Bittman is asking questions like, “Mr. President, did you ever touch
Monica Lewinsky?” And I say, “Well, Mr. Bittman, down South we hug
people; we hug people at weddings and funerals. That’s just cultural where I
come from. I hug lots of people. That doesn’t mean anything.” It takes me
about four minutes to answer the question. Then he asks, “Did you give
her any gifts?” And I say, “Mr. Bittman, we give hundreds of gifts
at the White House. Growing up, we used to keep extra gifts on the washing
machine in the kitchen, and if somebody came by and brought us a gift then
we’d have a gift to give them. Did I give her a gift? Yeah, I could have, but
I don’t remember.” We finally get through and a couple of young lawyers
watching us say, “Man, you’re better than the president.” Of course,
I said, “No, I’m not.”
By the next time, we had talked to Monica. I was up there
studying this stuff. It was very interesting going through it. I had
constructed this long chronology of the main events and facts. So I go in and
add the main Lewinsky events to my chronology. It was to me quite significant
that she detailed nine incidents where they actually did something. And about
seven or eight of them, there was some significant event going on in the other
part of the investigation. For example, the billing records [for the Rose law
firm] are, quote, “discovered” at the White House and produced for
us on January 5th, 1996. The next day the media goes crazy. And the next day,
the seventh, she comes over and they go back in the hallway and do their
thing. And they hadn’t done this in a while. Two weeks later on the 21st, a
Sunday, the lawyers for the Clintons are meeting in our office and I’m on the
speaker phone from Memphis. They’re asking our people, “Please don’t make
Mrs. Clinton come to the grand jury. This will be bad,” and so forth. At
the exact same time Monica and Clinton are in the hallway at the White House.
The nine times when she said she performed oral sex on him, something’s going
on. I mean, the day before David Hale testifies. I mean, I’m not saying when
you get under stress that’s an excuse, but with just about every one of those
[incidents], something is happening.
In the second moot court, Paul Rosenzweig, who’s on our staff, is
playing the part of David Kendall, Clinton’s lawyer. So he and I are kind of
off by ourselves. And everybody else in the whole office is trying to get
prepared. So when they go through and do this four-hour thing, clearly it’s
like I’m getting the best of them. And I’m running out the clock, too. I’m
going into the four-corner offense.
The guys who are reviewing this say, “You need to get more
aggressive, you need to not let him ramble. You need to do that with respect,
but you need to sharpen the questions. You spent too much time asking him
about the ties that Monica gave him.” They actually show me an Internet
picture of Clinton and the tie, and they say, “That’s the tie she gave
you, isn’t it?” And I say, “Well, you know, y’all may be trying to
make something out of it but I’ve got about four ties like that, and in fact
Hillary gave me a tie like that, and that’s one of my favorites because I love
my wife.”
It made our guys have to go back and sharpen up their questions.
You can’t let him filibuster like that. It’s kind of like a football game.
You’re scouting the other team’s best player. The first time I’m denying. The
third time, though, they’re getting very precise. And I say, “Wait a
minute. Let me tell you something. They didn’t ask me in the civil deposition,
‘Did Monica Lewinsky perform oral sex on you?’ If they had, I’d have had to
say yes because I wasn’t gonna lie. But they didn’t ask me that.” And I
also said I wasn’t going to go into the details because it was too
embarrassing to my wife and daughter and I love them and so forth.
So what he in fact did, as everybody knows now, he reads a
statement at the start of the deposition and says he had an inappropriate
relationship but he was not going to go into the details.
Leaving the Office Of the Independent Counsel
The judges asked if I would stay to the end. I said, no, don’t
appoint me. The end meant reports, and unlike a regular prosecutor where you
either indict or you don’t, you have to do this detailed report with
footnotes, notify everybody who is named, give them an opportunity to look at
it and comment. Then it’s up to the special division whether they want to make
it public. We had about 4,000 boxes of records, including 2,500 boxes in
Little Rock. I had gone on in September of 1994. When they asked in September
of 1999 if I could stay on until the end, I said, no, I just couldn’t do it.
I’d had my fun.
You can e-mail John Branston at branston@memphismagazine.com.