The White House made a public push to defend then-US president Bill Clinton during a series of investigations related to his affair with intern Monica Lewinsky and other matters, according to thousands of pages of documents released by the US National Archives.
The papers did not appear to reveal any new information that might affect a potential presidential campaign by former US secretary of state Hillary Rodham Clinton in 2016.
The documents, part of 10,000 pages of records from the Clinton administration released on Friday, focused on a number of painful chapters in the former first lady’s time in the White House and described how the president’s aides sought to defend her husband against impeachment.
The possibility of a presidential campaign has heightened interest in the documents by media organizations, political opposition researchers and historians.
Many records involving Lewinsky are redacted. Behind the scenes, Clinton officials were adamant that they were not trying to discredit her.
“There is no evidence whatsoever that the White House was directing or involved in any campaign against her,” Clinton aide Sidney Blumenthal wrote in a January 1999 memo.
However, the case caused political tensions.
An aide writes in one document that one Democratic governor explained “why he felt he needed to distance himself” from Clinton.
The papers also touch on the Whitewater investigation into Bill and Hillary Clinton’s land dealings in Arkansas and the pardons Bill Clinton granted in his final hours as president.
The Clintons were never implicated in the Whitewater case, but their real-estate partners, Jim and Susan McDougal, were convicted in a trial that also resulted in the conviction of then-Arkansas governor.
The documents touch on financier Marc Rich, who was indicted on fraud and other charges in 1983. He fled to Switzerland and was later pardoned on Bill Clinton’s last day in office.
Jack Quinn, who had left his role as White House counsel by then, suggests in a handwritten note that then-Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak discussed a pardon directly with Bill Clinton.
With these documents, the National Archives will have released about 30,000 pages of papers since February. Both US President Barack Obama’s White House and the Clinton Presidential Library in Arkansas signed off on their release.
Past installments of the documents have offered an unvarnished look at Bill Clinton’s two terms, including the shaping of his wife’s public image.
Hillary Clinton’s influence in the White House is explored in this latest installment, from her role in Bill Clinton’s unsuccessful healthcare overhaul plan to her 2000 US Senate campaign in New York. Bill Clinton left office in January 2001.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
A top Vietnamese property tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to death in one of the biggest corruption cases in history, with an estimated US$27 billion in damages. A panel of three hand-picked jurors and two judges rejected all defense arguments by Truong My Lan, chair of major developer Van Thinh Phat, who was found guilty of swindling cash from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) over a decade. “The defendant’s actions ... eroded people’s trust in the leadership of the [Communist] Party and state,” read the verdict at the trial in Ho Chi Minh City. After the five-week trial, 85 others were also sentenced on
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of