Unlikeable (15 page)

Jarrett vowed to seek revenge against the Clintons.

Her first opportunity came when Monica Lewinsky suddenly resurfaced after years of living in obscurity. Jarrett discreetly put out word through intermediaries that the White House would look with favor if the media gave Monica some ink and airtime.

Reporters jumped at the chance.

Jarrett was also the source of leaks to the press about Hillary's use of her private e-mail account and the location of Hillary's e-mail server in Chappaqua. According to someone who spoke directly with Jarrett,
the e-mail scandal was timed by Jarrett to hit the headlines just as Hillary was on the verge of formally announcing that she was running for president.

Jarrett was careful to make sure that her fingerprints weren't on the leaks. She used people outside the administration to pass on information to reporters so the story couldn't be traced to her or the White House.

In addition, Jarrett ordered the State Department to launch a series of investigations into Hillary's conduct at Foggy Bottom, including the possible abuse of her expense account, the disbursement of funds, her contact with foreign leaders, and her collusion with the Clinton Foundation.

Altogether, Jarrett launched
six separate probes into Hillary's performance at the State Department. She planned to pile on the scandals, one after another, until Hillary sank beneath the wreckage of a ruined reputation.

CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 23

ON THE QT
ON THE QT

[Hillary] will defend, I know, her own record for herself. It's not my job to do it.

—Secretary of State John Kerry

N
one of this took Hillary by surprise.

According to a high-ranking State Department official, Secretary of State John Kerry had
let Hillary know on the QT that Valerie Jarrett was out to sabotage her campaign for the White House. Kerry said Jarrett had ordered investigators to do a thorough review of Hillary's State Department papers, and the investigators were also interviewing Foreign Service officers in a hunt for incriminating evidence against Hillary.

There were several reasons that might have explained why Kerry gave Hillary a heads-up.

First, he had mixed feelings about Jarrett.
When Kerry was a senator, Slate ranked him as the most vain member of that body,
and it wounded his amour propre that Jarrett had not put him forward as Obama's first choice to replace Hillary at State. Instead, Jarrett pushed the nomination of UN ambassador Susan Rice, a close personal friend of both Jarrett and First Lady Michelle Obama. But Rice was sidelined after she appeared on five Sunday talk shows and falsely blamed the deadly attack at the U.S. mission in Benghazi on a “spontaneous” demonstration fomented by an Internet video mocking Islam.

What's more, it was Hillary who introduced Kerry at his confirmation hearing in the Senate. And when Kerry took over at Foggy Bottom, he gave a shout-out to Hillary.

“So here's the big question before the country and the world and the State Department after the last eight years,” Kerry said. “Can a man actually run the State Department? As the saying goes, I have big heels to fill.”

But all had not been sweetness and light between Kerry and Hillary.

“When Kerry made a comment in 2006 that students should study hard ‘and if you don't, you get stuck in Iraq'—something he said when he was considering another presidential bid—Clinton was quick to publicly criticize him,” reported the
Boston Globe
. “In 2008, Kerry endorsed Barack Obama over Clinton.”

So why was Kerry going out of his way to curry favor with Hillary?

Political insiders suggested that Kerry was trying to stay on good terms with both sides in the Clinton-Obama feud. He needed Obama's support to carry out his job as secretary of state, a cabinet post he had wanted ever since he lost the 2004 race for
the presidency. But he was also keeping an eye on the 2016 race—just in case Hillary faltered.

“Kerry is focused on creating a legacy for himself as secretary of state—and he's thinking a lot more about Iran than he is Iowa,” the
Boston Globe
noted. “But while he would not challenge Clinton in a primary, he still harbors some presidential ambitions.

“‘If she imploded . . . I gotta believe that this would be something that at least would cross Kerry's mind,' said one Kerry confidant. ‘I've never wanted to be president. But my gut tells me it's hard to lose that lustfulness.'”

The Clintons had a fifth column of friends in the media who confirmed what Kerry had told Hillary.

“My contacts and friends in newspapers and TV tell me that they've been contacted by the White House and offered all kinds of negative stories about us,” one of Bill's friends quoted him as saying. “The Obamas are behind the e-mail story, and they're spreading rumors that I've been with women, that while Hillary was at the State Department she promoted the interests of people and countries who'd done favors for our foundation, and that John Kerry had to clean up diplomatic messes Hillary left behind.”

But for all of Bill's anger, he and Hillary were in a quandary about what to do.

If they directed their attacks on Obama, the first black president, they risked alienating the base of the party—blacks, Hispanics, single women, young people—whose support they needed in
the coming primaries and general election. On the other hand, how could they allow the investigations of Hillary's tenure at the State Department to go unanswered?

The sticky situation weighed heavily on Hillary.

“She's grinding her teeth at night again,” said a friend. “She has a plastic mouth guard so that she doesn't damage and wear out her teeth. And she and Bill are drinking more than usual. When they're out on the campaign trail, they're all right. It's during lulls in the action that the pressure gets to them.”

CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 24

SOMEBODY “O'MALLEABLE”
SOMEBODY “O'MALLEABLE”

[Obama is] luckier than a dog with two dicks.

—Bill Clinton, during the 2012 presidential race

A
fter the Democrats took a shellacking in the midterms and the Republicans gained control of both houses of Congress, Bill Clinton gave an interview in which he seemed to pin the blame for the losses on Obama.

Obama's decision to postpone an executive order granting amnesty to millions of illegal immigrants, Bill said, may have been responsible for “a loss of the Hispanic vote.”

As far as Obama was concerned, that was the last straw.

He was fed up with being lectured by Bill. He realized that there would be times when he couldn't avoid personal contact with Bill, but he intended to make those occasions as rare as possible.

He ordered a White House aide to call Huma Abedin and schedule a meeting with Hillary. It was made clear that the invitation was for Hillary alone; she was to come to the White House without Bill. He was no longer welcome in the Oval Office.

The meeting with Hillary was set for early December 2014 and was described to the author of this book by several sources—some close to Hillary and others close to Valerie Jarrett. Hillary showed up in black slacks and a tight blue and brown tweed jacket. She was ushered into the Oval Office, where Obama offered her a perfunctory handshake. He motioned for her to take a seat on one of the sofas while he retreated behind the big oak Resolute desk, which has been used by presidents since John F. Kennedy.

Hillary sat there, waiting.

Obama ignored her while he took several phone calls.

Hillary checked messages on her BlackBerry.

After a few minutes, Valerie Jarrett entered the Oval Office unannounced and sat across from Hillary. She made small talk about their families. Hillary responded by lamenting the outcome of the midterms.

Then Michelle came in the same way Jarrett had—unannounced—and took a seat next to Hillary.

Finally, with his reinforcements in place, Obama joined the group. He sat with Jarrett, facing Hillary.

“You must be busy ramping up for your campaign,” Obama said to Hillary. “I'm personally glad to not have any more campaigns to run.”

Hillary bobbed her head.

“I just want to make it clear that I'm going to be neutral in the primaries,” Obama said. “Very neutral until a candidate is chosen.”

Hillary tried to say something, but Obama raised a hand to silence her.

“I know Bill's wanted me to throw my support your way, but I don't want to have that argument with him again,” Obama said. “I'm just staying out of it.
Period
.”

It was obvious to Hillary that he meant
period
literally: it was the end of the discussion.

For the rest of the hour, they touched on the challenge posed by the Islamic State in the Middle East and the trouble Vladimir Putin was stirring up in Ukraine. Then Obama stood up and showed Hillary out of the office.

A few days after the meeting, Jarrett met with a friend and filled him in on the “mini-summit” with Hillary.

“After Hillary was gone,” the friend said, recalling his conversation with Jarrett, “Michelle and Val congratulated Obama on handling Hillary so well. They were gleeful about Hillary being shut down and walking away with nothing.

“Michelle and Val will go to any lengths to prevent Hillary from becoming president,” the friend continued. “They believe that Hillary, like Bill, is not a true-blue liberal. If she gets into the
White House, they believe she'll compromise with the Republicans in Congress and undo Obama's legacy.

“With Obama's approval,” this source went on, “Valerie is doing her best to see that somebody who's more simpatico, and whom they can control more than Hillary, gets the nomination. They like Martin O'Malley. Valerie thinks that he would be—in her words—‘O'Malleable.'”

Valerie's search for an alternative to Hillary took on added urgency in the summer of 2015 when she received the results of a private poll that she had commissioned of key Democratic Party constituencies, including blacks, Hispanics, youths, and single women. The internal poll showed that Hillary fared poorly among many of the groups that made up the party's base, and that she was therefore a far more vulnerable presidential candidate than most political observers suspected.

If Hillary got the party's nomination, Valerie concluded, there was more than a fifty-fifty chance that she would go down to defeat and lose the White House to the Republican nominee, which would be the worst possible fate for Barack Obama's legacy.

According to a source who discussed the matter with Valerie, she and Obama spent hours going over the pluses and minuses of potential presidential primary challengers to Hillary—both those who had already declared their candidacies (Martin O'Malley, Jim Webb, Lincoln Chafee, and Bernie Sanders) as well as those
who hadn't (Joe Biden). Their conclusion: of all the potential candidates, Joe could mount the most potent challenge to Hillary.

The trouble was, Biden had fallen into a deep depression following the death of his forty-six-year-old son, Beau. The vice president was in no condition to launch a primary campaign.

With Obama's approval, Valerie helped Biden seek psychiatric help for his depression. She also began a series of political discussions with Biden at a gingerly pace, trying not to apply too much pressure on him. But she left no doubt that if and when Biden chose to run, he would have the complete support of the Obama White House.

By late summer 2015, as Biden began to emerge from his deep grief and mourning, he gave permission to his chief of staff, Steve Ricchetti, to take the soundings of uncommitted donors and Democratic Party leaders about a possible run.

The soundings came back positive. Ricchetti found that the death of Beau Biden had created a deep pool of sympathy for the vice president.

“What would Beau have wanted Joe to do?” suddenly became a mantra among Biden supporters.

The answer was obvious: Beau would have wanted his father to run.