Women On the Move

Ebony, April, 1999

Cheryl Mills

White House Deputy Counsel

Determined, spirited and confident, these dynamic Sisters are making eye-catching contributions

As we rapidly approach the brink of a new millennium, Black women already have proven to be among the most interesting, persevering and creative beings on this earth. From the nurturing mother to the seasoned business executive to the devoted medical expert and all in between, their contributions will be instrumental in shaping the next century. On the following pages are four pacesetting Sisters who are examples of what can be accomplished with dedication, determination and opportunity.

SHE rocked the House. The White House, that is. And let's not even talk about what the Sister did to the United States Senate. When, during President Clinton's historic impeachment trial, White House Deputy Counsel Cheryl D. Mills stood in the well of the U.S. Senate and rebutted charges by Republican prosecutors that the president obstructed justice, a star was born. From the moment Mills' image appeared on television, the word went out from the White House: "Don't call while Cheryl is on."

The Senate was equally riveted. After four-and-a-half days of speeches by White men, a number of senators were stepping over themselves to praise Mills. "The presentation of Ms. Mills was one of the most remarkable that I've heard in the Senate or in my political career," Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) says.

Senator Robert Torricelli (D-N.J.) was so impressed that he publicly predicted her speech sounded the death knell for Republican efforts to impeach the president. "When the final chapter is written," he says, "this day will be remembered as the beginning of the end."

It will certainly be remembered as the day a young Black woman had all of Washington buzzing about what she did for the president, what more than a dozen middle-age lawyers all--standard-issue White guys--hadn't been able to do--make a roomful of seen-and-heard-it-all politicians sit up and listen, really listen, to the White House's side of the facts.

"She put it in terms I could understand," Robert Bennett (R-Utah) says of Mills, who graduated Phi Beta Kappa in 1987 from the University of Virginia and in 1990 from Stanford Law School.

In terms everybody in America could understand, Mills certainly put her feelings about the House managers' claim that civil rights will be harmed if the Senate fails to convict the president when she told the all-White Senate: "I'm not worried about civil rights because this president's record on civil rights, on women's rights, on all of our fights, is unimpeachable."

And just so everyone was clear about where the bedrock of civil fights lay, the 33-year-old attorney, only the third African-American to speak from the Senate floor, offered memorable comment: "The foundation of the house of civil fights is in the voices of all the great civil fights leaders and the soul of every person who heard them ... I stand before you today because President Bill Clinton believed I could stand here for him."

The president's belief was obviously well-founded. Almost everyone agrees that Mills was able to accomplish her main goal, which she says was to "help the Senators and everyone else appreciate the very human dimension of all this. I wanted people to appreciate Betty Currie, Monica Lewinsky and Bill Clinton--their decisions and actions and feelings--on a personal level because I think it makes everything clearer and much more understandable."

While Mills appeared calm, cool and collected as she laid out the White House case, in reality, Mills admits, "I was nervous." To calm herself, Mills says, she reminded herself of something her late aunt always used to tell her: "If it can be done, why not by you?"

And do it, Washington insiders agree, Mills did. In fact, you can't find a person in Washington who doesn't believe Mills, the daughter of a travel agent and career Army officer who grew up on bases around the world, can't name her job when she leaves the White House. "For Cheryl, the sky's the limit," says a Washington insider.

It may be. But her six-year tenure at the White House (she left the Washington power firm of Hogan and Hartson when she was 27 to join the pre-election presidential transition team) has not been without controversy. Two years ago, the House Subcommittee on National Economic Growth, Natural Resources and Regulatory Affairs was probing the Administration's use of a White House database, and Mills was accused of failing to turn subpoenaed documents over to the committee. The Justice Department has been asked to investigate her for possible perjury and obstruction of justice.

"This has been personally hard for me," she says of the charges, "because I feel that I did my job, and my supervisor, the counsel to the president, reviewed and approved the final decision I recommended in this matter. So it's been difficult to be criticized, much less challenged, for doing my job. I've had to learn, though, that sometimes we are all part of a larger agenda, and you cannot take things personally."