Blumenthal: Clinton was 'ministering' to Monica

Human Events, Oct 16, 1998

`Religious Conviction' Compelled President Into Lewinsky's Arms

When White House aid Sidney Bunenthal appeared in Independent Counsel Ken Starr's grand jury on February 26, he was asked what the President had told him about his relationship with Monica Lewinsky. Invoking executive privilege, Blumenthal refused to answer.

Four months later, on June 4, Blumenthal was hauled back before the grand jury, under, orders from a federal judge to answer the question.

Hillary and Bill Clinton, he said, both told him the President's relationship with Lewinsky was simply the "ministry of a troubled person," which Clinton felt compelled to carry out because of "religious convection."

Here is the whole story, according to witness Blementhal.

Deputy Independent Counsel Solomon Wisenberg: Okay. Are you prepared to answer our question that's on the table?

Blumenthal: I am. I wonder if you could just restate it, please?

Q: I probably can't restate it verbatim. Blumenthal: That's quite all right.

Q: But what we want to know initially is everything you remember about this-as I understand from your testimony last time, it was approximately a 30-minute meeting with the President within a week after the January 21 st Washington Post story which broke in the legitimate press the Lewinsky story. So our question is tell us everything you remember about . . the circumstances of the meeting and the content of the discussions in the meeting.

Blumenthal: I am happy to do so. I recall that it was January 21st, the day the story broke. I recalled that more precisely after you asked me the initial question. It was early in the evening. It was a week before the State of the Union Address.

I was a principal writer of the State of the Union and was working on that at the same time that I was working on the visit of British Prime Minister Tony Blair, for which I had major responsibilities. He's an old friend of mine, I introduced him to the President and the First Lady, and I act as a personal liaison between the President and the Office of the Prime Minister. And he was visiting the week following the State of the Union, so I had enormous responsibilities in that period.

I was in my office and the President asked me to come to the Oval Office. I was seeing him frequently in this period about the State of the Union and Blair's visit. So I went up to the Oval Office and I began the discussion and I said that I had received-that I had spoken to the First Lady that day in the afternoon about the story that had broke in the morning and I related to the President my conversation with the First Lady and the conversation went as follows:

The First Lady said that she was distressed that the President was being attacked, in her view, for political motives, for his ministry of a troubled person. She said that the President ministers to troubled people all the time, that he has ministered to-and he does so out of religious conviction and personal temperament. She said to me on that occasion, "If you knew his mother, you would understand it."

As a matter of fact, I did know his mother and once spent a whole day with her in Arkansas as a reporter and I do understand it. She was a very open-hearted person.

And the First Lady said he had done this dozens if not hundreds of times with people. The President came from a broken home and this was very hard vo prevent him from trying to minster to these troubled people.

So I related that conversation to the President. And I told him my opinion because it is my duty to offer him candid and frank advice. And I said to him that I understand that you feel this way, but

Q: Feel that way?

Blumenthal: That you want to minister to troubled people, that you feel compassionate, but that part of the problem with troubled people is that they're very troubled and you were able to do this before and I know you've done this since with many people-and I know of these incidents, I know of-and they're not done for publicity at all.

I know of a woman in Arkansas who claims he saved her from suicide by helping her out. I said, "However, you're President and these troubled people can just get you in incredible messes and you just-I know you don't want to, but you have to cut yourself off from them."

And he said, "It's very difficult for me to do that, given how I am. I want to help people."

I said the he really shouldn't"You really need to not do that at this point, that you can't get near anybody who is even remotely crazy. You're President."

He said to me that-Dick Morris had called him. Now, I know Dick Morris, the political consultant who had helped the administration in the reelection campaign and I know Dick Morris very well, so the President and I have discussed Dick Morris in the past.

He said Dick Morris had called him that day and he said that Dick had told him that Nixon-he had read the newspaper and he said, "You know, Nixon could have survived Watergate if he had gone on television and given an address and said everything he had done wrong and got it all out at the beginning."