Analysis: Trump White House might learn more from studying Whitewater than Watergate

WASHINGTON — How do you say schadenfreude in Russian? That is what alumni of Bill Clinton's White House and Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign are thinking Thursday as James Comey testified on Capitol Hill.

There is a feeling in Clinton World that what goes around comes around. But as pundits increasingly draw comparisons to Watergate, many who suffered through the scandals of the 1990s are also experiencing a sense of déjà vu. As special counsel Robert Mueller ramps up his investigation, they're having flashbacks to Ken Starr.

President Trump repeatedly attacked the Clintons over Whitewater last year, even reviving the outrageous conspiracy theory that Hillary might have had a hand in Vince Foster's suicide. Candidate Trump also cheered on Comey, as the then-FBI director (perhaps fatally) damaged her presidential hopes.

Comey's appearance before the Senate Intelligence Committee will not bring resolution to the inquiries that threaten to imperil the president. Looking forward, a lot of Clintonistas see instructive parallels and lessons that Trump and his staff could learn from their experience. Here are eight:

1. "The Trump administration has yet to understand how the campaign investigation is likely to be the gateway to the inner workings of the Trump empire," writes Democratic wise man Doug Sosnik, who was a senior adviser to Bill Clinton from 1994 to 2000. "My lesson from those days: Trump and his advisers are in way over their heads and unprepared for what awaits them. . . . During the campaign and transition, the world of Trump remained a spider web of dealmakers whose mission was to expand the family's fortune, and perhaps their own. Anyone who played in this environment is now legally vulnerable. . . . The Comey hearing presents the next big test for Trump. His response will either accelerate the downward spiral or signal the administration's effort to reboot and increase its odds of survival."

2. Get used to the fog of war. "Having worked in a White House under investigation, I know from experience that it's even more disorienting than it appears," says Jennifer Palmieri, who was deputy press secretary in the Clinton administration, in an op-ed for the USA Today network of newspapers. "No one in a position of authority at the White House tells you what is happening. No one knows. Your closest colleague could be under investigation and you would not know. You could be under investigation and not know. It can be impossible to stay focused on your job."

3. Changing your story, even slightly, looks like a cover up. Jane Sherburne, as special counsel to Clinton from 1994 to 1997, handled Whitewater and associated ethics issues. In an op-ed for the Post, she offers seven pieces of nonpartisan advice to her successors about navigating the Russia crisis. Having covered Trump every day for two years now, this seems like the most important one:

"Put a process in place to ensure consistent and accurate communication about the facts. It should be the job of the special counsel to gather the facts and equip the president and White House staff to speak with authority . . . Anyone talking to the press or interacting with Congress should be armed with enough information to respond with consistent message points. . . . Bad things happen when key players stray from the message or have their own communications with the press or Congress that haven't been coordinated with the special counsel. Inaccurate information may be released that later needs to be explained or corrected, or a public statement may miss an important nuance that creates a legal issue or opens a new line of inquiry. Giving an unequivocal answer (e.g., 'No. No. Next question.') before all the facts are known or fully understood can be disastrous. . . . Loss of discipline deepens the crisis."

Take the initiative to disclose bad facts, Jane concludes: "Being tempted to evade the truth, or to shade it, will only end up creating more of a mess for a White House already in trouble."

4. Collateral damage is inevitable. Joe Conason, who co-authored a book about Starr's investigation called The Hunting of the President, notes that the special prosecutor couldn't take down Clinton, but he did ruin Jim Guy Tucker's life. Clinton's successor as governor of Arkansas was convicted on charges that he'd lied on his application for a loan a decade earlier when he was in the television business. "Trump's aides would be well-served by googling him — and Webb Hubbell, and Susan and Jim McDougal, and William J. Marks Sr. — about the brutal collateral damage of Starr's investigation," Joe writes for BuzzFeed. "Just like Starr and other independent or special counsels, Mueller may well prosecute offenses that appear tangential to the Russia case in order to turn targets into witnesses. . . . Seeking witnesses who would testify against Bill and Hillary Clinton, the Office of Independent Counsel . . . indicted well over a dozen of their friends and acquaintances, most of whom had nothing to do with Whitewater at all."

Mueller's reported decision to take over the Virginia grand jury probing former national security adviser Michael Flynn's lobbying for Turkish interests might be an early window into how he'll operate. "Flynn's legal jeopardy in the Turkish matter will provide heavy leverage over the retired general to testify about Trump," Joe explains. "And Trump's fractious and tarnished aides are a prosecutor's dream. It isn't hard to imagine major and minor disagreements among the eternally feuding Trump campaign team when they are brought in to talk with the special counsel's lawyers and FBI agents. What will Roger Stone, Corey Lewandowski, Paul Manafort, Steve Bannon, and Jared Kushner say about the campaign — and one another — under oath? Surrounding Trump are many potentially vulnerable people — and unlike Starr, Mueller won't have to stretch his mandate to examine them. . . . It isn't so far-fetched to imagine how Mueller might uncover new information about . . . Chris Christie, who barely escaped prosecution in the 'Bridgegate' scandal that sent three of his aides to prison. And then what would Christie say about Trump?"

5. The investigations will likely drag on beyond the end of Trump's presidency. The University of Virginia's Miller Center conducted confidential oral-history interviews with former Clinton administration officials that have just recently been released. Russell Riley, who co-chairs the program that conducted the conversations, wrote a book based on what he learned called Inside the Clinton White House. In a new piece for the Atlantic, he explains that there was conjecture within the Clinton inner-circle that the Whitewater probe would take only six months.

But then-White House counsel Bernard Nussbaum knew better. "This will last . . . as long as [Clinton is] president and beyond," Nussbaum recalled telling his colleagues. "They'll be investigating things years from now that we haven't even dreamed about today." "When I said that," he noted during his sit-down with the UVA guys, "Monica Lewinsky was a junior in college." No one could have imagined that an investigation into an Arkansas land deal (on which the Clintons lost money) would lead to an exploration of infidelity with an intern.

Mueller may not have an axe to grind like Starr did, but no one doubts that he will be very thorough. Garrett Graff (who wrote an excellent book about the former FBI director in 2011 called The Threat Matrix) recounts how Mueller, as an outside counsel brought in by the NFL to investigate the handling of the Ray Rice's domestic-violence case, turned over every rock. "His team, some of whom will now be working alongside him in the Russia investigation, devoured millions of documents, text messages, and emails; tracked down nearly every person who had been in the building; and called all 938 telephone numbers that called in and out of the league headquarters during the period in question," Garrett writes for Politico Magazine. "That thoroughness and Mueller's strong independence should terrify the Trump White House."

6. Even junior staffers will need to hire lawyers. "Staff members lawyer up and develop protective moats around themselves, undermining the esprit de corps essential for doing a high-pressure job well," the University of Virginia's Riley writes. "Clinton congressional liaison Lawrence Stein learned this quickly. His first day on the job came in January 1998, immediately after news had broken about the Lewinsky scandal. Stein was headed to a big meeting on the upcoming State of the Union when he stopped by the deputy chief of staff's office. '[John Podesta] was sitting there slumped in a chair talking to Doug Sosnik [then the White House political director],' he recalled in his oral history. 'Sosnik was going like this [jabbing his finger, pointing away from the door, indicating he should leave.] . . . Doug [says]: 'You know, you might want to find another room because you don't want to hire a lawyer.' On what should have been the most exhilarating day of his career . . . Stein was shown the door of the first office he entered and threatened that he, too, might get tangled in Starr's net. Clinton staffers quickly had to learn that there were certain things they dare not discuss, and that some meetings were better not attended."

Clinton's personal secretary, Betty Currie, recalled the pressure and frustration of being dragged before a grand jury: "They kept asking me questions about people," she said in her oral-history interview, "and at one point I told them, 'I cannot mention another name to you, because as soon as I mention a name, you subpoena these young kids who can't afford any lawyers. Now ask me what you want, but I'm not saying any other names.' "

7. This is so trite that I cringe to write it, but it's also true: It's not the crime. It's the cover-up. "Recent experience suggests Trump associates . . . face far more legal risk from their interviews and potential testimony than from any substantive activities," Phillip Carter, a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security and adjunct professor of law at Georgetown University, writes on Slate. " Starr's searching inquiry . . . never generated charges relating to the (Whitewater) deal itself, but it did snare the president himself (and ultimately led to his impeachment) when he made false statements under oath. . . .

"This dynamic owes mostly to the gray zone of intent and unlawfulness surrounding activities in the context of high government office," Phillip explains. "Flynn, as the designated national security adviser for an incoming president, had plausibly legitimate reasons to talk with Russian officials. Manafort, too, may have had plausibly legitimate reasons to do so as campaign chair. But no role in the campaign, transition, or administration comes with a license to lie to federal investigators. Former CIA Director David Petraeus arguably could have declassified and shared classified material with his biographer (who herself had a clearance by virtue of her reserve military service). What Petraeus could not do was lie to federal agents about his misdeeds, the offense he ultimately pled guilty to."

8. Finally, Trump almost certainly does not benefit as much from executive privilege and attorney-client privilege as he thinks. "A pair of legal showdowns between Ken Starr's office and the Clinton White House two decades ago erased the idea that presidents and their aides are protected by attorney-client privilege when talking with government lawyers," writes Politico's Josh Gerstein. "That means, effectively, that Mueller would likely be able to get access to the notes or testimony regarding communications among Trump, his aides, and White House lawyers such as Don McGahn. However, communications directly with Marc Kasowitz, Trump's personal attorney who's been tapped to lead the group of lawyers representing the administration in the Mueller probe and related congressional investigations, would be easier to shield."

But legal experts say there are limits and hazards to pushing scandal-related matters to outside lawyers: "One danger is pushing too much responsibility to Kasowitz, who may face challenges interfacing with White House staffers other than Trump as well as with officials at federal agencies like the Justice Department and FBI," Josh notes. "Some lawyers said it is even possible Kasowitz could be deemed a White House staffer if he takes on too large a role. . . . Tensions between White House counsel and outside lawyers are also common, since the government-paid team is often more responsive to political concerns while the outside lawyers tend to be focused more on avoiding criminal liability."

Lanny Davis, who served on the Clinton White House team handling scandal-related matters, said protecting the secrecy of legal strategy could be especially tricky for the undisciplined Trump, who likes holding large and freewheeling meetings. "They've got to be very careful because waiver is very easy and can even be unintentional. If you're sitting in the Oval Office with Kasowitz and he's talking to Donald Trump and [Sean] Spicer walks into the room . . . that discussion could be subject to compelled testimony," Lanny, who now runs his own crisis communications firm, told Josh.

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