An Arkansas trooper says in an affidavit neither he nor his colleagues were offered jobs by President Clinton in return for their silence, contradicting a key allegation by two troopers who say they helped arrange extramarital affairs for Clinton when he was governor.
"President Clinton never offered or indicated a willingness to offer any trooper a job in exchange for silence or help in shaping their stories," Danny Ferguson said in a statement.However, in an interview Wednesday night with the Los Angeles Times, Ferguson repeated an earlier statement to the Times that Clinton had discussed with him a possible federal job for one of the two troopers. In that conversation, Ferguson said, Clinton was trying to find out what public disclosures trooper Roger Perry planned to make.
Asked by the Times if Clinton expressly said the jobs would be offered if the troopers remained silent, Ferguson said: "He didn't say those words."
Perry and Larry Patterson, and their attorney, Cliff Jackson, have said Clinton offered jobs to troopers in exchange for silence about his alleged affairs with various women. Lengthy stories in the Los Angeles Times and the American Spectator contained this allegation.
The White House acknowledged this week that Clinton had spokenrecently with members of his old Arkansas security detail, but the White House said the calls were proper and Clinton denied he made any job offers.
Robert Batton, Ferguson's attorney, supported the White House's story.
Batton said his client did speak by phone with Clinton in early September and inquired whether the president received a memo from Perry requesting a position on one of the president's councils on drugs.
Clinton was unaware of such a request, Batton said, but said he would try to track down Perry's request and asked Ferguson to get in touch with Perry to find out the content of Perry's memo and to get back in touch with Clinton. Batton said no further discussions took place.
Jackson said in response that his clients "stand by their full story, specifically the calls from Bill Clinton to Danny Ferguson offering a job both to Ferguson and to Perry."
Jackson said a former aide to Clinton was running interference for the president. Betsey Wright, a Washington consultant who was Clinton's former gubernatorial chief of staff, was in Little Rock this week and returned to Washington on Wednesday. She said she spoke with several people about the episode and the desire for a statement disputing the allegation of jobs for silence.
Earlier Wednesday, Patterson and Perry said going public has left them isolated.
"I'm scared to death. I've never felt so alone in my life," Perry told reporters. He said he decided to come forward with the allegations against the president because "I thought the American people ought to know this man."
At the White House, Clinton denounced their allegations and said, "They're outrageous and they're not so."
The troopers accused Clinton of promising other troopers jobs to keep quiet about his exploits but said they had not asked for or received a job offer.
"I did not ask Bill Clinton for a job. I would have liked to have been offered one, but I wouldn't have accepted it," Patterson said. He said all he ever asked Clinton for was a lateral transfer within the state police and to take a photograph with him. Both were promised but neither was delivered, he said.
Jackson and co-counsel Lynn Davis said they hadn't been paid and wouldn't be unless the troopers profit from a possible later book deal or some other kind of deal.
Clinton said in an interview Wednesday that the year has been filled with many ups and downs. But the lowest moment, he said, was when 18 U.S. troops were killed in a battle in Somalia.
Clinton said that he doesn't feel jinxed just because his successes often have been followed by disappointments.
"Nothing ever goes right forever in anybody's life; nothing ever goes wrong forever in anybody's life," he said.
Overall, Clinton said "I'm very pleased with the year we had in terms of the economy improving and many of the substantive legislative advances we had."
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TV interviews canceled
Interviews planned with Hillary Rodham Clinton for Thurday morning's talk shows on ABC, CBS and NBC were canceled because she insisted on limiting them to Christmas at the White House and the networks insited on asking about sexual and other allegations dogging her husband.
"Mrs. Clinton has said all she's goint to say on the issue. We're not going to dignify a ridiculous story further," spokeswoman Lisa Caputo said Wednesday.
The interviews were to have been taped Wednesday and aired Thursday. Caputo sadi the interviews were arranged tow weeks agot to do Christmas-related storeis with the first lady, and the White House insisted on abiding by those rules.