Capitol Punishment
Stiehm, Jamie
Capitol Punishment How the Hill's religion of the revolving door cost me my job in a Senate office. Business As Usual: Bill Clinton says he's going to clean up Washington, but the people with the...
...They rose up as a group, satisfied with a job well done...
...the issue of the magazine with the Lewan note in it wouldn't appear until the end of the week...
...Others cried as Lewan spoke...
...I was thinking about the effect on my co-workers, especially a group of legislative assistants who had befriended me: Barbara, Sarah, Nina, and Joyce...
...I was new to Capitol Hill, a speechwriter in Lieber-man's office, so Lewan's announcement didn't affect me deeply...
...The next morning was Friday...
...On Tuesday, Michael and I flew to California for Thanksgiving...
...I've got to catch up, she said...
...And you asked how the senator voted on Clarence Thomas, another chimed in...
...Still I had not leaked anything...
...He returned to the office on the following Wednesday, and I spoke to him on the telephone in the late afternoon...
...On Monday afternoon, while I was working in the senator's office, Michael Lewis called...
...36 The Washington Monthly/Junel993...
...But he wouldn't run the piece if I objected, knowing it might put me in a bad position with the office since my relationship with Michael was fairly well-known...
...This was going to end up in a Republican negative campaigning file...
...By then I started to feel a chill setting in...
...This was Lieberman's first significant negative publicity since he was elected in 1988 and increasingly, the sense in the air was that /, not Lewan or Lewis, was responsible...
...We'll keep you on the payroll for a month...
...Lewan called me in again that week...
...This should be the worst thing that ever happens to you, he said, quoting his mother...
...I had just turned on my computer when I heard Bill Bonvillian, Lieberman's chief counsel, behind me...
...I noticed that doors were uncharacteristically shut around the office...
...As I sat there, I realized that however civilized they appeared, they were fundamentally a tribe...
...He told me that he had written a short, unsigned editorial note for the magazine, criticizing Lewan's move and challenging Lieberman to say something about it...
...It was, after all, the story of my day...
...But he was...
...I made an appointment to see the senator the next day...
...I'm a lawyer, and right now I have only one client, and his name is Joe Lieberman," said one...
...You wouldn't do that," I said, not thinking he was serious...
...I'm on trial here I said, and, even among lawyers, I've been convicted by gossip and whispers...
...So I sat there, silently, while Barbara kept on: Why are you still here, Jamie, if you think so little of us...
...We think the only way to go is for you to resign...
...I began by saying I had never been disloyal to him...
...Nobody is getting any work done...
...He would be happy to speak for the quality of my work...
...Barbara, I noticed, had not said a word to me...
...Would Lewis have written the note if I hadn't told him the news...
...Lewan had, after all, said we were free to tell others about his decision...
...That is always all that matters," she said...
...My next stop was to visit a woman who worked in another office on Capitol Hill...
...But that won't always be true...
...Looking it all over, as I have many times since it happened, I do not pretend to be a First Amendment heroine...
...New to Washington, I stumbled into a culture I didn't understand...
...But Washington was about to drum me with one of its oldest cultural truths: The instinct to keep up appearances and protect the boss will drive otherwise fully formed adults into a tribal hysteria...
...He said it was outrageous that Lewan was crossing over from public service to private interests—not only to a lobbying firm, but to a mostly Republican one, with a Watergate dirty trickster on its letterhead...
...Lieberman, who is close to Clinton, is often held out as an example of the new idealism...
...I told him the way it had happened: I had told Michael Lewis the news, since Lewan himself had said that we were free to tell others...
...He didn't want to force me out...
...He would be missed...
...I told him what Lewan had said and where he was going...
...This is a good time to look for a job in Washington, and we'll help you find one...
...Last week the Republican lobbying firm of Black, Manafort, Stone & Kelly hired for an undisclosed six-figure salary Michael Lewan, assistant to Democratic Senator Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut...
...The rule was, don't do anything, however peripheral, that might hurt the chief...
...one staffer referred derisively to "your boyfriend's rag...
...Not action, but the appearance of action...
...I really want to know who wrote this, he said...
...Jamie Stiehm is a Washington writer...
...Bill said he would try to arrange this, but unfortunately the senator was "incommunicado in Disney World" for the next two or three days...
...34 The Washington Monthly/June 1993 Ken—let's say Ken, but it could have been anyone—said that you asked whether the new administrative assistant would be a woman, and whether the senator was good about hiring women...
...The senator was the only one who could turn things around...
...he was a popular figure at the center of the senator's staff, a veteran who had kept the operation together...
...I had done it without any idea that it would be published...
...The way something looks, not the way it is...
...That same Tuesday, the news about Lewan's job change appeared in Lois Romano's gossip column in The Washington Post, which alleviated any doubts I had that this was indeed a story, fair and square, in the public domain...
...I would have to explain everything...
...The New Republic, December 14, 1992 bv Jamie Stiehm P I ^en days before this appeared on Wash-I ington newsstands, Lewan, with tears in A his eyes, broke the news to Lieberman's staff, which he had led since 1989...
...He says yes...
...They saw nothing wrong with Lewan's move and equated lobbying with the right to legal counsel...
...Staff freeze The next day, I barely made it to work...
...Capitol games When I returned to work on Monday, Lewan called me into his office, pointed to the item and asked me what I thought he should do about it...
...People we've worked with for a long time say they can't work with you...
...I had to decide then and there, and I decided not to ask Michael to drop the story...
...Lois [Romano] is a friend of mine," he said...
...Lewan's move was also reported in National Journal and Roll Call that same week...
...Business As Usual: Bill Clinton says he's going to clean up Washington, but the people with the money clearly don't believe him...
...I didn't feel as strongly about Lewan's going over to the private sector, but thought public information is just that...
...He had never seen anything like this in his life...
...No response...
...But I suspected he wasn't going to take a public stand on my guilt or innocence, and I was right about that...
...That night, I went to dinner with my beau, Michael Lewis, a writer at The New Republic...
...Yeah, well, the trial's over, said Bill...
...And another: This is what blows my mind more than anything: that you are supposed to make the Senator look good...
...On hearing my story, she said, "You broke the biggest rule...
...They don't represent South Africa," Lewan joked of his new firm, trying to lighten the moment, "and that's about where my ethics end...
...He had mentioned earlier that it would be a good thing for me to write a letter of resignation...
...The senator was scheduled to speak to the staff that morning, and he was addressing everyone when I walked in...
...But "relations were so ruptured," as he put it, that perhaps it would be for the best...
...Lewan said I had broken "bonds of trust" with my colleagues that would take time to rebuild...
...Bill laid it out nice and clean for me...
...I sent a computer note to Sarah, asking her if we could talk...
...Jamie, can Jim and I talk to you...
...Clearly, The New Republic story had rankled the office...
...When I mentioned it was in the Post, Lewan said that he himself was the "source" for that story...
...I had just reported a piece of news...
...I then met with two top staffers...
...I take you at your word," he said, and "life is full of many chapters...
...Over the weekend, I decided I wasn't going to do anything, much less resign, without speaking to the senator...
...I had, in their minds, broken the code and was now associated with the enemy—in this case, a critical press...
...Barbara's last words to me were: I won't try to hurt you, Jamie—which was a big relief—but stay out of my way...
...he had never expected it and I was clearly miserable, judging by the look on my face when I walked into the staff meeting the day before...
...I had walked to the Metro that night with Barbara, and I could see how much Lewan meant to her...
...The rest of that day at the office—the Friday before Thanksgiving—was mixed with mourning and congratulations...
...And I was sorry it had happened that way...
...But all that seems to matter here are appearances," I said...
...Yes, everyone has a story like that, said Nina...
...Jim, the press secretary, was quick to point out, It's not the story...
...June 1993/The Washington Monthly 33 Michael Lewis cared more about the political angles of the story...
...To understand what followed, remember how Capitol Hill works: The cult of personality, of fealty to the Representative or the Senator (the capital letter is always implied) overrides everything, including rational thought...
...We ought to put it in the magazine...
...I didn't feel I had the right to tell him not to write about a piece of public information...
...I had to make my own decision about this...
...Two men in my office and I debated the merits of leaving the Hill to lobby the Hill...
...Perhaps on his next television appearance he will explain why his former aide is worth hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, and why Lewan was so quick to take the money and run...
...What was clear was that it was all over, not just between me and Barbara, but between me and everyone there...
...The senator, again, was as friendly as he could be...
...Michael Lewan is now at his lobbying firm, and the tribal dance goes on...
...It's the staff reaction to the story...
...Then I asked Nina if she wanted to go to lunch...
...Then I was in for a rebuke...
...When I ran into her, she said simply, "I'm too crazed...
...Lewis saw this as a textbook case of Washington's revolving door...
...That hysteria cost me my job—all for a paragraph commenting on something that, by the time The New Repubic appeared, had already been publicized...
...This is a news story," he said...
...And now look at what you've done...
...I didn't answer the question he didn't ask: Did I know who wrote it...
...When I spoke to Bill afterward, he said he would look into a "severance package...
...Is that distinction clear to you...
Vol. 25 • June 1993 • No. 6
