Battling a private-email scandal and related Department of Justice and FBI investigation, Hillary Clinton and her husband Bill are joining President Obama at the lavish home of one of their closest Monica Lewinsky-era scandal fixers.
Presidents Obama and Bill Clinton played golf together Saturday at Farm Neck Golf Club on the Massachusetts resort island of Martha’s Vineyard with longtime Clinton adviser Vernon Jordan. Rounding out the foursome was Ron Kirk, former Obama administration U.S. Trade Rep.
Vernon Jordan’s 80th birthday party Saturday night is set to include Obama and both Clintons as guests. Jordan is a longtime summer resident of Martha’s Vineyard, where the Clintons and Obama and his wife Michelle also frequently vacation.
So who is Vernon Jordan? And why does it make sense for the Clintons to seek his counsel now?
During Bill Clinton’s presidency, Vernon Jordan was referred to in the press as “The First Friend,” and he earned that honorific title during the scandal involving Clinton’s affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky. Clinton asked Jordan to get his mistress Lewinsky a job at the United Nations Ambassador’s Office in order to keep her quiet in the months before the scandal erupted on the homepage of The Drudge Report.
“Well, go home and make sure they are not there,” Jordan reportedly told Lewinsky when the former intern told him about the existence of personal letters that she planned to send to Clinton.
“Well, maybe you two will have an affair when he’s out of office,” Jordan told Lewinsky in one pre-scandal conversation while assuring her that Clinton would remain married to Hillary.
The Clintons are spending the rest of August at art collector Andre Nasser’s Martha’s Vineyard mansion, which the Clintons are renting for two weeks for $100,000.
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.