WASHINGTON — Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton was home in the White House on a half-dozen days when her husband had sexual encounters there with intern Monica Lewinsky, according to the current U.S. senator for New York’s schedule, released Wednesday among 11,000 pages of papers from her years as first lady.
The words of the schedules are dry, but they take on emotional weight when coupled with revelations about the sex scandal that eventually came to light. A year later, the first lady’s schedules show her pressing ahead with public events and showing her face as revelations about the scandal upended her life and threatened Bill Clinton’s presidency.
The papers also shed light on her struggle for health care reform early in the Clinton administration, her scaling back when that effort failed, her travels abroad and the legal woes that dogged the Clintons in the White House.
It’s unlikely she would be surprised at this late date to learn that the president was cheating on her while she was at home in the White House. But the release of the documents reminds voters anew about President Clinton’s affair and the impeachment proceedings.
The private crisis came at the most public of times for the first lady.
She had speeches scheduled at home and abroad. She appeared by President Clinton’s side at an education event where he angrily dismissed the reports of having sex with Lewinsky.
Her schedule has her choosing flowers for a black-tie dinner, congratulating “Guns Aren’t Cool” award winners and reading to kids in the week in January 1998 when allegations of the scandal begin coming out. She denounced a “vast right-wing conspiracy” in a TV interview.
Almost a year earlier, the schedules show, she was home on Feb. 28, 1997, the day when the Kenneth Starr report says President Clinton had a sexual encounter with Lewinsky in an Oval Office bathroom in the early evening, staining her blue dress.
Hillary Clinton had “drop by” events or meetings in the Map Room and Diplomatic Reception Room between 11 a.m. and 12:30 p.m. that day, according to her schedule. It also lists plays that night at Washington’s Arena Stage and National Theater, and a National Symphony Orchestra pops concert with singer Sarah Brightman at the Kennedy Center.
It is not clear whether Hillary Clinton attended any of those.
More than a year earlier, on Nov. 15, 1995, the first lady went to a midafternoon “meet and greet” photo opportunity at the White House with Nobel Laureates and their families. That night, Lewinsky had what she later said was her first sexual encounter with the president, in the private study off the Oval office.
On Jan. 21, 1996, the first lady and the president privately toured an exhibit at the National Gallery of Art. That afternoon, Lewinsky said, she and Bill Clinton had a sexual encounter in the hallway by the private study.
The schedules indicate she was home on at least two other days when her husband and the intern got together.
Twice, Hillary Clinton was overseas at such times.
The National Archives in Washington and President Clinton’s presidential library in Arkansas jointly released the first lady’s schedules after months of pressure from critics who say the Clintons were delaying the disclosure. The issue has dogged her in her bid for the White House.
In all, 11,046 pages have been made available. Nearly 4,800 pages have parts blacked out. Archivists said that’s to protect the privacy of third parties. Schedules for more than 30 days of activities were not included in this release.
Clinton said in her memoirs that she had little choice but to carry on with her appearances when the Lewinsky revelations came out. It was on Jan. 21, 1998, when her husband woke her up, sat on the edge of the bed and said, “There’s something in today’s papers you should know about.” He told her of the reports of his relationship with the former intern, and she said she believed his denials.
But on Saturday, Aug. 15, 1998, with the investigation closing in on the real story, he woke her up again and owned up to his misbehavior. She said in her book that she was grateful there were no public events that weekend.
Her Democratic presidential campaign released a statement Wednesday saying the schedules spanning her two terms as first lady “illustrate the array of substantive issues she worked on” and her travel to more than 80 countries “in pursuit of the administration’s domestic and foreign policy goals.”
Clinton says her years as first lady equip her to handle foreign policy and national security as president.
But the schedules show trips packed with plainly traditional activities for a first lady, along with some of substance.
For example, in her January 1994 visit to Russia with her husband, her schedule is focused on events with other wives. She sat in on a birthing class at a hospital, toured a cathedral and joined prominent women in a lunch of blinis with caviar and salmon.
The Clinton campaign said the schedules are merely a guide and don’t reflect all of her activities.
The papers show her tackling health care reform out of the gate in 1993, with a meeting three days after her husband’s inauguration and many more as the year went on, before her effort ultimately failed.
She was also involved in helping her husband win congressional approval of the North American Free Trade Agreement, a deal she now criticizes and says she would try to change.
Her White House policy role diminished markedly after the collapse of the health care initiative.
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