David Schippers at President Clinton's impeachment trial in 1998 |
After reading WND's report of Kathleen Willey's stolen manuscript, David Schippers – the chief counsel for the 1998 impeachment trial of President Clinton – told Willey he had a remarkably similar experience prior to publication of his best-selling book and believes the Clintons also were behind it.
During the writing of "Sellout: The Inside Story of President Clinton's Impeachment" in the spring of 2000, an intruder came into his suburban Chicago home at least four times while his wife was alone upstairs, Schippers told WND in a phone interview from his Chicago law office.
On the third or fourth occasion, a box of impeachment-related documents was stolen, he said.
The intrusions followed a series of claims by his wife, Jackie – who typed the manuscript from his handwritten text – that her computer was being hacked.
"My suspicion was that the Clintons, or some of their toadies, were trying to find out what we were writing before we submitted the manuscript," Schippers said. "Nobody else would have any interest."
Willey, a key witness in the impeachment case who was prepared to testify to the Senate that President Clinton groped her in the Oval Office, told WND last week she was the target of an unusual house burglary. While she was asleep upstairs in her Virginia home last weekend, she said, the thief stole a copy of a manuscript for her upcoming book, which promises explosive revelations that could damage Sen. Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign.
Schippers told WND be believes what happened to Willey "was deliberate and designed to scare the hell out of her" and find out what is in the book.
"They will go through it page by page, and they will set up their war room," he said.
Schippers said another author of a book with serious accusations against the Clintons, Jayna Davis, claimed similar harassment during the writing of "The Third Terrorist: The Middle East Connection to the Oklahoma City Bombing," published by WND Books. Davis, who worked with Schippers in her investigation, said, among other things, she had her computer hacked and her phone tapped.
Schippers also pointed out Gary Aldrich, author of "Unlimited Access: An FBI Agent Inside the Clinton White House," claimed he gave his manuscript to the FBI for approval, as required, and the agency promptly turned it over to the White House.
"If they can get a heads up on what's coming out, they will be able to attack it," Schippers explained.
Schippers said that as it turned out, his book didn't receive much public criticism from the Clintons because it was as hard on Republicans as it was on Democrats. In "Sellout," a New York Times best-seller, he told of GOP senators who refused to allow evidence on the floor, including highly disturbing testimony from Willey and others that formed a pattern of alleged abuse and intimidation of women by the president.
Schippers said that when his wife first indicated she thought opponents of the book were hacking into her computer, he thought she was "paranoid."
"Originally, I poo-pooed it," he said. "I didn't think the book would be anything. I thought it would sell a hundred copies."
Jackie Schippers told WND that on at least four occasions, from about late April to early May of 2000, she believed an intruder walked through the unlocked door of their house into the entryway where the computer on which she was typing her husband's manuscript was plainly visible.
The intrusions, she said, were at the same time of the morning, about 8 a.m. or 9 a.m., after her husband had left their Northbrook, Ill., home to head to his office in downtown Chicago.
She explained that with 10 children and 26 grandchildren, she was accustomed to family members coming and going. She was having difficulty with mobility at the time, and so she usually would call out from upstairs, asking who was there.
During the first three intrusions, she said, she yelled downstairs to see if it was a family member and got no response.
On the fourth occasion, she remained quiet and made her way to a window facing the front yard. She got there in time, she said, to see a white car peeling backward out of the driveway and speeding down the street. She was unable to get a license plate number.
After the third or fourth incident, she said, she discovered a box of documents related to the impeachment case was missing.
David Schippers said when his wife reported the incidents to the Northbrook police, he was skeptical of her insistence that someone was targeting the book manuscript.
But with each intrusion, his suspicions grew, and on the fourth occasion he told his wife, "You were right."
A staffer for the Northbrook Police Department told WND records of filed complaints would not be available before publishing of this story. Jackie Schippers said that when she made the report, she spoke with the police chief – who is no longer with the department – and asked him to keep an eye on their house.
At the time, she said, it was obvious someone was hacking into her computer. Computer technicians who came to the home said the machine was being accessed through a wormhole, she said.
"They said, 'I have never seen a computer with this kind of stuff on it. It's really weird," she recalled.
'Sopranos stuff'
Willey told WND the break-in at her house reminded her of the widely reported incident 10 years ago in which she claimed she was threatened near her present Richmond-area home by a "jogger" just two days before she was to testify against President Clinton in the Paula Jones sexual harassment case.
Kathleen Willey on "60 Minutes" in 1997 |
Schippers, a former federal prosecutor who battled the Chicago mob, said the efforts to keep Willey from testifying against Clinton were "crime syndicate stuff, Sopranos stuff."
"It was the same pattern: scare, scare, scare," he said. "They thought they had her locked in (on Clinton's side). They thought they had Monica Lewinksy locked in."
Schippers noted it would have been obvious who was to blame if anything had been done physically to Willey or other women prepared to testify against Clinton.
Instead, they used scare tactics, he said, and "always did it one-on-one."
"The jogger is a classic example," Schippers said.
The theft of a copy of Willey's manuscript came only days after the first mainstream media mention of her upcoming book, which is expected to include accusations of campaign finance violations and new revelations about harassment and threats by the Clintons and their associates.
"Here we go again; it's the same thing that happened before," Willey told WND. "They want you to know they were there. And they got what they wanted. They pretty much managed to terrorize me again. It scared me to death. It's an awful feeling to know you're sound asleep upstairs and someone is downstairs."
The book, "Target: Caught in the Crosshairs of Bill and Hillary Clinton" by World Ahead Publishing, WND Books' partner, is due for release in November. Willey said the stolen manuscript was not a copy of the book's final edit.
Among its revelations is Willey's identification of the person who threatened her just prior to her testimony against President Clinton – a man who turned out to be linked to the Clintons.
Longtime Clinton lawyer David Kendall and Sen. Clinton's presidential campaign have not responded to WND's requests for a response to Willey's new claim.
Anne Reynolds, crime analyst for the Powhatan County Sheriff's Department, told WND she could only confirm, due to department restrictions, that there was a break-in and entry reported Saturday in the vicinity of Willey's address and that an officer responded and turned the case over to the criminal investigations department.
Willey said she has spoken with an investigator.
Are you a representative of the media who would like to interview the author of this story? Let us know.
Special offers:
"Their Lives: The Women Targeted by the Clinton Machine" by Candice E. Jackson.
'Mega Fix': The dazzling Clinton political deceit that led to 9-11
Finally, Hillary in her own (unedited) words
Hillary's attempt to muzzle Farah, other Net journalists
Was Ron Brown murdered? How 1 man's death saved the Clinton presidency and Hillary's future
Previous stories:
Kathleen Willey: Clintons stole my manuscript
Clinton's sex-assault accusers to tour Bill's library
Willey to release anti-Hillary book
Book: Hillary threatened husband's accusers
Previous columns:
What part of 'resign' does Condit not understand?