Title: Hillary Clinton's Former Boss Says He Fired Her From an Investigative Position Because She Was 'a Liar' and 'Unethical'? - Truth or Fiction?
Headings: Hillary Clinton’s Former Boss Says He Fired Her From an Investigative Position Because She Was ‘a Liar’ and ‘Unethical’?
Hillary Clinton’s Former Boss Says He Fired Her From an Investigative Position Because She Was ‘a Liar’ and ‘Unethical’?
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Content: The book reads like a Hollywood intrigue, which apparently occurred to Zeifman’s publisher, who promised on the book jacket to reveal “truths even more startling than those brought out in Oliver Stone’s movies Nixon and JFK .” Those films, remember, were works of fiction. This titillating tale was reprised in 2008 when Clinton ran for president, thanks to conservative columnist Dan Calabrese, who embellished it a tad, introducing Jerry Zeifman as “the guy who fired Hillary Clinton.” A catchy line, but untrue: Zeifman lacked the authority to terminate her, and it’s a matter of historic record that she wasn’t fired. As mentioned, the column was inspired by statements made by Jerry Zeifman, who served as counsel and chief of staff for the House Judiciary Committee during the Watergate investigation, and who wrote a book about the experience (the title of which was Hillary’s Pursuit of Power, which is an indication that it had little to do with chronicling Watergate itself.) It is also true that Ziefman accused her of being a “liar” and “unethical” during the House Judiciary Committee’s impeachment inquiry into Watergate, but claims that she was fired for those reasons are demonstrably false. Jerry Zeifman said he supervised Hillary Rodham Clinton as she worked on the team that worked on the Watergate impeachment inquiry, and that during the investigation Hillary Clinton had “…engaged in a variety of self-serving, unethical practices in violation of House rules.” According to Zeifman, Clinton (and others) wanted Richard Nixon to remain in office, so that Democratic senator Ted Kennedy would have a better chance of being elected president. He added that Clinton regularly consulted with Ted Kennedy’s chief political strategist (a violation of House rules) and that in addition to trying to help Kennedy win the presidency, Democrats also didn’t want Nixon to face an impeachment trial because they feared he might bring up abuses of office by President John Kennedy as part of his defense.