FL: Could you recount briefly your own reporting on Clinton and the stories you found down in Arkansas....

REMPLE:

Well, I went down to Little Rock for eight months in 1992 to look into the background of Bill Clinton and it began right after the Gennifer Flowers scandal had broken. But it was not aimed at looking into his sexual background, it was to look into the broad range of who he is, I mean we didn't know very well outside, in California. And looking at his business partners, his political history, who had influence in his life.

And I wasn't there very long, a matter of hours or days before I was getting the early stories about his womanizing and the sexual issues and the affairs, and they it turned out to be a deluge over time. It wasn't one or two, it wasn't a handful, it was incredible numbers. But what mattered ultimately, the how do I say this. At first it was just more like the Gennifer Flowers thing, which at the time when it broke, I was among the critics of our newspaper, saying what are we doing, this is not journalism, this is cheap politics, I didn't appreciate how this was, might be, or if this could be sort of a pattern in the man's life, or it was an aberration.

Once in Little Rock, it became clear that maybe this was not an aberration. And the stories piled upon stories and all these rumors unverifiable sometimes with more details than others, but I never had enough to write in '92 about these. So in '93, a year later, he'd been in office for almost a year when the Arkansas state troopers call, or I was introduced to them, the stories they told I was, I understood the details, I knew where to go, what questions to ask, because I was able to test specific stories, and they were the one thing we didn't have in '92. I never had in '92, corroborating information. It was always someone very close to one of the participants knew this, or that. And even in the stories that had some potential public interest value, that is to say Clinton in, would do some favor using his office to return a favor to a woman or he used his troopers to facilitate a rendezvous or to protect it or cover up on it. What I never was able to acquire in '92 in the reporting of it was anything that would do more than repeat a rumor. Couldn't prove it, couldn't corroborate it, couldn't even provide it with reasonable support.

In '93, the troopers provided that. They told specific stories, they told of specific events. Times, places, names, and as eye witnesses willing to talk about it on the record, gave it new credibility. Well, even before they did that, the issue seemed to be a reasonable one to talk about.

Here was a man we didn't know, wanting to be President. The most powerful job in the world, and we don't know him, we can't know him, we haven't sat in a room with him, the country has a desperate need to be informed about him. The best we can do, the best that a journalist like me can do is provide some glimpses, based on the past. It's not a perfect way to get to know someone. It's the only way I have to learn about them is to go back and look in the closet essentially. Which is what I felt like I was doing, I was in Bill Clinton's closet for eight months in '92 looking into the draft issues and the friendships that he had, and the financial and political connections that he had. Those stories were nearly as well, the draft was a controversial one, the draft, in fact, the draft and the sexual issues have a nexus in that they deal with his truthfulness.

The draft wasn't really an issue, that he avoided the draft in the Vietnam era was not an issue to a vast majority of this country. What mattered was that he lied about it. He maintained a position that he didn't try to avoid the draft, it was sheer luck that he avoided it. Well, that was simply untrue. And our reporting, my reporting, and that of Jeffrey Birnbaum of the Wall Street Journal, proved that it was not true.

And in the women thing again, he didn't tell the truth, it wasn't, it was a combination of the fact that he he had these affairs, and the troopers show that the Gennifer Flowers story was largely a true story. Their evidence corroborated much of her story a year later. So Clinton, when he got up in front of the people, the country on 60 Minutes and denied it, was not telling the truth. Those issues, the public needs to know it. The public at the same time has come around if you believe the polls and said it doesn't matter. And we filtered that, we factored that in --we're informed, thank you very much, we still support Bill Clinton. Well that's fine. It doesn't mean that the journalistic role isn't still the same, is to inform. And so, you know, I my feelings that it's a news story haven't changed at all. I still think it's a legitimate area of inquiry, and the public's informed.

FLN: And how does this inform our view of his leadership potential....

REMPLE: Well, clearly one of the issues that matters....in a relationship with another human being, honesty is one of the essentials of a good relationship. I will trust you if I want to trust you. I want to trust the President of the United States. I want to trust the Governor of my state, I want to trust the police officer down the street. I want to trust people that I know and that I rely on. If I can't do that, then the reason for that has to be explored as a journalist, I want to find out if I can trust the person who wants my vote. The vote, and the trust of this country. I guess, ultimately, I can't answer that question for anybody, or for, maybe for most people. I can only look for clues. And I look for them in their track record. I look for it in their relationships.

I've never before, prior to this story, have I ever looked for it in the sexual relationships of someone running for office, I've never, fortunately for me, had to do this before. I found, personally, looking into someone's sexual history, a very difficult, uncomfortable, I don't have the words to tell you how uncomfortable it made me. And I don't care to do it routinely. I don't aspire to be a reporter for the National Enquirer, and I don't want to do that kind of a story as a rule.

But in the case of Bill Clinton, it was such a part of the story that people in Arkansas told me about him, that it was one I couldn't ignore. And, my partner and I, Doug France, had one particular moment when we had to go out and talk to the women that we knew had had those relationships, had to go knock on those doors, and ask them about their relationships with Clinton. It's one of the worst times I've ever had. We would literally drive around the block seven or eight times before we would finally--we've got to do this, got to face it. These were simply salacious elements hat we were trying to find out, we had to give them a chance to respond, and I, the sexual elements of the story were inescapable.

I thought this was a real story--it spoke to his use of office, abuse of office, abuse of authority, to the extent that these were verifiable and true stories they reflected on how he used authority, when he had it as a governor. And leave it to the voter to decide whether it matters, or whether he, the voter fears or is concerned that if he uses that sort of conduct as a President whether he'll want him to be there as a President or not. But we were, I was, Doug was, we were in the process of informing. But it was a very difficult thing. The editors were equally concerned about it, they were looking over what we were doing, and they had a hard time coming to terms with it, we all did. And as we discussed earlier today, I don't think that it's wrong to feel uncomfortable about it. I'm glad to feel uncomfortable about it. I don't want to do those stories, it has to be some compelling reason to do it before going off into that territory.

FL: But the compelling reason, what was it for you.....

REMPLE:

It was a good story, it was an important story. It was a story, the issue of his infidelity, the issue of the women, the women issue was, does he tell the truth. That was the issue. Does he tell the truth and does he abuse his office. Does he use the power, I mean it's like he's the boss of a company, does he use the power and authority of his position to, to get sexual favors. Then it's sexual harassment or it's abuse of office, or and it's honesty. I mean, he's looking through the camera lens at us and making us promises. Can we trust them? Well? Some yes. Maybe some no. I don't know. In this case, there was a track record to suggest that he doesn't always look in the camera and tell the truth.