There was also a criminal inquiry under way into...
There was also a criminal inquiry under way into the conduct of Freehs deputy, Larry Potts, in the deadly standoff at Ruby Ridge in 1992, for which the FBI had been heavily criticized and Potts had been censured before Freeh appointed him

Freeh had been criticized in the press and by Republicans in Congress, who cited the FBI missteps as the reason for their refusal to pass the provision in my anti-terrorism legislation that would have given the agency wiretap authority to track suspected terrorists as they moved from place to place

There was one sure way for Freeh to please the Republicans in Congress and get the press off his back: he could assume an adversarial position toward the White HouseWhether out of conviction or necessity, Freeh had begun to do just thatWhen the files case became public, his initial reaction was to blame the White House and decline to accept any responsibility for the FBIWhen the campaign finance story broke, he wrote Janet Reno a memo that was leaked to the press, urging her to appoint an independent counselWhen reports surfaced of possible attempts by the Chinese government to funnel illegal contributions to members of Congress in 1996, lower-level agents briefed people well down the chain of command in the National Security Council about it and urged them not to tell their superiorsWhen Madeleine Albright was preparing to go to China, the White House counsel, Chuck Ruff, a respected former classic chanel quilted bag Uattorney and Justice Department official, asked the FBI for information about Beijings plans to influence the governmentThis was clearly something the secretary of state needed to know about before meeting with the Chinese, but Freeh personally ordered the FBI not to send its prepared reply, despite the fact that it had been approved by the Justice Department and two of Freehs top assistants

I didnt believe Freeh was foolish enough to think the Democratic Party would knowingly accept illegal contributions from the Chinese government; he was just trying to avoid criticism from the press and the Republicans, even if it damaged our foreign policy operationsI thought back to the call I had received the day before I appointed Freeh from the retired FBI agent in Arkansas pleading with me not to name him and warning that he would sell me down the river the minute it would benefit him to do so

Whatever Freehs motives, the behavior of the FBI toward the White House was just one more example of how crazy Washington had becomeThe country was in good shape and getting better, and we were advancing peace and prosperity throughout the world, yet the mindless search for scandal continuedA few months earlier Tom Oliphant, the thoughtful and independent-minded Boston Globe columnist, summed up the situation well:

The grand and vainglorious forces running The Great American Scandal Machine are very big on how things seemThe machines lifeblood is women's tank watch replica appearances, which generate questions, creating more appearances, all in turn generating a righteous frenzy that demands intense inquiry by super-scrupulous inquisitors who must at all costs be independentThe frenzy, of course, can be resisted only by the complicit and the guilty

August began with good and bad newsUnemployment was down to 4 percent, the lowest since 1973, and confidence in the future remained high in the aftermath of the bipartisan balanced budget agreementOn the other hand, the cooperation didnt extend to the appointments process: Jesse Helms was holding up my nomination of the Republican governor of Massachusetts, Bill Weld, to be ambassador to Mexico because he felt Weld had insulted him, and Janet Reno told the American Bar Association that there were 101 vacant federal judgeships because the Senate had confirmed only nine of my nominees in 1997, none for the court of appeals

After a two-year hiatus, our family went back to Marthas Vineyard for our August vacationWe stayed at the home of our friend Dick Friedman near Oyster PondI celebrated my birthday by going for a jog with Chelsea, and I persuaded Hillary to play her annual round of golf with me at the Mink Meadows public courseShe had never liked golf, but once a year she humored me by strolling around a few holesI also played a lot of golf with Vernon Jordan at the wonderful old Farm Neck courseHe liked the game a lot more than Hillary did

The month ended chanel watch j12 white as it began, with both good and bad newsOn the twenty-ninth, Tony Blair invited Sinn Fein to join the Irish peace talks, giving the party formal standing for the first timeOn the thirty-first, Princess Diana was killed in an auto crash in ParisLess than a week later, Mother Teresa diedHillary was very saddened by their deathsShe had known and liked both of them very much, and she represented the United States at both funerals, flying first to London, then to Calcutta a few days later

During August, I also had to announce a major disappointment: the United States would not be able to sign the international treaty banning land minesThe circumstances leading to our exclusion were almost bizarreThe United States had spent $153 million on demining all over the world since 1993; we had recently lost a plane with nine people on board after depositing a demining team in southwest Africa; we had trained more than 25 percent of the worlds demining experts; and we had destroyed 1 million of our own mines, with another 1 million scheduled to be destroyed by 1999No other nation had done as much as America to rid the world of dangerous land mines

Near the end of negotiations on the treaty, I had asked for two amendments: an exception for the heavily marked UN-sanctioned minefield along the Korean border, which protected the people of South Korea and our troops there; and a rewording of the provision approving anti-tank missiles that covered white chanel purse those manufactured in Europe but not oursOurs were just as safe and worked better to protect our troopsBoth amendments were rejected, partly because the Landmine Conference was determined to pass the strongest possible treaty in the wake of the death of its most famous champion, Princess Diana, and partly because some people at the conference just wanted to embarrass the United States or bully us into signing the treaty as it wasI hated not to be part of the international agreement because it undermined our leverage in trying to stop the manufacture and use of more land mines, some of which could be bought for as little as three dollars each, but I couldnt put the safety of our troops or the people of South Korea at risk

On September 18, Hillary and I took Chelsea to StanfordWe wanted her new life to be as normal as possible and had worked with the Secret Service to make sure she would be assigned young agents who would dress informally and be as unobtrusive as they could beStanford had agreed to bar media access to her on campusWe enjoyed the welcoming ceremonies and visits with the other parents, after which we took Chelsea to her dorm room and helped her move inChelsea was happy and excited; Hillary and I were a little sad and anxiousHillary tried to deal with it by scurrying around and helping Chelsea organize things, even lining her drawers with Contac paperI had carried her luggage up the stairs to her room, then fixed her bunk gucci backpack b