MediaWatch: March 1998
Table of Contents:
Myers on Hubbell's Ties
Twice in early March, NBC reporter Lisa Myers charged ahead of her TV colleagues by highlighting on the Nightly News evidence of hush money paid to Webster Hubbell.
When Vernon Jordan appeared on March 3 before the grand jury to answer questions about his role in getting Monica Lewinsky a job, Myers gave detail to a theme ignored by ABC and CBS and barely touched on by CNN, explaining: "Jordan is on the hot seat in the grand jury because not once but twice he arranged jobs for key witnesses just as they were in a position to provide damaging information about the President."
In addition to Lewinsky, Myers explained that "after Hubbell resigned from the Justice Department in disgrace, Ken Starr was pressuring him to provide damaging information on the Clintons. Jordan came to the rescue, getting Hubbell a $25,000 a month job at Revlon, allegedly to do public relations. But prosecutors suspect this was hush money." That’s a story all the networks ignored when first disclosed on May 27, 1997 by USA Today.
A week after her Revlon payment story Myers delivered the first broadcast network mention of another phony deal for Hubbell. Picking up on the news of the day that Starr might indict Hubbell for tax evasion, Myers explained on March 11: "The potential charges involve taxes on hundreds of thousands of dollars in controversial fees Hubbell received in 1994 after he resigned from the Justice Department in disgrace and before he went to prison."
Myers continued: "In all, the President’s wealthy friends provided Hubbell more than $500,000 in so-called consulting fees, far more than he ever earned in any year of his life. Some of the money came from the city of Los Angeles for work on an airport project, but the city’s controller found that Hubbell filed false statements, billing the city for work never done."
Myers deserves credit for getting some air time for the airport deal, but it took a few months. "Hubbell Cheated L.A., a City Audit Claims," announced a front page story in the June 24, 1997 Los Angeles Times, skipped by all the networks at the time.
