Free A Vast Conspiracy by Jeffrey Toobin Page A

church, asking them why they did not discipline this man, or excommunicate this man, or censure this man. This man is flagrantly promoting rebellion against God’s word. We are going to grass-roots America and rip off the facade. This is the single most un-Christian administration in the history of this country.”
    So, on April 15, the tour did indeed kick off in the parking lot of Hillary’s former law firm, and there Terry’s motor coach was joined by a satellite uplink van belonging to Vic Eliason. A minister based in Milwaukee, Eliason used the van on behalf of the Voice of Christian Youth, an organization that syndicated radio programs to about two hundred religious stations around the country. Eliason, Terry, and Mahoney spent the day broadcasting from the parking lot, calling on a series of local guests, including a man who accused Clinton of participating in a conspiracy in the murder of his father. During the course of the call-in portion of the show,Mahoney heard the name Paula Jones for the first time. After a caller brought Jones’s claims about Clinton to Mahoney’s attention, he asked his assistant, Gary McCullough, to see if he could arrange to speak to her. McCullough tracked her down, and Mahoney, sitting in the satellite van, spoke to Paula for about forty-five minutes on the telephone.
    It was a difficult time for Paula and Steve Jones—scant attention, little money, and no lawsuit. In addition to her paid session with Matrisciana, which had not yet been broadcast, she did two interviews for free. She and Steve spoke to a reporter from Pat Robertson’s 700 Club , which produced a taped spot. (“We want to warn our viewers that this interview contains graphic descriptions that are offensive to all of us, but especially for your children,” the anchorwoman said in introducing the piece.) Paula and Traylor also appeared on a live local television program called A.M. Philadelphia . The lawyer was horrified to see that Paula wore what appeared to be a brown negligee for that interview.
    Mahoney was the first person to show sustained personal interest in Jones and her story. Over the next few days, Mahoney called Paula and Steve several more times. They began praying together over the telephone. Gradually, Steve took over most of the communications with Mahoney, and they decided that they needed higher-powered legal help than Traylor could provide. There was one problem. Almost as soon as Mahoney heard Paula Jones’s name for the first time, he heard a rumor that naked pictures of Paula existed somewhere. He knew this could be a problem if she embarked on a lawsuit against the president. In one of their first telephone calls, Mahoney asked Steve if these pictures existed. After checking with Paula, Steve told Mahoney the answer: there were no pictures.
    Though he mostly operated on the fringe of American politics, Mahoney was a man of considerable sophistication, and he recognized that it would help Jones’s cause—and hurt Clinton’s—if she was represented by a feminist organization. After all, they were the ones who were supposed to be concerned about sexual harassment. So Mahoney persuaded Patricia Ireland, the head of the National Organization for Women, to participate in a conference call with Jones. But Jones was confused about the time, and she missed the call. Mahoney then fell back on his contacts in the religious right. That, he knew, was the most likely source of a lawyer who might want to sue Bill Clinton.
    The anti-Clinton bus tour wound through the Midwest and finished its journey on Sunday morning, April 24, outside the Foundry UnitedMethodist Church in Washington, where the president and first lady were attending services. Randall Terry led about twenty protesters in prayer.
    “Father,” he said, “this is not a Christian president.”
    A week later, Paula Jones had new lawyers.

    The search for new lawyers began, as did so much else, with Cliff Jackson. Traylor recognized from