XXXXX DRUDGE REPORT XXXXX 02/02/99 22:08 UTC XXXXX EXCLUSIVE: WHITE HOUSE PRESSURES 2ND NETWORK NOT TO AIR 'JANE DOE' STORY White House spokesman Joe Lockhart personally warned a news network on Tuesday not to air a story on Juanita Broaddrick, the DRUDGE REPORT has learned. The development comes two weeks after Broaddrick sat for an exclusive in-depth interview with NBC NEWS reporter Lisa Myers -- an interview that NBC NEWS executive have determined is not fit for air. FOX NEWS CHANNEL on Tuesday evening ran with a story about the interview and questions swirling around NBC NEWS. According to network sources, earlier in the day, Lockhart called FOX NEWS CHANNEL's White House correspondent and warned him not to pursue the story. "You guys will regret this," Lockhart told the reporter. "Clinton haters have been putting this story out for a decade now, as far back as the '92 campaign." Lockhart warned: "If you go with the story after NBC NEWS decided not to there won't be any argument about whether FOX NEWS is right wing or not." White House spokesman Joe Kennedy later called FOX NEWS to explain that Lockhart's comments were strictly "off the record," according to a well-placed source. Meanwhile, Lisa Myers has been told by management not to comment on her spiked interview with Broaddrick. Over the weekend, Broaddrick told a friend that she is now deeply disappointed in NBC, a network she says "hounded" her for nine months to get the interview and is now giving her the run-around. "It had been very painful to relive the experience which she had buried deep down for years," says a source. "But she thought she could clear it up once and for all and make the media go away with a one-time only statement." "Now she's in an even worse fix -- calls, e-mails and people driving by all the time. NBC seems like its protecting the president, and she feels used after eight hours under the kleig lights with them." On Tuesday, NBC NEWS Washington bureau chief Tim Russert was hit was a "Jane Doe" question on the IMUS IN THE MORNING radio show. As captured by HOTLINE: IMUS: "So, are you people at NBC News sitting on this Lisa Myers interview with Juanita Broaddrick?" RUSSERT: "This is one of the most amazing stories that I've ever been involved in, because it just hit the internet, and hit talk radio. The answer is very simple. If we honestly had a buttoned-up bombshell, we would go with it in a flash. That's what we do for a living, and every time you're involved in a story, this one or any other story, who, what, where, why. And when you lock up all those various corroborations, you go with the story. If you don't, you don't go with it. There are four or five stories we're working on, Lisa Myers has led the way in her coverage of this entire episode. And, believe me, if and when we lock up a story, we'll go with it. If we don't, we won't." On if a tape of the Myers/Broaddrick interview exists: RUSSERT: "I'm not going to get into where we are. It's a work in the process, about a whole lot of things." But last week, one NBC insider told the DRUDGE REPORT: "The story is done, our investigation is over! I challenge anyone to point out the holes in Lisa's piece." Russert neglected to point out that Myers first reported details of Broaddrick's story last March 28 on NBC NIGHTLY NEWS, just days before the Paula Jones case was dismissed. MYERS: "The explosive new allegation tonight is that President Clinton sexually assaulted a woman 20 years ago in Arkansas. It involves an alleged encounter at this Little Rock hotel in the late 1970s, between then Attorney General Bill Clinton and campaign worker, Juanita Broaddrick. In court documents today, Paula Jones' lawyers claim Clinton quote 'forcibly raped and sexually assaulted' Broaddrick, then quote "bribed and intimidated her" to remain silent. Sources say that Broaddrick, now 54, recently denied under oath that such an assault occurred. But Jones' lawyers claim she had told their investigator she had suffered a quote 'horrible thing' at the hand of Clinton, and did not want to relive it. And NBC NEWS has talked to four people from Arkansas who say Broaddrick told them of such an assault years ago." FOX NEWS CHANNEL's Rita Cosby, in a story that aired on Tuesday night, expanded on many of the details first reported by Myers. COSBY: "The alleged assault occurred when Broaddrick was at a nursing home conference at this Little Rock hotel 21 years ago. At the time, Bill Clinton was Arkansas's state attorney general and running for governor. Sources say he was going to meet her in a conference room, but at the last minute he switched the location to a hotel room. A friend of Broaddrick's who attended the conference saw her right after the alleged assault. Norma Kelsay told FOX NEWS that Broaddrick said she had been assaulted by Clinton. Quote, "She was hysterical," Kelsey said. "Her lip was blue and bleeding, and her hose were severely torn in the crotch area." Three other close to Broaddrick, say Broaddrick gave them similar accounts. But Kelsay says Broaddrick told her never to tell anyone about what happened in the hotel because she didn't want any publicity and feared she would be blamed because she let him in her room." Broaddrick's local paper the TIMES RECORD of Arkansas reported over the weekend that Broaddrick has been spending time in her rural Crawford County home behind an electrified fence. ---------------------------------------------------- Filed by Matt Drudge Reports are moved when circumstances warrant http://www.drudgereport.com for steaks and breaks (c)DRUDGE REPORT 1999 Not for reproduction without permission of the author
