WASHINGTON — At the height of the Monica Lewinsky scandal, a senior aide to Hillary Rodham Clinton forwarded a far-fetched potential defense to the White House: a Talmudic interpretation that Bill Clinton wasn't guilty of adultery.
"According to classical Jewish law, President Clinton did not commit adultery; adultery is defined as a married man having intercourse with a married woman, and Monica Lewinsky is single," said the Jan. 27, 1999, e-mail that ended up with White House adviser and political fixer Sidney Blumenthal.
"At worst, President Clinton is guilty of the common sin of onanism [masturbation], a sin that probably afflicts the consciences of most Jewish men at one time or another."
The e-mail was sent to Hillary Clinton's domestic-policy adviser, Ruby Shamir, by Linda Commodore, a Long Island woman who was forwarding a detailed argument from Susannah Heschel, a professor of Jewish studies at Dartmouth and the daughter of noted theologian Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel.
The record was one of about 10,000 released Friday by the Clinton presidential library in Little Rock, Ark., the final batch of previously undisclosed files from his administration.
"From the perspective of Jewish history, we have to ask how Jews can condemn President Clinton's behavior as immoral, when we exalt King David?" Susannah Heschel wrote.
"King David had Batsheva's husband, Uriah, murdered. While David was condemned and punished, he was never thrown off the throne of Israel. On the contrary, he is exalted in our Jewish memory as the unifier of Israel."
In other newly released documents, Blumenthal, who testified before a federal grand jury during the Lewinsky probe, can be seen operating as a political enforcer as the scandal exploded.
In one 1998 memo, Blumenthal fingers conservative pundit Bill Kristol, who had said he knew of Lewinsky's dalliances with Bill Clinton before the story broke. Blumenthal notes Kristol had ties to a top opposition researcher from former Vice President Dan Quayle's staff and to conservative Federalist Society members.
"In other words, Kristol is linked to the plotters," he said.
In what looked like political payback, White House aide Megan Maloney sent four Clinton staffers a 1999 transcript of radio host Tom Joyner making crude jokes about the "skills" Lewinsky learned at the White House.
"You have to suck it up! And get on your knees and pray!" Joyner is quoted as saying.
Maloney wrote, "Please keep this in mind the next time he asks for an interview."
Another document catalogs the loss of a gold saxophone pin worth $4,200 that was intended as a gift for Clinton in 1994.
Titled "misplaced gift item," the document, written by associate counsel Cheryl Mills, says the pin from saxophonist James Steele was "inadvertently" recorded as accepted by the president when, in fact, it was "misplaced before the president even became aware of its existence."
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