Morals of a Muckraker

"I remember being agitated at the time," Bennett says. "It was a dishonest thing to do. . . . He misled us."

Moldea's move caught the attention of attorneys for President Clinton, who was battling the Republican effort to impeach him, and the reporter submitted an affidavit detailing his allegations.

In late 1998, Moldea says, a private detective put him in touch with Flynt, who asked him to investigate whether Clinton's opponents had also engaged in sexual dalliances. "It took me about five seconds to say yes," Moldea says. He was angry about the effort to drive Clinton from office, and signed on for $125 an hour.

Moldea soon learned that Bob Livingston, a Republican congressman from Louisiana who was on the verge of becoming House speaker, had engaged in extramarital affairs. Livingston promptly resigned, and Flynt decided not to release the details. He gave Moldea a $35,000 bonus for the discovery.

Moldea also says he discovered that the outgoing speaker, Newt Gingrich, was having an affair with a House aide who is now his third wife. But, he says, Flynt decided not to out Gingrich because he had already quit.

At the time, Moldea told this reporter that "some Republicans on Capitol Hill should be sending us flowers and thank-you cards. They weren't going on TV talk shows shooting off their mouths [about Clinton], or going to the floor of Congress to seize the moral high ground. We've thrown them back in the river."

Conservative critics interpreted that as a veiled threat by Moldea to expose only Republican philanderers who criticized Clinton. A Wall Street Journal editorial, titled "Abetting Blackmail," said: "One Dan Moldea has appeared from almost nowhere to volunteer as the source of Mr. Flynt's dirt." The piece questioned whether Moldea was "being aided and abetted by agents of the president," which he denied.

The conservative Landmark Legal Foundation asked the Justice Department to investigate, saying that Moldea "appears to have been endeavoring to influence and impede these congressional proceedings" against Clinton.

Moldea fervently believes he played a role in the Senate's subsequent acquittal of Clinton, although it never appeared there were enough Democratic votes to oust the president. "There was a right-wing attempt to overthrow the executive branch of government, and I thought I could be sacrificed," Moldea says. "This was important enough for me to risk being destroyed."

But there was a plus side for Moldea. "He loves getting attention," Leamer says. "He loves seeing his name. He really gets off on that."

Once the dust settled, Moldea fell on hard times. He turned to consulting, mainly for liberal public-interest groups, to make ends meet. Moldea has not won a book contract since the late 1990s. "Some people have hit a wall with me where they just feel I'm trouble," he says.

In March, after the D.C. Madam story broke, Moldea says he thought that "maybe I could get back in the game again." He had lunch with Palfrey and they signed a contract to collaborate on a book about her life and her battle against prostitution-related charges. No publisher has been found yet.