Did Hillary Clinton out George HW Bush’s affair with aide? Bombshell book claims it sent Barbara into depression
A new book has noted how Hillary Clinton revealed President George HW Bush's alleged affair with his assistant, which purportedly sparked his wife's long battle with depression.
A new book about the Bushes titled 'Grace & Steel: Dorothy, Barbara, Laura and the Women of the Bush Dynasty' has detailed the apparent affair between the 41st president and his aide Jennifer Fitzgerald of Boston.
Hillary made the claims about the affair in a bombshell interview with Vanity Fair and the backlash reportedly led to Bush's presidential loss to her husband Bill Clinton in 1992.
RELATED ARTICLES
Bush's mother, Dorothy Walker Bush, had already warned him that his affair would follow him "forever", according to a copy of the book obtained by Daily Mail.
In 1974, rumors of the affair circulated as the future president was working as chief of the US Liaison Office to the People's Republic of China. His wife Barbara even contemplated suicide because of the alleged affair, the book claims. At the time, 91-year-old Dorothy Bush reportedly told her son to "fix it" or risk his future prospects in US politics.
Two decades later, claims of the apparent affair became public when Hillary Clinton spoke about it in the Vanity Fair interview. During the conversation, the former secretary of state said she had been having tea with Ann Cox Chambers, who was chair of Atlanta Newspapers Inc at the time.
"Everybody knows about George Bush," Chambers said, according to Clinton. "The establishment, regardless of party, sticks together. They're gonna circle the wagons on Jennifer and all these other people."
Dorothy Bush is said to have claimed the controversy that possibly cost her son the presidency was "all Hillary's fault" as she had "stirred" it all up, according to the book. Bill Clinton was accused of having an affair with Gennifer Flowers in January 1992, just months before Hillary's Vanity Fair interview.
J Randy Taraborrelli, the author of the new book, had previously written biographies on several prominent figures, including Jackie Kennedy and Beyonce. In his latest work, Taraborrelli examines the tensions between Nancy Reagan and Barbara Bush during the time their husbands were working in the White House together as president and VP respectively, according to The Sun.
Bush strongly denied the affair, but the former president and his aide parted ways soon after the controversy when he did not win a second term. According to the report, Bush apparently told his mother that it was "not what it looks like," to which Dorothy is said to have replied, "It's always what it looks like."
The new book, which is set to be released on Tuesday, March 2, claims Bush hired Fitzgerald as his "special assistant" before heading over to China for his liaison role.
Following a heated argument about the aide, Dorothy reportedly returned home to the US while Fitzgerald stayed back with Bush in China. That Christmas was said to be the first Bush and his wife Barbara didn't spend together in nearly four decades. However, both Bush and Fitgerald have publicly denied the affair.