On the November 7 edition of his nationally syndicated radio program, Sean Hannity asked Kathleen Willey, author of the new book Target: Caught in the Crosshairs of Bill and Hillary Clinton (World Ahead Publishing), about the “jogger” who Willey alleged in her book had “harmed or killed” her cat and “threatened [her] children” two days before her deposition in the Paula Jones sexual harassment case (Page 121). Hannity asked, “Did you ever get any evidence on this guy, or any evidence of who he was working for, or do you just assume?” Willey replied: “I assume. I was shown pictures, I -- you know, I have an opinion of who it was, he -- FBI checked it out, and they found his excuse to be, for not being there, his alibi, was uncheckable, not so much ironclad as uncheckable.” But in her book, Willey claims that after FBI investigators “looked into” the man she suspected of being the jogger -- Cody Shearer, the brother of a Clinton White House aide -- she “was told that Shearer had an 'airtight' and 'ironclad' alibi, but another source told me that it was 'uncheckable.' ” Media outlets have reported Shearer's statements that he has documents proving he was in California at the time Willey claims she was confronted by the “jogger.”

From Pages 126-129 of Target:

A year after the jogger confronted me, Jackie Judd, a reporter with ABC, sent Dan [Gecker, Willey's attorney] a photograph of a man whom she suspected was my “jogger.” A lot of people suspected him. His name was Cody Shearer.

[...]

The man in Judd's photo was Cody Shearer, who had direct ties to the Clintons. At some point he had worked for Terry Lenzner, who owned a Washington D.C. investigation firm, Investigative Group International. The FBI investigators looked into it thoroughly. On the one hand, I was told that Shearer had an “airtight” and “ironclad” alibi but another source told me that it was “uncheckable.” In fact, when prosecutors for the Office of the Independent Counsel questioned Clinton aide Sid Blumenthal on it, he said that Cody Shearer “was in California during the so-called jogging incident, had the documents to prove it.”

On the May 11, 1999, edition of MSNBC's Hardball, host Chris Matthews asked Willey if she had positively identified “the picture of the person you think might have been” the “jogger” that Judd had sent to Willey's lawyer. When she asserted that she had, Matthews said, “So it's Cody Shearer.” Willey replied, “I can't tell you.”

From the transcript:

MATTHEWS: Let's go back to the jogger, one of the most colorful and frightening aspects of this story. You were confronted as you were out walking. You couldn't sleep, your neck was hurting, you co -- this guy came upon you you never met before.

[...]

MATTHEWS: Who showed you the picture of the person you think might have been him?

WILLEY: Jackie Judd.

MATTHEWS: From ABC?

WILLEY: Yes.

MATTHEWS: And did you identify it positively?

WILLEY: Yes.

MATTHEWS: So it's Cody Shearer.

WILLEY: I can't tell you.

Responding to Matthews' statement in his May 18, 1999, Salon.com column, Joe Conason asserted that "[h]ad Matthews bothered to do his job professionally, he would have discovered an important fact: The supposed perpetrator was more than 3,000 miles away from the scene of the alleged crime on the day it supposedly occurred. And there is ample documentation to prove it." Conason wrote that he had contacted Shearer, who said that he could prove “that he flew to Los Angeles before Christmas 1997 and didn't return until Jan. 11, 1998, the day Willey testified in the Jones case.” From the column:

Wondering whether any of this was true, I did what Matthews should have done and called Shearer. He told me that on the date cited by Willey, Jan. 8, 1998, he was far from her house in the leafy suburbs of Richmond, Va. He can prove that he stayed at the Hyatt Regency hotel in San Francisco on the night of Jan. 7 and that at 2:53 p.m. on Jan. 8, he withdrew money from a cash machine at the Embarcadero Center in that same city. In fact, he can show that he flew to Los Angeles before Christmas 1997 and didn't return until Jan. 11, 1998, the day Willey testified in the Jones case. By chance, he sat next to former Secretary of State Warren Christopher on the United Airlines flight back east.

Indeed, on the May 17, 1999, edition of Hardball, Matthews reported that he had recently met Shearer, who had “told me, in a very impassioned, but what seems to be a very credible way, that he was 3,000 miles away during that alleged pre-dawn meeting, and he can prove it.” Matthews also admitted that he “should have never brought his name up till we had vetted it.” From the transcript:

MATTHEWS: Before we get started with a favorite topic of mine, Bill Clinton and his leadership, I have to recount something that happened to me on Saturday afternoon. I had just come down the steps to the train platform at 30th Street Station in Philadelphia after spending the day with my brother, Jim. And a man approached me, shook hands and said, 'I'm Cody Shearer.' Well, after a moment of surprise, we had a heated discussion about Kathleen willings--Willey's appearance here last week, in which I brought up his name as the person Mrs. Willey had told a reporter was the man who approached her in a suspicious manner in January of 1998. She had made this identification to me in previous conversations.

Last week on the air she said she wouldn't divulge the name because the office of independent counsel was still investigating. Mr. Shearer told me, in a very impassioned, but what seems to be a very credible way, that he was 3,000 miles away during that alleged pre-dawn meeting, and he can prove it. Last week I read Mr. Shearer's denial from his attorney on the air. Today Mr. Shearer's attorney sent me a further letter stating that Mr. Shearer had nothing whatever to do with the events described by Ms. Willey.

He wrote, and I'm quoting here, “During the entire period that Ms. Willey identified, including the date on which she was accosted, Mr. Shearer was in California. He says he was -- he has documentary proof of that, including restaurant, ATM and other travel receipts."

Well, after my Philadelphia encounter with Mr. Shearer, which I did find credible, I now regret having spoken--having spoken about hi -- not spoken beforehand with him before I s -- mentioned his name on the air. I should have never brought his name up till we had vetted it.

According to a formal report released on March 6, 2002, by independent counsel Robert Ray, Willey has previously given contradictory stories regarding her allegation that Bill Clinton sexually assaulted her in 1993 during a private White House meeting in which she asked for a paid position in the administration. As Media Matters for America has noted, Ray stated that “Willey's Testimony to the Grand Jury About the Alleged Incident Differed Materially from Her Deposition Testimony Given in Jones v. Clinton.” Ray also stated that -- despite Willey's subsequent claims that she had been intimidated near her home shortly before giving her Jones deposition in 1998 -- Willey, in her Jones deposition, “testified no one had tried to discourage her from testifying.” According to the report:

Willey also alleged that in the period immediately preceding her January 1998 Jones deposition, her cat disappeared, her tires were punctured, and a male jogger whom she did not recognize approached her at her rural home, called her by her name, and asked about her tires, cat (which he named), children (whom he named), attorney, and her attorney's children (whom he also named), saying “I hope you're getting the message” or “You're just not getting the message, are you?” Willey 3/6/98 Int. at 18; Willey 3/10/98 GJ at 123-27. At her Jones deposition, however, Willey testified no one had tried to discourage her from testifying. Willey 1/11/98 Depo. at 86-87.

Willey told the grand jury that even though she was “terrified for my safety” because of these incidents, “I did give consideration to maybe not -- maybe not being very truthful in [her Jones v. Clinton] deposition because I thought that my -- that people close to me were in jeopardy.” Willey 3/10/98 GJ at 170-71. Despite the threats, Willey told the grand jury, she “decided that I had to tell the truth” at her deposition. Willey 3/10/98 GJ at 127. As noted below, see infra p. 92 and notes 50-52, there were material differences between Willey's deposition testimony and what she told the grand jury about the incident between her and President Clinton.

From the November 7 edition of ABC Radio Networks' The Sean Hannity Show:

HANNITY: Tell us what happened, and how you were harassed, and the types of things that were said about you after you came public with this.

WILLEY: Oh, I was in it for the money. Bob Bennett, his attorney, said a terrible thing about me that I can't even repeat on the radio.

HANNITY: Well, repeat it as best you can.

WILLEY: He called me, the day after my 60 Minutes interview, an “effing bimbo flake” -- no, an “effing floozy bimbo flake,” that's what it was. That was his -- that was the president's attorney. That's how these people act.

HANNITY: And, you know --

WILLEY: And, and --

HANNITY: Go ahead.

WILLEY: And two days, I was subpoenaed in Paula Jones' sexual harassment suit, in federal court in Richmond, Virginia, and that was -- I was supposed to -- I appeared on January 10th of 1998, and two days before that -- I live out in the country, in a very remote area. It's not a neighborhood, it's not a subdivision. Our homes are fairly close together. And I was out walking early one morning, I had had cervical -- neck surgery, and I was -- had been wearing a collar, and I was uncomfortable, I couldn't sleep, and I had started walking with my doctor's permission early in the morning. And I was out -- I had lost my cat, my cat had disappeared a couple of months before that, in November, and I put the word out in my neighborhood that Bullseye -- was his name -- had been missing. And let me also add that I was new to the -- new out there, so I didn't know a lot of my neighbors. I had met a few, but hadn't met all of them.

And when I was out that morning, two days before the deposition, the Paula Jones deposition, a man who appeared to be a jogger was coming my way, and he stopped, and he said, “Kathleen, did you ever find your cat?” And I said, “No, I didn't.” And I said I really missed him, and you know, he was a family, a beloved family pet. And I said, “You know, I look for him every day, every day I pull down the driveway, I drive down the driveway to the house, and I expect him to be on the front porch waiting for me.” And he looked at me and he said, “Yeah, that Bullseye was a nice cat.” And I told everyone in the neighborhood that he had a collar on with his name on it. And he said, “That Bullseye was a nice cat.” And I said, “Oh, so you've seen him, or you've seen him before, or” --

HANNITY: So let me put emphasis -- on the eve of your testimony in the Paula Jones case, there's a guy that approaches you --

WILLEY: Yes.

HANNITY: -- mentions your kids' names, which you haven't mentioned yet --

WILLEY: Right.

HANNITY: -- mentions your cat by name, who had been killed already?

WILLEY: Well, he alluded -- what he wanted me to know -- I never found him. He wanted me to know that he'd taken my cat. And when he said “was”? He wanted me to know that Bullseye was no more.

HANNITY: So basically saying what could happen to Bullseye could happen to your kids is the implication here. So who --

WILLEY: Because the next thing he asked, when he told me that Bullseye was a really nice cat, and that's when I started thinking that something's wrong here, and I said, “Yeah, did you ever meet him, did you see him?” And he, and he, that's when he said “Well, how are your children?” And he mentioned my children by name. And that's when I knew.

HANNITY: So in other words, you were being intimidated.

WILLEY: That's when I knew. And then he mentioned a good friend's children by name. Little -- this is young children. He mentioned them by name.

HANNITY: You know --

WILLEY: And asked about them.

HANNITY: Did you ever get any evidence on this guy, or any evidence of who he was working for, or do you just assume?

WILLEY: I assume. I was shown pictures, I -- you know, I have an opinion of who it was, he -- FBI checked it out, and they, they found his excuse to be, for not being there, his alibi, was uncheckable --

HANNITY: Let me ask you this --

WILLEY: Not so much ironclad as uncheckable.

HANNITY: Has Hillary --

WILLEY: And when I heard that, because I was very interested in that --

HANNITY: Yeah.

WILLEY: I thought, this is how good these people are. This is how good they are. They're professionals.