SHE CALLS AT MIDNIGHT

By Michael Duffy/Washington

Several times a month, Susan Thomases, a New York City lawyer, flies to Washington for her usual strategy rounds at the White House. Thomases, says a Clinton White House consultant, is Hillary's best friend, and senior White House officials believe her words carry the authority of the First Lady. So they listen-at the oddest hours. "If you got a call from Susan, it was generally at midnight," said Mrs. Clinton's chief of staff, Maggie Williams, at last week's Whitewater hearings. "In our office she is known as the Midnight Caller, because that's when she has all of her ideas."

Senate investigators would like to learn what Thomases was doing on the Wednesday after Vince Foster died in July 1993--and whether Hillary Clinton put her up to it. Their theory is that Thomases and other aides to Mrs. Clinton were worried that investigators probing Foster's suicide would gain access to private Clinton family documents in Foster's office; Thomases and company might then have intervened to prevent it. Last Friday the White House issued a written statement to TIME--its strongest denial yet that Hillary Clinton had any role in the decision over how Foster's office should be searched.

As the Senate hearing into Whitewater enters its third week, probers hope to show that the Clintons were obsessed with preventing their tax records and other financial information from falling into unfriendly hands. At the time hardly anyone knew about Whitewater or Hillary Clinton's lucrative commodities trades, and no federal probe of the Clintons' finances was under way. Republicans believe they can embarrass the White House if they can prove--or even assert--that Thomases and the Clintons wanted it to stay that way. Combative, self-important and funny, Thomases, 51, met the Clintons in the 1970s and served as their scheduler in the 1992 campaign. Declining a job in the White House, she instead became the Clintons' top outside kibitzer, terrorizing aides with her withering judgment.

Republicans believe Thomases may have had better knowledge of the papers than anyone else except Foster. She appears to have been concerned about White House counsel Bernard Nussbaum's plan for a second search of Foster's office two days after the suicide. Just after 8 that morning, Thomases paged Nussbaum, who was set to conduct a search in the presence of Justice Department lawyers. According to a deposition obtained by Time, Nussbaum said Thomases asked him "what was going on with respect to ... the examination of Mr. Foster's office." Nussbaum said Thomases wondered if "it was proper to give people access to the office at all." If Nussbaum is right, it would suggest that Thomases was concerned that the police officials investigating Foster's death might stumble onto Whitewater papers. In her deposition Thomases acknowledged the conversation but said it consisted simply of Nussbaum's telling her how the search would be done. She added, "I have no recollection of discussing it with President or Mrs. Clinton."

Maybe not, but Stephen Neuwirth, a Nussbaum deputy, told Senate investigators that Nussbaum suggested to him that Thomases and Mrs. Clinton were concerned about "unfettered access to Mr. Foster's office." White House officials dismiss all the maneuvering as innocent.

In any case, Thomases may have a way to avoid explanations. According to her Senate deposition, she has represented Mrs. Clinton legally since the 1980s. Because her work includes Whitewater-related issues, all her conversations with the Clintons about Whitewater are "privileged." Senators cannot compel her to explain them.

--With reporting by Ann Blackman, James Carney and Suneel Ratan/Washington

With reporting by ANN BLACKMAN, JAMES CARNEY AND SUNEEL RATAN/WASHINGTON