[3] From 1993 to 1999 she was the permanent host for CNN & Co., a talk show highlighting female policy experts covering current news.
Bush spokesman Marlin Fitzwater later said that Tillotson "will never work around the White House again," The New York Times reported.
[4] Early on the morning of the news conference, August 11, 1992, editors at CNN's Atlanta headquarters faxed Tillotson, who was working with other reporters at the Bush family compound in Kennebunkport, Maine, a copy of the New York Post story alleging Bush's extramarital affair.
When Mr. Bush nodded in Tillotson's direction, she asked if the president, given the importance his campaign placed on "family values," wouldn't like to respond to the New York Post story.
After the news conference, Tillotson joined the presidential motorcade for a ride to Air Force One and its return flight to Washington.
Tillotson heard Anna Perez, who was first lady Barbara Bush's press secretary, coming down the stairs towards CNN's work space.
Stopping at the door of the CNN booth, Perez raised her hand in benediction and said "I absolve you," burst into a belly laugh, and left.
Late that afternoon, Dateline NBC's Stone Phillips interviewed Mr. Bush at the White House and also asked about the Post story.
In a book years later, Fitzwater transformed the scene: he wrote that Tillotson wept and said her bosses had ordered her to ask about Fitzgerald.