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Saturday, Nov 28, 2009
Here at last was a dramatic Whitewater event that even the dullest voter could grasp. Kenneth Starr lost no time hauling the first lady before a Washington grand jury in the most public manner possible, prompting press commentary about a "smoking gun." The irrepressible Safire predictably saw Nixonian skullduggery: "Can you imagine the sinking feeling in the 'Someone,' when he or she came back to the Book Room and found the records gone?" Newsweek's Michael Isikoff went further. "The printouts were covered with the late Vince Foster's handwriting," he wrote, continuing, "it is Foster's suicide that lends Whitewater its aura of menace."
Hillary Clinton emerged from Starr's grand jury to say that she had no idea where the billing records had come from, but was glad they had turned up -- perhaps because they provided only exculpatory evidence. Along with Vince Foster's handwriting, FBI fingerprint analysts found his fingerprints, as well as those of the first lady. Hers were found only on those pages dealing with issues discussed during the 1992 campaign -- but not on topics of more recent interest, such as the ill-fated McDougal real estate development and shopping center known as "Castle Grande." All the forensic evidence suggested that the billing records had in fact been misplaced ever since the 1992 election.
The records' contents also supported Hillary's testimony and public statements in detail. In her sworn statements to RTC investigators, she had recalled only a single phone conversation with Securities Commissioner Beverly Bassett Schaffer regarding the Madison Guaranty preferred stock issue. The records showed exactly one, on April 29, 1985.
Asked whether she had done any work on McDougal's "Castle Grande" development, she had replied no. Republicans charged that an unused 1985 real estate document she had prepared for Webb Hubbell's father-in-law contradicted her. But the billing records, like all internal Rose Law Firm documents, referred to that transaction not as Castle Grande but as "the IDC matter."
A small part of a large parcel of land Madison Guaranty bought from a company called the Industrial Development Corporation later became known as "Castle Grande" -- but not the part described in the document Hillary Clinton had prepared. Her answer was accurate. After studying the newly found billing records, the investigators at Pillsbury, Madison & Sutro came back with an even stronger conclusion that nobody at the Rose Law Firm had done anything unethical or illegal in their representation of McDougal's savings and loan. Regarding the unused real estate contract, the report stipulated that "while Mrs. Clinton drafted the May 1, 1986, option, nothing proves she did so knowing it to be wrong, the circumstances of the work point strongly toward innocent explanations, and the theories that tie this option to wrongdoing ... are strained at best."
Starr's investigators would spend years seeking evidence to the contrary, with no success.
In January 1996, however, such exculpatory facts received no attention in the press. To hype their excerpt from James B. Stewart's forthcoming Whitewater book "Blood Sport," the editors of Time magazine ran a cover photo of the first lady that looked like a post office "Wanted" poster. Time columnist Richard Stengel opined that "Hillary Rodham Clinton now faces a crisis that even the most artful public relations may not be able to fix." Stengel predicted that the stage was set for high drama at the Whitewater hearings. "Mrs. Clinton has stated that the lion's share of the work on Madison was done by a 'bright young associate' named Richard Massey. Mrs. Clinton also implied in a sworn statement to the RTC in May 1995 that Massey brought Madison's business to the firm. Committee sources tell Time that Massey will testify this week that he did not bring Madison in as a client, and that he assumed Mrs. Clinton was involved."
And in the New York Times, William Safire advised the president that the time had come to hire himself a separate criminal defense lawyer, because his wife was going to jail.
