Posted on 03/22/2002 7:02:44 AM PST by Tumbleweed_Connection
The final Whitewater report released by the Office of Independent Counsel on Wednesday said prosecutors didn't have enough evidence to indict and convict either Bill or Hillary Clinton on charges stemming from the legendary failed land deal.
But that wasn't always the case.
In fact, just how close Mrs. Clinton came to prosecution was a well-guarded secret until May 2000, when a book by the Washington Post's Sue Schmidt and Time magazine's Michael Weisskopf blew the lid off a planned Hillary indictment.
Before the death of key Whitewater witness James McDougal, deputy independent counsel Hickman Ewing had actually prepared a draft indictment of the former first lady - and was considering submitting it to a Little Rock grand jury. Prosecutors believed the case would stick as long as McDougal was still around to testify in court.
In their book "Truth at any Cost," Schmidt and Weisskopf report that on April 27, 1998, Ewing assembled his team of prosecutors to decide whether to prosecute Hillary.
"[Ewing] paced the room for more than three hours, recalling facts from memory in his distinctive Memphis twang. He spoke passionately, laying out a case that the first lady had obstructed government investigators and made false statements about her legal work for McDougal's S&L, particularly the thrift's notorious multimillion-dollar Castle Grande real estate project."
However, as Schmidt and Weisskopf report, Ewing's case against the first lady had a giant hole in it.
"The biggest problem was the death a month earlier of Jim McDougal," the reporters said. "Without him, prosecutors would have a hard time describing the S&L dealings they suspected Hillary Clinton had lied about."
In the end, it wasn't so much "insufficient evidence" that spared Mrs. Clinton the ignominy of becoming the only first lady ever to stand trial for criminal conduct, as it was the propitious (for her) jailhouse death of McDougal, which came, ironically, six years to the day after the New York Times broke the original Whitewater story, on March 8, 1992.
Woulda!
Coulda!
Didn't!
Now I'm-a gunna run for Senate!
Robert Ray has become the Jar Jar Binks of the Whitewater tale.
Starr had nothing on Clinton except the testimony of Jim McDougal and David Hale, two sleazy convicted felons and lifelong shysters, both of whom were facing long jail terms and whose only hope was cutting a deal with the OIC. Obviously, such testimony would be too tainted for a jury to believe.
That was where Susan McDougal came in. Starr needed her to verify McDougal's new, post-conviction story, figuring that if Hale and both McDougals all told the same story, it would be enough for a grand jury to indict and a regular jury to convict. Which it probably would have been.
That's why breaking Susan McDougal was so important to the OIC. Susan has repeatedly said that she was told she could walk free at any time, provided she would promise to testify falsely against the Clintons. But she went to jail rather than do so. And with her went Ewing's only chance to formally successfully accuse (albeit falsely) the Clintons of wrongdoing.
Hence the "draft" indcitment Ewing drew up was nothing but wishful thinking. There was never any evidence to base it on except the perjured testimony of two desperate, already convicted perjurers. He needed Susan McDougal to make it fly, and he never got her.
HILLARY HAD
JIM McDOUGAL
MURDERED
????
Somehow I do.
Hope it didn't hurt too much falling off that turnip truck.
Maybe so, but proving it in a court of law is a very different thing, don'tcha think?
Line of the day.
Let's hope Ray becomes equally scarce. Effing coward.
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