FLASHBACK: Hillary Clinton's Fingerprints Among Those Found on Papers

Republicans on the special Senate Whitewater committee released a report from the Federal Bureau of Investigation today showing that the fingerprints of the First Lady, Hillary Rodham Clinton, were found on records discovered in the White House family quarters two years after they were first sought by investigators.

The F.B.I. report also found that the documents, copies of billing records from Mrs. Clinton's work as a lawyer in Arkansas, revealed fingerprints of five others. They were Vincent W. Foster Jr., the deputy White House counsel who committed suicide in July 1993; a personal assistant to the Clintons who had also worked at Mrs. Clinton's law firm; an aide to the Clintons' current lawyer, and two other law firm aides.

This is clearly important and relevant evidence," said Michael Chertoff, the counsel for the committee's Republicans. "It clearly means she touched these records at some point in time."

But Mark Fabiani, a special White House counsel, said Mrs. Clinton had acknowledged that she probably read the documents in 1992 during the election campaign when questions about Whitewater were being raised by reporters. He added that she had testified under oath that she had nothing to do with the documents during the two years they were missing and did not know how they ended up in the family quarters.

The bureau report did not say how long ago the fingerprints were left on the documents or in what sequence, things beyond the scope of fingerprint technology.

Continue reading the main story Mr. Fabiani said the report vindicated the White House because the F.B.I. did not find fingerprints from any of the Clinton aides who Republicans have suggested might have spirited the records out of Mr. Foster's office after his death.

"Yet another Whitewater allegation has evaporated," he said.

The whereabouts of the documents during the two years they were sought by investigators is the subject of an investigation by the special prosecutor for Whitewater issues. The F.B.I. fingerprint analysis had been ordered by the prosecutor, Kenneth W. Starr, who recently agreed to share it with the Senate panel.

The billing records were turned over in January. The records detail Mrs. Clinton's work on behalf of a troubled savings and loan association owned by James B. McDougal, the Clintons' Whitewater partner, who was convicted of bank fraud last week in Arkansas.

Investigators have been trying to determine how the records ended up in the White House. A White House assistant who discovered them said she found them on a table in a library known as the Book Room, to which very few people other than the First Family have access.

Mr. Chertoff said Mrs. Clinton's fingerprints could have been left in 1992, the year she said she handled the documents. "But if they were touched at some later time, that tells a different story." he said.

While Mr. Fabiani said he found cause to celebrate the report, Mr. Chertoff emphasized that the absence of someone's fingerprints on a document did not prove that person had not handled it. Indeed, the discovery of a limited number of fingerprints on the documents deepens the mystery of who may have concealed the records from investigators.

Last month, Mr. Chertoff told the committee that an analysis of the White House logs maintained by the Secret Service showed that only a few people had both the motive to have handled the documents and access to the Book Room. He said that while many people had been in the room during the relevant time period, many were foreign dignitaries or members of the White House service staff who would not have had any interest in the documents.

Mr. Chertoff said only the President and Mrs. Clinton and one or two of their friends would have been interested in the documents and would have had access to the Book Room. Of that small group, only Mrs. Clinton's fingerprints were found. If someone else moved the documents into the Book Room, they may have failed to leave fingerprints.

In addition to Mrs. Clinton's fingerprints, the bureau found those of Mr. Foster, who reviewed the documents in 1992; Carolyn Huber, a White House official who discovered the documents; Marc Rolfe, an employee of the law firm that took custody of the documents after they were discovered in the White House; Sandra Hatch, a secretary in the Rose Law Firm in Little Rock, Ark., where the documents were first produced, and Millie Alston, a White House official who had also worked at the Rose Law Firm.

.....more

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.