Hubbell To Plead Guilty in Ark. Case
Monday, 28 June 1999
W A S H I N G T O N (AP)
WEBSTER HUBBELL, President Clinton's Arkansas friend who served
as associate attorney general, will plead guilty to covering up work he
and former law partner Hillary Rodham Clinton did on a fraudulent
land development back home, sources familiar with the case said
Monday.
Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr will recommend that Hubbell
serve no jail time for the felony conviction, said the sources, who
spoke on condition of anonymity.
Hubbell was scheduled to go on trial Aug. 9, and Starr's prosecutors
had listed Mrs. Clinton as a potential witness. Even if she weren't
called to the stand, the trial could have become a political issue as
the first lady finalized plans regarding a bid for a U.S. Senate seat.
As part of the agreement, Hubbell's legal team has let Starr's office
interview Hubbell in connection with the Castle Grande land deal
indictment, which refers to Mrs. Clinton about three dozen times,
one source said.
Hubbell will also plead guilty to a misdemeanor tax charge, while
Starr will seek dismissal of other charges against Hubbell, his wife,
his accountant and his tax lawyer in that separate tax case, the
sources said.
That indictment alleges that Hubbell evaded paying taxes on some of
the hundreds of thousands of dollars he received from friends of the
Clintons in 1994 when he was under criminal investigation by Starr's
office.
While Hubbell's pleas would dispose of the remaining court cases
Starr has brought in his nearly five-year inquiry, the investigations
are still open, one source said. The course of Starr's investigation will
depend on information Hubbell and possibly other witnesses give the
prosecutors, said the sources.
Starr's office is also scrutinizing Mrs. Clinton over her statements
about the White House travel office firings. She maintained under
oath that she didn't order the seven employees fired.
Hubbell and the late deputy White House counsel Vincent Foster - a
pivotal figure in the travel office matter - were close friends. Foster
killed himself in July 1993 as congressional investigators were
beginning to look at the travel office firings.
Starr's spokeswoman, Elizabeth Ray, declined comment on the plea
agreement.
Hubbell's attorney, John Nields, did not return telephone calls
seeking comment.
New York University law professor Steve Gillers said the records in
Castle Grande "leave a lot of unanswered questions about Hillary
Clinton's role."
"Hubbell is the key to those answers," Gillers said. "I find it hard to
believe that Starr would not have demanded complete answers from
Hubbell in exchange for what seems to be a fairly generous" plea
agreement.
But former Iran-Contra prosecutor Lawrence Walsh said Starr might
just be ready to wind down his work as the independent counsel law
expires.
"If I were a prosecutor and could get rid of the Hubbell case this way
and be done with it, I'd make the deal without any testimony," Walsh
said. "It's late in the day and nobody wants to see him tried twice. A
felony disposition is a pretty solid outcome."
The focus of some charges against Hubbell is the 1,050-acre Castle
Grande tract south of Little Rock, a development that federal
regulators concluded was riddled with insider dealing and fictitious
land sales. It was owned by Mrs. Clinton's Whitewater partner, the
late Jim McDougal, and Hubbell's father-in-law, prominent Little
Rock businessman Seth Ward.
Mrs. Clinton's work on Castle Grande was revealed in 1996 when her
law firm billing records mysteriously appeared in the White House,
two years after prosecutors subpoenaed them.
Almost from the first day he went to work in August 1994, Starr has
targeted Hubbell as a possible valuable witness against the Clintons.
Months earlier, Hubbell had resigned his post as the Justice
Department's No. 3 official because of questions about his work at
the Rose Law Firm in Arkansas.
Hubbell pleaded guilty in December 1994 to tax evasion and mail
fraud for stealing nearly $400,000 from his law firm and its clients.
He promised to cooperate with Starr's investigation of the Clintons.
But Starr renewed his investigation of Hubbell in 1995 after
discovering that political supporters of the Clintons had paid
Hubbell large sums of money for little or no work, raising the
specter of "hush money."
That investigation led to the tax case. The discovery of Mrs. Clinton's
billing records for Castle Grande led to the concealment charges.
"Kenneth Starr may have realized enough is enough. It's over," said
Georgetown University professor Paul Rothstein. |
