Starr prosecutor testified that he drafted an indictment
of Hillary Clinton
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — Kenneth Starr's top
deputy testified today that at one point in the
Whitewater investigation he drafted a proposed
indictment of Hillary Rodham Clinton and showed it to
others in the independent counsel's office.
Called as the lead-off defense witness in Susan
McDougal's trial, W. Hickman Ewing Jr. also testified
that he "had problems" with some of President Clinton
and Mrs. Clinton's statements to investigators in April
1995.
Ewing said he drafted the indictment against the first
lady sometime after September 1996 and was not more
specific. He said it was not unusual for a federal
prosecutor to draft an indictment whether or not charge
is ever brought.
As a prosecutor, he said, "You're always thinking about
... what possible crime could it be." Ewing said he
showed the draft to "a couple of people in the office."
Asked by Mrs. McDougal's attorney, Mark Geragos,
whether he had ever referred to the Clintons as "liars,"
Ewing said, "I don't know if I used the L-word or not.
But I certainly expressed internally that I had problems
with some of their answers."
Ewing questioned some of Mrs. Clinton's testimony in the Starr investigation: "I
don't know if she was telling the truth or not."
In the April 1995 interviews, Mrs. Clinton was questioned under oath about
the work her law firm had done for James and Susan McDougal's savings and
loan, Madison Guaranty.
"She was in conflict with interviews we had already done with several people in
the Rose Law Firm," Ewing said.
Ewing also referred to a statement by Clinton that he didn't remember whether
he had asked James McDougal to engage Mrs. Clinton to do legal work for
Madison Guaranty. During his presidential campaign, Clinton had said no, he
never made that request to McDougal.
Ewing's testimony was the type of unwelcome attention the first lady would like
to avoid as she tests the waters for a possible Senate bid in New York in
2000.
Mrs. Clinton became a focal point for Starr's investigation in January 1996
because of the still-unexplained reappearance of her law firm billing records on
a table inside the White House.
The records had vanished after the 1992 presidential campaign. They outlined
her work for the McDougals' failing savings and loan in 1985 and '86.
Attacking the tactics of Starr's office is key to the defense strategy.
Geragos contends Mrs. McDougal refused to answer grand jury questions
because she felt prosecutors were pressuring her to give false testimony against
the Clinton.
Geragos also says prosecutors withheld information from the grand jurors who
indicted Mrs. McDougal that would have decreased the credibility of other
witnesses, including Mrs. McDougal's former husband, James.
She is charged with criminal contempt and obstruction of justice.
The prosecution rested its case after seven days, ending this morning with
testimony from an Arkansas banker, Ron Proctor, who dealt with the original
loan for the Whitewater land development.
On Wednesday, Ewing watched from the rear of the courtroom as the
prosecution closed its case by summoning three former members of the
Whitewater grand jury before whom Mrs. McDougal had refused to testify.
At the end of the day, Bill Henley, Mrs. McDougal's brother, reached through
a crowd of reporters and handed Ewing a subpoena, saying, "Hick, I've got
something for you."
"It felt really good," Bill Henley said a few moments later. "It's about time we
got to ask them a few questions."
Geragos would not rule out summoning Starr as well. "First let me deal with
Hick Ewing," he said. "One at a time."
Making a prosecutor a defense witness was the second unusual turn of the day.
The first was putting on the witness stand three members of the grand jury that
indicted Mrs. McDougal after she refused to answer their questions.
Ewing said that in 25 years as a federal prosecutor he had never seen grand
jurors testify at a criminal trial.
Grand jury foreman John Washam testified that the death of Mrs. McDougal's
former husband, James McDougal, in 1998 made her testimony even more
crucial than it had been before.
With his death, "one link of the chain was gone" of people who knew what
went on in Whitewater, said Washam. McDougal had been Starr's chief
cooperating witness in his investigation of the Whitewater land deal in which the
Clintons and McDougals were partners. |
