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To: Jacalyn Deaner who wrote (13008)	6/28/1999 6:17:00 PM
From: goldsnow	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 17770

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.

To: Jacalyn Deaner who wrote (13008)	6/28/1999 6:58:00 PM
From: goldsnow	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 17770

How about that now? So Americans finally convinced Bill Clinton that they are total idiots and he can make any promise he wants, no matter how idiotic? Analysts doubt U.S. debt to disapppear by 2015 By Glenn Somerville WASHINGTON, June 28 (Reuters) - Purging the national debt by 2015 is bold politics that may preempt Republican promises for tax cuts but President Bill Clinton's proposal is on shaky economic ground in a consumption-driven nation, analysts said on Monday. ''There is such a thing as the paradox of thrift, in that what is good for an individual is not always good for an economy since you need to have someone who wants to borrow all that money you're saving,'' said Robert Dederick, economic consultant to Northern Trust Co. in Chicago. Clinton predicted on Monday the buzzing U.S. economy will generate billions and billions of dollars more over the next decade and more -- money that he said could be used both to shore up the Social Security retirement system and pay off the national debt by 2015. ''By 2015, this country can be entirely out of debt,'' Clinton said at a White House presentation, a striking declaration considering that the country only recorded its first surplus in 29 years during fiscal 1998. Total public debt totals more than $5.5 trillion. Private-sector analysts doubted it would be possible to pay off the national debt by 2015, even if the economy totally avoided recession, though a reduction in it would be useful. There are large benefits from paying down debt, not least shrinking the $364 billion of interest paid in fiscal 1998 ended last Sept. 30, to carry the current accumulated debt. Some of that money was interest paid into other government accounts, notably the Social Security trust fund that uses its surpluses from Social Security taxes over payments to buy government securities, as well as to individual investors. ''He's saying lets use these resources not for consumption but for savings by paying down debt,'' Dederick said of Clinton's proposal. ''But there's an implicit assumption that the bondholders to whom you pay it are going to use it for productive purposes, like buying other securities rather than the U.S. Treasury securities they now hold.'' If the savings were not used in this way, then there would be less money for investment in expanded production and for servicing demand for goods and services that is the driving force behind the current expansion now in its ninth year of steady growth. Thus demand, which fuels two-thirds of national economic activity, would be effectively weakened, Dederick said. ''The effort to achieve surpluses can in fact lead to recession if you don't protect demand,'' Dederick said, adding ''I think what he's really saying is that I'm going to take that extra money from rising surpluses off the table, rather than leave it there for Republicans to offer as tax cuts.'' Similarly, economist Joel Naroff of Naroff Economic Advisors Inc. in Holland, Pa., said he thought there was a strong political element in Clinton's announcement as early maneuvering for November 2000 presidential elections begins. ''These surpluses have appeared so suddenly that I really don't think politicians have digested the implications of surpluses,'' Naroff said, adding he didn't think it was practical to talk about generating enough surpluses to totally eliminate the national debt by 2015. ''I think he's trying to put the Republicans in a position of having to appear to say that they don't want to pay off the debt -- but that's for political gain rather than a real economic approach,'' Naroff said. One other potential risk that both Dederick and Naroff cited was the possibility that buying back debt, by reducing the supply and maturity range of U.S. Treasury securities, potentially makes bond markets less ''deep'' and ''liquid,'' or easily traded. That would not only tarnish their glittering position as trend-setter for world markets but might also make the dollar less attractive as the currency of choice for global dealing. biz.yahoo.com