Review & Outlook
Obstruction and Abuse:
A Pattern
The FBI Files
June 5, 1996: After a lengthy stonewall, the White
House releases 1,000 of 3,000 documents sought
by the House Oversight Committee in the Travel
Office affair. Among the documents are requests
by White House personnel security chief Craig
Livingstone for FBI files on Travel Office head
Billy Dale -- dated seven months after his dismissal
-- as well as hundreds of others, including
prominent Republicans.
June 11: Clinton calls the improperly obtained
FBI files an "honest bureaucratic snafu."
Livingstone and his assistant Anthony Marceca are
identified as longtime Democratic Party political operatives.
June 26: Livingstone announces his resignation. Two days later, Marceca
refuses to testify before the House Oversight Committee, invoking the Fifth
Amendment.
What Health Care Task Force?
February 1993: The Association of American Physicians and Surgeons
sues Hillary Clinton's Health Care Task Force, arguing that the Federal
Advisory Committee Act (FACA) requires that it open its meeting to the
public.
March: Health czar Ira Magaziner files an affidavit declaring that "only
federal government employees served as members" of the working groups,
which would make it exempt from FACA.
July 20: Deputy White House Counsel Vincent Foster, who argued the
administration's case in the FACA litigation, commits suicide.
November: Judge Royce Lamberth labels the Clinton Justice
Department's responses for document requests "incomplete and
inadequate" and describes it as "stonewalling."
March 1994: In a motion for summary judgment, the presence of
non-government employees in the working groups is revealed.
December: Judge Lamberth announces his
intention to fine the administration for "misconduct."
He later terms Magaziner's affidavit "misleading, at
best" and asks Eric Holder, U.S. attorney for the
District of Columbia, to study whether Magaziner
committed perjury in the FACA lawsuit.
August 1995: Holder announces that Magaziner
will not be prosecuted, although he acknowledges
his statements were "strained" and left him "open to
charges that portions were inaccurate."
July 19, 1997: Holder is sworn in as deputy
attorney general, the Justice Department's No. 2 position.
Dec. 18: Judge Lamberth orders the administration to pay $286,000 in
legal fees to the plaintiff and other groups. The government "should be
accountable when its officials run amok," the judge writes, adding that the
executive branch "was dishonest with this court."
After Foster's Death
July 20, 1993: The evening of Foster's suicide, White House Counsel
Bernard Nussbaum and White House aides Patsy Thomasson and Maggie
Williams search Foster's office. According to later testimony by a Secret
Service officer, Williams exits the counsel's suite with an armful of folders.
July 22: Nussbaum denies senior Justice
Department officials access to Foster's office. In an
angry phone call, Deputy Attorney General Philip
Heymann asks, "Bernie, are you hiding
something?"
July 26: Members of the White House Counsel's
office find a torn-up note, previously overlooked,
in the bottom of Foster's briefcase. It was later
revealed that Whitewater files taken from Foster's
office were kept for five days in the White House
personal residence before being turned over to the
Clintons's lawyer.
The Travel Office Affair
May 19, 1993: The White House fires seven employees of its Travel
Office in an attempt to replace them with associates of Clinton crony
Harry Thomason. White House lawyers attempt to involve the IRS and the
FBI in the probe. UltrAir, the previous air travel contractor, is quickly
audited by the IRS, which said its interest was prompted by news reports.
April 6, 1994: A White House lawyer, responding in writing to General
Accounting Office investigators, states that "Mrs. Clinton does not know
the origin of the decision to remove White House Travel Office
employees."
Dec. 7: Former Travel Office director Billy Dale is indicted on charges of
embezzling office funds. In November 1995, a Washington jury acquits
him after deliberating for less than two hours.
January 1996: After months of stonewalling, the White House releases a
memo by director of administration David Watkins saying that Vincent
Foster "regularly informed me that the First Lady was concerned and
desired action -- the action desired was the firing of the Travel Office
staff."
Gennifer and Paula
1992: Claims by Arkansas cabaret singer Gennifer Flowers threaten to
derail Clinton's 1992 presidential bid. Flowers says that then-Gov. Clinton
used Arkansas state troopers to facilitate their affair and helped her obtain
a state job. Her job led to grievance proceedings by Charlette Perry, who
lost the promotion. In a recording secretly taped by Flowers, Gov. Clinton
is heard telling her to "deny" everything. On "60 Minutes," with Hillary by
his side, Clinton denies a 12-year sexual affair with Flowers.
December 1993: In news reports in The American Spectator and the
Los Angeles Times, Arkansas state troopers are quoted as confirming that
Gov. Clinton used them to assist in affairs with Flowers and numerous
others. One report included a trooper's account of escorting a woman
named Paula to the governor's suite in a Little Rock hotel.
May 6, 1994: Paula Corbin Jones files suit for sexual harassment, saying
a trooper took her to the governor's suite but that she rebuffed crude
sexual advances. Presidential superlawyer Bob Bennett describes the
charge as "tabloid trash" and Clinton adviser James Carville says: "Drag a
$100 bill through a trailer park and there's no telling what you'll find."
January 1998: Depositions go forward in the Jones trial after the
Supreme Court rejects contentions that it should be delayed until the
President leaves office. According to news reports, the President's
deposition included admission of a brief affair with Flowers. She says,
"You'd think the boy would learn."
Whitewater
May 1990: Madison Guaranty Savings & Loans owner Jim McDougal is
acquitted of bank fraud in Little Rock.
November: Gov. Clinton is elected to a second four-year term on the
promise that he will serve the full term and not seek the Presidency in
1992.
March 1992: New York Times reporter Jeff Gerth discloses the Clintons'
dealings with Madison Guaranty and the Whitewater land deal. Privately
attacking Gerth, the Clinton campaign publicly releases a report by Denver
lawyer James Lyon clearing the Clintons of improprieties and saying they
lost $68,000 on the investment. The issue fades from the campaign.
August 31: The Resolution Trust Corp. prepares a criminal referral for
the Justice Department alleging possible crimes by Jim and Susan
McDougal, and naming the Clintons and Arkansas Lt. Gov. Jim Guy
Tucker as possible beneficiaries.
December: Vincent Foster, acting on behalf of the Clintons, meets with
Jim McDougal and arranges for him to buy out the Clintons' Whitewater
shares. Tyson Foods general counsel Jim Blair loans McDougal $1,000
for the purchase. Diane Blair, Jim Blair's wife, rises through the ranks of
the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, eventually being named
chairman.
April 1993: Foster prepares the Clintons's 1992 tax return including a
capital gain of $1,000 for the sale of Whitewater. Among the Foster notes
released by the White House in 1995 after a two-year stonewall are
references to Whitewater tax issues, including one calling it "a can of
worms you shouldn't open." An issue remains concerning failure to report
a $58,000 gift from Mr. McDougal, who assumed the Clintons' share of
the corporation's debt.
September: Treasury Department Counsel Jean Hanson warns White
House Counsel Bernard Nussbaum about the confidential RTC criminal
referrals. Nussbaum informs senior Clinton aide Bruce Lindsey.
October 1993: Lindsey informs Clinton about the referrals. Lindsey later
tells Congress he did not mention any specific targets. One of the targets,
however -- Arkansas Gov. Jim Guy Tucker -- meets with the President
first in the White House and again in Seattle.
Oct. 27: U.S. Attorney Paula Casey in Little Rock rejects the first RTC
criminal referral. Nine others are pending.
Nov. 9: RTC investigator Jean Lewis is taken off the probe. In August
1994, amid a mounting smear campaign, she is placed on administrative
leave. In later testimony before the House Banking Committee she charges
that there was "a concerted effort to obstruct, hamper and manipulate" the
Madison probe.
Feb. 2, 1994: Deputy Treasury Secretary Roger Altman meets with
Nussbaum to give a "heads up" on Madison. Both later resign.
January 1996: The White House announces that Mrs. Clinton's Rose
Law Firm billing records, sought under subpoena by the independent
counsel and by Congress for two years, have been discovered on a table
in the "book room" of the personal residence.
May 28: Before an Arkansas jury, Independent
Counsel Kenneth Starr wins conviction of Gov.
Tucker and Jim an |
