The real Clinton story:1998

Forgotten or ignored stories of the Clinton years

 Jim McDougal tells reporter Chris Ruddy that in all his conversations with the special prosecutors he was never asked about Vince Foster.

Jim McDougal, who once said that the Clintons move through people's lives like a tornado, dies after being placed in solitary confinement again. On 12 medications. There are questions about other drugs given, including Lasix, which is contraindicated for heart patients. In the hours before McDougal died he had complained of dizziness and became ill but was never seen by a doctor. He had also been separated from his heart medication when placed in an isolation cell before his death. An autopsy on McDougal finds "a toxic but non-lethal amount" of Prozac in his body according to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. The medical examiner declares the death unrelated to the amount of Prozac, which was three times the normal dosage.

Shortly before he dies, McDougal completes a book with Curtis Wilkie, staff writer for the Boston Globe. The NY Times writes of the book, "Moments after President Clinton gave videotaped testimony for the criminal trial of James and Susan McDougal, his former Whitewater partners, he privately agreed to give Mrs. McDougal a pardon if she was convicted, a new book by James McDougal says. 'I'm willing to stick with it, but if it doesn't work out, or whatever, can you pardon Susan?" McDougal recalled asking Clinton - shortly after the president had completed his testimony - in the Map Room at the White House two years ago.

'You can depend on that,' Clinton is said to have replied quietly in the private conversation, apparently out of earshot of others. McDougal then asked, 'Like I say with all lawyers, I mean promptly?' The president grinned and nodded, by McDougal's account, and said, 'If you hang with me, I'll do it.'

Curiously, the medical examiner made no mention of having found traces of any of the 12 medications McDougal was taking. There was also a report from an inmate that McDougal had been given Lasix to encourage urination. Lasix must be taken with a potassium supplement -- without it serious heart problems can develop. Wesley Phelan of the Washington Weekly reports that Lasix can cause "excessive diuresis, blood volume reduction, circulatory collapse, and vascular thrombosis." Further, if McDougal was on the heart medication digitalis, the use of Lasix would be even more serious. The ME would not confirm to Phelan whether he had tested for the presence of Lasix.

Not long thereafter, another potential witness in the Clinton scandals investigation dies suddenly. Johnny Franklin Lawhon Jr, 29, was the owner of the auto transmission shop in Mabelville, Arkansas, who discovered a $27,000 cashier's check made out to Bill Clinton in a trunk of a tornado-damaged car. Lawhon strikes a tree in the early hours of March 30 after, according to one witness, "taking off like a shot" from a filling station.

The Lewinsky affair story breaks in the Washington Post. President Clinton appears on television and says that he "never had sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky," and that he "never told anyone to lie."

Jorge Cabrera -- the drug dealer who gave enough to the Democrats to have his picture take with both Hillary Clinton and Al Gore -- is back in the news as a businessman pleads guilty to laundering $3.5 million for Cabrera between 1986 and 1996

Hillary Clinton goes on the Today Show and blames her husband's problems on a "vast right wing conspiracy."

National Journal - In 1998, the Clinton administration poll tested the idea of making college students pee in cups to prove they're not on drugs in order to qualify for financial aid, according to papers released by the Clinton Library. While the collect-student-pee idea was never implemented, Clinton did sign the Higher Education Act reauthorization into law in 1998. The legislation included a measure stripping aid from more than 200,000 students convicted for drug offenses, something drug reformers have come to refer to as the "smoke a joint, lose your federal aid" provision. The provision has since been scaled back, though never fully repealed.

George Stephanopoulos tells ABC This Week that the White House has a "different, long-term strategy, which I think would be far more explosive. White House allies are already starting to whisper about what I'll call the Ellen Rometsch strategy . . . She was a girlfriend of John F. Kennedy, who also happened to be an East German spy. And Robert Kennedy was charged with getting her out of the country and also getting J. Edgar Hoover to go up to the Congress and say, 'Don't you investigate this, because if you do, we're going to open up everybody's closets." . . . . Asks Sam Donaldson, "Are you suggesting for a moment that what they're beginning to say is that if you investigate this too much, we'll put all your dirty linen right on the table? Every member of the Senate? Every member of the press corps?" "Absolutely," says Stephanopoulos. "The president said he would never resign, and I think some around him are willing to take everybody down with him."

Democratic fund-raiser Johnny Chung wins a plea bargain under which he is charged with funneling illegal contributions to the Clinton-Gore campaign.

Linda Tripp is sequestered in an FBI safe house because of threats against her life.

Arkansas Highway Police seize $3.1 million in cash from four suitcases in a tractor-trailer rig's sleeper section. The driver is charged with money laundering among other things. The seizure is the fourth largest in American history and nearly fifty times more than all the illegal money seized by Arkansas highway police in a typical year.

Monica Lewinsky tells Linda Tripp that if she would lie under oath, "I would write you a check." Also: "I mean, telling the truth could get you in trouble. I don't know why you'd want to do that." Also: "I would not cross these -- these people -- for fear of my life." Several reports have Lewinsky saying on another occasion that she didn't want to end up like former White House intern Mary Caitrin Mahoney, killed in the Starbucks execution-style murders.

Monica Lewinsky talks with Linda Tripp about filing a false affidavit in the Paula Jones case:

TRIPP: You - you are - are you positive in your heart that you want to do
that? I mean -
LEWINSKY: Uh-huh.
TRIPP: I'm only saying - I'm only saying that in case you should change your
mind.
LEWINSKY: No. I - I - I - first of all, for fear of my life. I would not - I
would not cross these - these people for fear of my life, number one.

The sale of Arkansas prisoners' blood during the 1980s becomes a major scandal in Canada as news of it is published. The story is ignored in the US media. 

Prior to her testimony in the Clinton investigation, Kathleen Willey claims that the tires on her car were mysteriously punctured with dozens of nails and the cat she had for many years suddenly disappeared. Reports ABC's Jackie Judd, "Then just days before she testified in the Paula Jones lawsuit in early January, Willey was out jogging near her home when a stranger approached her. . .The man knew what had happened at her home and that he asked her if the tires had been fixed and if the cat had been found." The man then allegedly asked Willey, 'Don't you get the message?' and jogged off."  

Department of Justice announcement: "James Tjahaja Riady will pay a record $8.6 million in criminal fines and plead guilty to a felony charge of conspiring to defraud the United States by unlawfully reimbursing campaign donors with foreign corporate funds in violation of federal election law, the Justice Department's Campaign Financing Task Force and the United States Attorney in Los Angeles announced today. In addition, LippoBank California, a California state-chartered bank affiliated with Lippo Group, will plead guilty to 86 misdemeanor counts charging its agents, Riady and John Huang, with making illegal foreign campaign contributions from 1988 through 1994. Riady is one of 26 people and two corporations charged by the Campaign Financing Task Force, which was established four years ago by Attorney General Janet Reno to investigate allegations of campaign financing abuses in the 1996 election cycle. . . The $8.6 million fine represents the largest sanction imposed in a campaign finance matter in the history of the United States . . . During the period of August 1992 through October 1992, shortly after Riady pledged $1 million in support of Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton's campaign for the Presidency of the United States, contributions made by Huang were reimbursed with funds wired from a foreign Lippo Group entity into an account Riady maintained at Lippo Bank and then distributed to Huang in cash. . . "The purpose of the contributions was to obtain various benefits from various campaign committees and candidates for Lippo Group and LippoBank, including: access, meetings, and time with politicians, elected officials, and other high-level government officials; contacts and status for Lippo Group and LippoBank with business and government leaders in the United States and abroad; business opportunities for Lippo Group and defendant LippoBank; government policies which would inure to the benefit of Lippo Group and defendant LippoBank, including Most Favored Nation status for China, open trade policies with Indonesia, normalization of relations with Vietnam, Community Reinvestment Act exemptions for LippoBank, a repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act which limited business opportunities for LippoBank, and a relaxation of Taiwanese restrictions on investment by foreign banks; the deposit of funds into LippoBank by political campaign committees and government agencies; and local government support for Lippo Group's California property development projects which would in turn benefit LippoBank's plans for expansion."

Dr. Cyril Wecht, who has done more than 13,000 autopsies, says there is "more than enough" evidence to suggest possible homicide in the Ron Brown death and that an autopsy should have been performed: "It is not even arguable in the field of medical legal investigations whether an autopsy should have been conducted on Brown."

FBI Director Louis Freeh appears before Rep. Dan Burton's committee and this exchange takes place:

BURTON: Mr. Freeh, over 65 people have invoked the 5th Amendment or fled the country in the course of the committee's [Clinton scandals] investigation. Have you ever experienced so many unavailable witnesses in any matter in which you've prosecuted or in which you've been involved?
FREEH: Actually, I have.
BURTON: You have? Give me, give me a rundown on that real quickly.
FREEH: I spent about 16 years doing organized crime cases in New York City and many people were frequently unavailable.

Former state trooper Larry Patterson will testify in the Paula Jones case:

Larry Patterson: [Governor Clinton] said, "I've got someone I need to see." I said "Okay, "Where are going?" He said "To Booker Elementary School. . . [Chelsea attended Booker] So we went to Booker Elementary School and he said, "I've a friend waiting down here, Larry and I'd like to spend some time alone with her." . . This particular lady was driving a small red compact car. it was parked beside the school underneath a streetlight. . . I was out of the car smoking, could see the action going on. Two Little Rock city policemen pulled up, said, "What are you doing here?" I I.D.'d myself. I said, "I've a friend that's meeting a married lady down here, and they'd like some privacy. The Little Rock city policeman on the passenger side said, "If the school gets burglarized, I hope you can cover this. . . I said, "Yeah I can cover this. No problem."
Q: You said that the woman's car was under a streetlight and you could see what was going on?
Mr. Patterson: Yes, Sir.
Q: What was going on? What did you see?
Mr. Patterson: I saw Bill Clinton on the passenger side of the front seat. I was the woman get into the driver's side. I saw her head disappear into what looked like his lap. . . .

Yu Quanyu, director of the Chinese Academy of Social Studies, writes in the latest issue of Ideological and Political Work Studies: "Communist Party cadres should study the speeches of Hillary Clinton because she offers a very good example of the skills of propaganda. Her sentences are short and stimulating. That's why she gets a lot of applause. But Chinese people have a habit of giving long speeches in which the sentences are long and tedious."
The criminal investigation into the Clinton scandals is set back as a lower court judge throws out on technical grounds major new charges against Whitewater figure Webster Hubbell. Hubbell had gone to jail after pleading guilty to tax evasion and mail fraud involving the theft of nearly a half million dollars from the law firm and $143,000 in unpaid taxes. Hubbell, as part of the plea, is supposed to cooperate with the independent counsel. There will be no evidence that he does.

The Washington Times reports that in the portions of President Clinton's deposition that have been made public in the Paula Jones case, his memory failed him 267 times. This is a list of his answers and how many times he gave each one.

I don't remember - 71
I don't know - 62
I'm not sure - 17
I have no idea - 10
I don't believe so - 9
I don't recall - 8
I don't think so - 8
I don't have any specific recollection - 6
I have no recollection - 4
Not to my knowledge - 4
I just don't remember - 4
I don't believe - 4
I have no specific recollection - 3
I might have - 3
I don't have any recollection of that - 2
I don't have a specific memory - 2
I don't have any memory of that - 2
I just can't say - 2
I have no direct knowledge of that - 2
I don't have any idea - 2
Not that I recall - 2
I don't believe I did - 2
I can't remember - 2
I can't say - 2
I do not remember doing so - 2
Not that I remember - 2
I'm not aware - 1
I honestly don't know - 1
I don't believe that I did - 1
I'm fairly sure - 1
I have no other recollection - 1
I'm not positive - 1
I certainly don't think so - 1
I don't really remember - 1
I would have no way of remembering that - 1
That's what I believe happened - 1
To my knowledge, no - 1
To the best of my knowledge - 1
To the best of my memory - 1
I honestly don't recall - 1
I honestly don't remember - 1
That's all I know - 1
I don't have an independent recollection of that - 1
I don't actually have an independent memory of that - 1
As far as I know - 1
I don't believe I ever did that - 1
That's all I know about that - 1
I'm just not sure - 1
Nothing that I remember - 1
I simply don't know - 1
I would have no idea - 1
I don't know anything about that - 1
I don't have any direct knowledge of that - 1
I just don't know - 1
I really don't know - 1
I can't deny that, I just -- I have no memory of that at all - 1

The Washington Times calculates that the number of Kenneth Starr-like investigations that could have been carried out for the price of one day's assault on Baghdad by Tomahawk missiles: 7

Federal Judge Susan Webber Wright of Arkansas dismisses Paula Jones' suit against Bill Clinton, ruling that Jones had not suffered harm.

Kenneth Starr sends his report to Congress. Impeachment hearings begin. The House will approve two articles of impeachment.
During the impeachment trial the following statements were made:

Sen. Barbara Boxer: "Rejecting these articles of impeachment does not place this President above the law. As the Constitution clearly says, he remains subject to the laws of the land just like any other citizen of the United States."
Sen. Herbert Kohl: "President Clinton is not 'above the law.' His conduct should not be excused, nor will it. The President can be criminally prosecuted, especially once he leaves office. In other words, his acts may not be 'removable' wrongs, but they could be 'convictable' crimes."
Sen. Joseph Lieberman: "Whether any of his conduct constitutes a criminal offense such as perjury or obstruction of justice is not for me to decide. That, appropriately, should and must be left to the criminal justice system, which will uphold the rule of law in President Clinton's case as it would for any other American."
Sen. Richard Bryan: "For those who believe that the President is guilty of perjury and obstruction of justice -- criminal offenses -- there is a forum available for that determination."
Sen. Frank Lautenberg: "[The] legal system, our civil and criminal laws provide the proper venue for a President who has failed in his private character. . . . And in this case, the legal system can and will continue to address the President's personal transgressions."
Sen. Kent Conrad: "Offensive as they were, the President's actions have nothing to do with his official duties, nor do they constitute the most serious of private crimes. In my judgment, these are matters best left to the criminal justice system."
Sen. John Breaux: "For wrongful acts that are not connected with the official capacity and duties of the President of the United States, there are other ways to handle it. There is the judicial system. There is the court system. There are the U.S. attorneys out there waiting. There may even be the Office of Independent Counsel, which will still be there after all of this is finished."

It is announced that there will be no criminal indictment of Clinton for the offenses outlined in the impeachment.
 
After only four months of a two-year fraud sentence and after serving 18 months for refusing to talk to a grand jury about Bill Clinton, Susan McDougal is released by a federal judge for medical reasons.

Clinton settles with Paula Jones, paying her $850,000 but not apologizing.  

Webster Hubbell is indicted again over the Castle Grande land scheme. Hillary Clinton is named in the indictment as the Rose Law firm "billing partner." 

On April 27, 1998, deputy independent counsel Hickman Ewing meets with his prosecutors to decide on whether to indict Hillary Clinton. Here's what happened as reported by Sue Schmidt and Michael Weisskopf in their book, "Truth at Any Cost:"

"[Ewing] paced the room for more than three hours, recalling facts from memory in his distinctive Memphis twang. He spoke passionately, laying out a case that the first lady had obstructed government investigators and made false statements about her legal work for McDougal's S & L, particularly the thrift's notorious multimillion-dollar Castle Grande real estate project. . .The biggest problem was the death a month earlier of Jim McDougal. . . Without him, prosecutors would have a hard time describing the S & L dealings they suspected Hillary Clinton had lied about."

CNN- Deputy independent counsel Hickman Ewing testified at the Susan McDougal trial Thursday that he had written a "rough draft indictment" of first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton after he doubted her truthfulness in a deposition. Ewing, who questioned Mrs. Clinton in a deposition at the White House on April 22, 1995, said, "I had questions about whether what she was saying were accurate. We had no records. She was in conflict with a number of interviews."

Ewing said those interviews by investigators were primarily with other people in the Rose Law Firm. Ewing said he had questioned Mrs. Clinton about her representation of Jim McDougal's Madison Guarantee Savings & Loan when she was at the Rose Law firm in Little Rock. "I don't know if she was telling the truth. I did not circulate the draft. I showed it to one lawyer (in the independent counsel's office) who said he didn't want to see it," Ewing said, under questioning from McDougal attorney Mark Geragos. . .

Ewing also testified that in a later deposition with both the president and first lady on July 22, 1995, he had questions about the truthfulness of both Clintons. McDougal's attorney Mark Geragos asked Ewing: "Did you say the Clintons were liars?" "I don't know if I used the 'L-word' but I expressed internally that I was concerned," Ewing said.