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Origins of Whitewater Development Corporation
Bill Clinton had known Arkansas businessman and political figure Jim McDougal since 1968,[7] and had made a previous small real estate investment with him in 1977.[7] Clinton and Hillary Rodham were seeking ways of supplementing his salary of $26,500 as Arkansas Attorney General (which would rise to $35,000 if his campaign forGovernor of Arkansas succeeded) and hers of $24,500 as Rose Law Firm associate.[8][9] It was around this time that Rodham also beganher cattle futures trading.[7]
In Spring 1978, McDougal approached Clinton and Rodham with new proposal: to join with him and his wife Susan to buy 230 acres (0.93 km2) of undeveloped land along the south bank of the White River near Flippin, Arkansas, in the Ozark Mountains.[7] The goal was to subdivide the site into lots for vacation homes, intended for the many people coming south from Chicago and Detroit who were interested in low property taxes, fishing, rafting, and mountain scenery.[7] The plan was to hold the property for a few years and then sell the lots at a profit.[7]
The four borrowed $203,000 to buy land, and subsequently transferred ownership of the land to the newly created Whitewater Development Corporation, in which all four participants had equal shares;[7] Susan McDougal chose[10] the name "Whitewater Estates";[11] their sales pitch was, "One weekend here and you'll never want to live anywhere else."[9] The business was incorporated on June 18, 1979.
im McDougal had lost his job as the governor's economic aide when Bill Clinton failed to win re-election in 1980.[9] McDougal decided to go into banking instead,[9]and then acquired the Bank of Kingston in 1980 and the Woodruff Savings & Loan in 1982[13] renaming them the Madison Bank & Trust and the Madison Guaranty Savings & Loan, respectively.
In spring 1985, McDougal held a fundraiser at Madison's office in Little Rock that paid off Clinton's remaining 1984 gubernatorial campaign debt of $50,000.[14][15] McDougal raised $35,000, and of that Madison cashier's checks accounted for $12,000.[14][15]
In 1985, Jim McDougal set his sights on investment into local residential construction, labeling the project Castle Grande. The 1,000 acres (4 km²), located south of Little Rock, Arkansas,[10] were priced at about $1.75 million, more than McDougal could afford on his own: due to financial laws, McDougal could borrow at most $600,000 from his own Savings and loan, Madison Guaranty. McDougal subsequently involved several others to produce the additional funds. Among these was Seth Ward, an employee of the bank, who helped funnel the additional $1.15 million required. To avoid potential investigations, the money was moved back and forth among several other investors and intermediaries. Hillary Clinton, then an attorney with the Little Rock-based Rose Law Firm, provided legal services to Castle Grande.
In 1986, their scheme was unveiled by federal regulators who realized that all of the necessary funds for this real estate venture had come entirely from Madison Guaranty; regulators called Castle Grande a sham.[16] In July of that year, McDougals resigned from Madison Guaranty. Seth Ward fell under investigation, along with the lawyer who helped him draft the agreement. Castle Grande earned $2 million in commissions and fees for McDougal's business associates,[16] as well as an unknown amount of legal fees by Hillary Clinton's law firm, but in 1989 it collapsed, at a cost to the government of $4 million.[16] This in turn helped trigger the 1989 collapse of Madison Guaranty,[16] which federal regulators then had to take over. Taking place in the midst of the nationwide Savings and Loan crisis, the failure of Madison Guaranty cost the United States $73 million.[17]
The Clintons lost between $37,000 and $69,000 on their Whitewater investment,[18] a lesser amount than the McDougals lost, for reasons unclear in the media reports.[12]
The White House and the President's supporters claimed that they were exonerated by the Pillsbury Report, a $3 million study done for the Resolution Trust Corporation by the Pillsbury, Madison & Sutro law firm at the time that Madison Guaranty Savings & Loan was dissolved. In this report it was shown that James McDougal, who had set up the deal, was the managing partner, and Clinton was a passive investor in the venture.[19] Charles Patterson, lead attorney from Pillsbury, Madison & Sutro on the investigation, refuted the White House's claim, stating that "It was not our purpose to vindicate, castigate, exculpate". The President's critics cited the unequal capital contributions by the Clintons and McDougals as evidence that then-Governor Clinton was to contribute in other ways.
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Removal of documents
Within hours after the death of Vince Foster in July 1993, chief White House counsel Bernard Nussbaum removed documents, some of them concerning the Whitewater Development Corporation, from Foster's office and gave them to Margaret Williams, Chief of Staff to the First Lady. According to the New York Times, Williams placed them in a safe in the White House[21] for five days before turning them over to their personal lawyer.
Margaret "Maggie" Ann Williams (born December 25, 1954 in Kansas City, Missouri) is a partner in Griffin Williams, a management-consulting firm.[1]She was the campaign manager for Hillary Rodham Clinton's 2008 presidential campaign. Following Clinton's win in the New Hampshire primary in January 2008, Williams was brought onto the Clinton campaign staff as a senior adviser. On February 10, 2008, she replaced Patti Solis Doyle as the campaign's manager.[2]
In addition to her consulting business, Williams is a director of the Scholastic Publishing Corporation,[13] the Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI). She is a trustee of the Rhode Island School of Design[14] and a US Commissioner for the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). From 2000 to 2007, Williams also served as director at Delta Financial Corporation, a mortgage lender that filed for bankruptcy in December 2007.[15] She serves on the Advisory Boards of the Eli J. Segal Citizenship Program at Brandeis University and theInstitute of Politics (IOP) at the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University.[16]
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^ "Maggie Williams, Ex-Chief Of Staff For Hillary Clinton, To Head Firm In D.C". Jet Magazine. 2000-10-16. Retrieved 2008-02-10.
Subpoena of the Presidential couple
As a result of the exposé by the New York Times, the Justice Department opened an investigation into the failed Whitewater deal. Media pressure continued to build, and on April 22, 1994, Hillary Clinton gave an unusualpress conference under a portrait of Abraham Lincoln in the State Dining Room of the White House, to address questions on both Whitewater and the cattle futures controversy; it was broadcast live by CBS, NBC, ABC, andCNN.[12] In it she claimed that the Clintons had a passive role in the Whitewater venture, and had committed no wrongdoing, but admitted her explanations had been vague and that she no longer opposed appointing a special prosecutor to investigate the matter.[12] Afterwards she won media praise for the manner in which she conducted herself during this, her first adversarial press conference;[12] Time called her "open, candid, but above all unflappable ... the real message was her attitude and her poise. The confiding tone and relaxed body language ... immediately drew approving reviews."[23] By now there was growing backlash from Democrats and other members of the political left against the press' investigations of Whitewater, with The New York Times coming in for special criticism by Gene Lyons of Harpers, who felt its reporters were exaggerating the significance and possible impropriety of what they were uncovering.[24]
The Kenneth Starr investigation
David Hale, the key witness against President Clinton in Starr's Whitewater investigation, alleged in November 1992 that Clinton, while governor of Arkansas, pressured him to provide an illegal $300,000 loan to Susan McDougal, the partner of the Clintons in the Whitewater land deal.[2]
Hale's defense strategy, as proposed by attorney Randy Coleman, was to present himself as the victim of high-powered politicians who forced him to give away all of the money.[25] This self-caricature was undermined by testimony from November 1989, wherein FBI agents investigating the failure of Madison Guaranty had questioned Hale about his dealings with Jim and Susan McDougal, including the $300,000 loan. According to the agents' official memorandum of that interview, Hale described in some detail his dealings with Jim Guy Tucker (then an attorney in private practice, later Bill Clinton'slieutenant governor), both McDougals, and several others, but never mentioned Governor Bill Clinton. Nor did Clinton's name come up when Hale testified at McDougal's 1990 trial, which ended in an acquittal.
Clinton denied that he pressured Hale to approve the loan to Susan McDougal. By this time, Hale had already pleaded guilty to two felonies and secured a reduction in his sentence in exchange for his testimony against Clinton from prosecutors. Charges were made by Clinton supporters that Hale received numerous cash payments from representatives of the so-called Arkansas Project,[2] a $2.4 million campaign established to assist in Hale's defense strategy, and to investigate Clinton and his associates between 1993 and 1997.[2]
The state prosecutors went ahead and signed an arrest warrant against Hale in early July 1996. Criminal charges filed by the state prosecutors charged that Hale had made misrepresentations to the state insurance commission regarding the solvency of an insurance company that he had owned,National Savings Life. The prosecutors also alleged in court papers that Hale had made those misrepresentations to conceal the fact that he had looted the insurance company. Hale said that any infraction was a technicality and that no one lost any money.[29] In March 1999 Hale was convicted of the first charge, with the jury recommending a 21-day jail sentence.[29]
Starr drafted an impeachment referral to the House of Representatives in the fall of 1997, alleging that there was "substantial and credible evidence" that Clinton might have committed perjury regarding Hale's allegations.
How is Kenneth Starr's extraordinary term as independent counsel to be understood? Was he a partisan warrior out to get the Clintons, or a saviour of the Republic? An unstoppable menace, an unethical lawyer, or a sex-obsessed Puritan striving to enforce a right-wing social morality?
Many Americans and members of the press think that Ken Starr, motivated by conservative political ideology and seeking partisan advantage, was obsessed with bringing down the Clinton presidency. Few doubt that the Starr-Clinton confrontation was personal as well, a clash of cultures between Starr, a deeply religious man with a puritanical bent, and Clinton, a political animal of protean ethics and unabashed cupidity. Wittes, an editorial writer for the Washington Post, refuses to accept this view.
(But didn't Ken Starr admit he lied, or was overzealous? I thought he wrote a book to that effect.)
Triple threat: Stuart Taylor Jr. proves to be racist, sexist, and classist ...
feministing.com/.../triple-threat-stuart-taylor-jr-proves-to-be-racist-se...
Aug 8, 2011 – Theatlantic.com has just published a piece by Stuart Taylor Jr., a Contributing Editor for The National Journal, in which he attempts to argue that ...Stuart Taylor Jr. is a regular columnist for National Journal, a Contributing Editor at Newsweek and a Nonresident Senior Fellow in Governance Studies at the Brookings Institution. He is a graduate of Princeton University and Harvard Law School.
Theatlantic.com has just published a piece by Stuart Taylor Jr., a Contributing Editor for The National Journal, in which he attempts to argue that the DSK charges should be dropped, and in the process, reveals himself to be a lazy thinker of the most arrogant, out-of-touch ilk and a grade A misogynist to boot. In short, he believes that Nafissatou Diallo has proven herself to be deceptive, and therefore, doesn’t deserve a criminal trial (he generously offers that, despite being a “serial liar,” she does deserve a civil trial). He wastes no words, strangely, looking at DSK’s believability, despite the growing evidence from various witnesses all over the frickin’ globe that the man had sex and power problems. Further, Taylor’s analysis is littered with misconceptions about sexual assault, chief among them that rape is only plausible when the perpetrator has a weapon of some kind.
(A fist is a weapon, and unless the man had no hands no one can prove a fist was not made. Any girl with no dental insurance might think to weigh the odds: "Do I want my face punched in and a mouthful of broken teeth? If I do what he says maybe he will let me go after with no major medical damage, just mental trauma.")
Remember the Duke lacrosse rape fraud? Remember Tawana Brawley? Some seem to unlearn the lessons of such cases every time a poor (or not so poor) woman of color accuses a rich (or not so rich) white male of doing something horrible. Especially when the accused admits to conduct that was, at best, unseemly and crude. The hard fact is that in a great many “he said, she said” cases–including this one–it is impossible to be confident of whether or not the woman consented.
Notice the word choice there: every time. Essentially Taylor is arguing that because there have been cases of poor women of color falsely accusing rich white men, all cases involving these two demographic groups are unprosecutable. According to Taylor, there is no victim pure enough, no rapist guilty enough, no case straight-forward enough. In his world, no poor woman can be trustworthy and no rich man can be blamed. Consent is irrelevant and indeterminable.
(Wow, this guy is a dick.)
... giving Stuart Taylor Jr. a platform is somehow honoring one side of an argument, when, in fact, it is spreading racism, classism, and sexism of the lowest order.
(Agreed)
http://www.amazon.com/Truth-Any-Cost-Unmaking-Clinton/product-reviews/0060194855/ref=dp_top_cm_cr_acr_txt?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=1Truth at Any Cost: Ken Starr and the Unmaking of Bill Clinton
This review is from: Truth at Any Cost: Ken Starr and the Unmaking of Bill Clinton (Hardcover)
As a reader of nonfiction, specifically history or politics, I'm an avid highlighter. I underline or highlight passages for easy reference, jot a few margin notes for consideration for future research, and a few sticky notes for bookmarking. This book is filled with my personalization. Unfortunately, for the authors, virtually every marking point out factual problems, statements contradicted by the public record, or totally implausible explanations. What follows are a very small subset of the countless shortfallings.
"The presiding federal judge, Henry Woods, was one of Hillary Clinton's mentors . . . An appeals court disagreed and stripped Woods of the case, citing appearance of bias in his Whitehouse connections." P 10. The problem here is that the authors fail to tell the reader the nature of the appeal. Ken Starr used newspaper stories to support this contention. A brief review of the evidence shows the "mentor" contention came from an op-ed published in the Washington Times, written by Jim Johnson. Johnson, known as Justice Jim, along with Wesley Pruden, father of the editor-in-chief of the Washington Times, cofounded the Arkansas White Citizens Counsel. The alleged mentor concept arose from Woods asking Hillary Clinton to serve on a board that reviewed school desegregation in Little Rock. Woods was a longtime enemy of Johnson, who succeeded in removing Johnson's pro segregation clause in the Arkansas constitution. The facts reveal that Woods had often ruled against then Governor Clinton, including a case involving a planned nuclear power plant. The authors clearly fail at providing any of these facts, and instead stick to the Ken Starr line of the smear of Judge Woods. The authors never mention that the appeals court was headed by Jesse Helms sponsored Judge Pasco Bowman.
Schmidt and Weisskopf missed the most basic logical fallacy in the above passage. Even if it were correct, how do the authors square the "bias" in light that the McDougal Tucker prosecution presented the Clintons as victims, not criminals. Oh that's right, Schmidt also failed to inform the Washington Post readers of this prosecution summation in that trial. Yet another inconvenient fact that the authors chose to ignore.
The book's reporting of the Ritz Carlton room 1012 episode, (pp 38-46) contradicts Monica Lewinsky and Marcia Lewis' memory in salient details. Since it's a clear disagreement, one must rely on which version appears more plausible. One is strained to believe the Schmidt version. Can one really believe that someone who's being threatened with 27 years in prison and having their mother similarly indicted for obstruction (a fact which both Truth At Any Cost and Monica's Story agree), would not demand to speak to a lawyer? "Monica's Story" claims that she was threatened with indictment if she chose to do so. Schmidt claims that Monica was told she could leave at any time. Can anyone seriously believe she stayed for 10 hours of threats and abuse, if the TAAC version is correct. I'm strained to believe the Schmidt version. What is clear is that if the actual events are even slightly skewed to the Lewinsky rendition, the Office Of Independent Counsel clearly violated Ms. Lewinsky's constitutional rights, and committed severe breaches in law.
"In fact, Hale had not changed his story. [regarding the illegal loan from Hale to McDougal]." P 95. Sorry Ms. Schmidt, but there are at least three different versions of the story told by Hale. They include different ways that Clinton arrived, what Clinton was wearing when he arrived, and in his latest rendition added paid Clinton hater LD Brown as being present at the time. Can one seriously believe that these supporting facts would have changed over time if in fact Clinton asked Hale to commit a crime? I would assume any reasonable person would remember virtually every detail of such a significant event. But the authors never seem to want to dig beneath the official Ken Starr version, never realizing how implausible that version is.
Another reviewer gave the book two stars, calling it a page turner. Initially I concurred with that evaluation, until I realized I was turning the pages, with slacked jaw, wondering how they might next distort reality. Their premise that Starr is politically niave, is contradicted by countless examples of sophisticated acumen. The book fails miserably to support the argument the authors adduce. The basic dishonest merits my one-star rating.
Kenneth Winston "Ken" Starr (born July 21, 1946) is an American lawyer and educational administrator who has also been a federal judge. He is best known for his investigation of figures during the Clinton administration.
Starr first attended the Church of Christ-affiliated Harding University in Searcy, Arkansas, where he was an honor student, a member of the Young Democrats club,[2] and a vocal supporter of Vietnam protesters.[6] He later transferred to George Washington University in Washington, D.C., where he received his bachelor of arts degree in 1968. During his time at George Washington University, Starr was a member of Delta Phi Epsilon, a professional foreign service fraternity.[7] Starr worked for theSouthwestern Company.[8] He later attended Brown University where he earned an M.A. in 1969 and then went to Duke University School of Law, earning his J.D. in 1973. Starr was not drafted for military service during the Vietnam War, as he was classified 4-F, because of a case of psoriasis.[9]
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Starr was nominated for a judgeship on United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit by President Ronald Reagan and served from 1983 to 1989. He was the United States Solicitor General from 1989 to 1993 under President George H. W. Bush.
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Second thoughts on DOJ request
In 2004, Starr expressed regret for ever having asked the Department of Justice to assign him to personally oversee the Lewinsky investigation, saying "the most fundamental thing that could have been done differently" would have been for somebody else to have investigated the matter.[24]
[edit]Political satire
As with many controversial figures, Kenneth Starr has been the subject of political satire. Both the book, And the Horse He Rode In On, by James Carville, and the stage play, Starr’s on Broadway, by Eric Zaccar, attempt to add a comedic, arguably negative light to Starr’s time as special prosecutor.
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Morse v. Frederick
Main article: Morse v. Frederick
On May 4, 2006, Starr announced that he would represent the school board of Juneau, Alaska, in its appeal to the United States Supreme Court in a case brought by a former student, Joseph Frederick. The former student unfurled a banner at a school sponsored event saying "Bong Hits 4 Jesus" as the Olympic torch was passing through Juneau, prior to arriving in Salt Lake City, Utah, for the 2002 Winter Olympics. The board decided to suspend the student. The student then sued and won at the9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which stated that the board violated the student's first amendment right to free speech.[28] On August 28, 2006, Starr filed a writ of certiorari for a hearing with the Supreme Court.[29] On June 21, 2007, in an opinion authored by Chief Justice John Roberts, the Court ruled in favor of Starr's client, finding that "a principal may, consistent with the First Amendment, restrict student speech at a school event, when that speech is reasonably viewed as promoting illegal drug use."[30]
(Asshole.)
Defense of Jeffrey Epstein
In 2007, Starr joined the legal team of Palm Beach millionaire sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, who was criminally accused of the statutory rape of numerous underaged high school students.[35] Epstein would later plea bargain to plead guilty to several charges of soliciting prostitutes and serve 13 months in a private wing of the Palm Beach jail. [1]
(Someone told me, once, that California jails are nice, anyway, even in the general population.)
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,586284,00.html grain of salt
STARR: Well Malibu is a great place and Pepperdine is a wonderful place. Greta, as you may know, I'm a native Texan. In fact I'm a fifth generation Texan. My ancestors on my father's side settled from the great state of Illinois about 100 miles from here in 1848.
VAN SUSTEREN: On the day of this big announcement Baylor University, it's also announcement of "Death of American Virtue," a book that has come out of the investigation of President Clinton.
You have been quoted as saying that if you saw President Clinton that you would say, you were sorry. Explain what you meant by that.
STARR: Oh, well, I mean that in the sense that I very much regret that the entire episode happened. And what American of goodwill wanted this episode to happen? No one did. So obviously I regret that as a citizen who loves his country. Obviously it brought great pain to a lot of people. It was unpleasant for everyone involved in the investigation.
From Publishers Weekly
This book's readers will quickly think of water. Facts overwhelm you like Niagara. And when you've finished reading about President Clinton and special prosecutor Ken Starr, you may want to take a long shower. Gormley, a professor of law at Duquesne (Archibald Cox), reviews the entire sordid business of Clinton's foolishness and his enemies' efforts to bring down his presidency. It's not an edifying tale. Very few of the book's cast come off well, except for Secret Service officials and a judge or two. If there's a sympathetic character, it's Susan McDougal, who refused to rat on her friends. Starr
(Maybe she was scared, maybe she has a family. What American virtue?)
Starr’s initial charge to investigate the Clintons’ involvement in Arkansas real-estate deals morphed into an investigation of the suicide of Vince Foster and Paula Jones’ allegations of sexual harassment and the ostensible connection of an affair with Lewinsky. Gormley chronicles the behind-the-scenes political machinations of Republican “elves” out to get the Clintons and White House efforts to save his presidency, playing out in a titanic political clash as Americans were repulsed by Clinton’s actions and Starr’s excessive zeal. Gormley recalls the missteps and irregularities on both sides as partisan politics poisoned efforts to get at the truth. Gormley is masterful at building the high drama of stranger-than-fiction political skulduggery and nuttiness with a cast of fascinating characters. --Vanessa Bush
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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By K. Kennemer
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Congress And That Ken Starr Steal Spotlight From Clinton
I don't know about y'all, but I'm starting to think maybe the country would be better off if we put all the politicians into Bedlam and let them carry on from there.
Congress is making the president, scandal and all, look like a titan.
* First, they have a huge fight about whether to rename Washington National Airport after Ronald Reagan, our former president's greatest contribution to aviation having firing a bunch of air traffic controllers who are still mad about it.
(That's about the time the accidents increased, isn't it?)
* In D.C., where the media have gone totally bonkers about the Lewinsky scandal, we are all getting an instructive lesson in how an unscrupulous prosecutor works.
Leaks from the prosecutor's office are so obviously orchestrated to put pressure on Lewinsky that we hardly need her lawyer to point this out.
As if the example of Susan McDougal, who has spent 18 months in prison for refusing to answer Kenneth Starr's questions, were not enough, one leaker used the media to remind Lewinsky that her mother, who allegedly knew that her daughter allegedly planned to lie in a deposition, could face legal action.
Starr, let us recall, has been prying into President Clinton's sex life for quite some time now. Last summer, Starr called in eight Arkansas state troopers to ask them about any knowledge they had of Clinton's extramarital relationships. Roger Perry, one of the troopers questioned by Starr, said: ``In the past, I thought they were trying to get to the bottom of Whitewater. This last time, I was left with the impression that they wanted to show he was a womanizer.''
...................
Who was going to care about that? Not one person i know gives a rats ass about Clinton's blowjob. Waste of time and money.
On the other hand...Why is it okay to be bizarrely over-concerned with sex which was hidden, and accept war like it's nothing. No one got bent out of shape about that-not that I heard, anyway. Granted, years back I was bombarded by more TV and radio so I had no choice but to hear about Clinton and his sex life. Now I get Google Alerts and am free to pay attention to what I'm interested in, not what bullshit the TV thinks I should care about (and NEVER do.)
A word of advice, let your cable go. Let it go let it go let it go. it's killing your brain. Get the most expensive iPod you can afford, load all of your friends CD's into your iTunes, and never listen to another commercial. You will be so peaceful without the constant barrage of attention getting, fear mongering LIES. It would be one thing if any of it were true, but it mostly is not!
Anyway, why can we see violence galore any time you turn on a TV, but sex is censored? I know this question has been asked before, but I never heard it answered! Could it be because certain governments likes war?
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