Sue Hartigan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
Whitewater Grand Jury Sees Records
> WASHINGTON (AP) -- In a bizarre discovery in the late
> Vincent Foster's attic, Whitewater prosecutors have
> landed a second set of Hillary Rodham Clinton's
> once-elusive law firm billing records, lawyers said
> Thursday.
>
> The records have fewer handwritten notations and fewer
> pages but generally contain the same information as the
> set belatedly found in the White House in 1996, the
> lawyers said.
>
> Nonetheless, the documents have become a fresh line of
> inquiry for grand jury questioning in Arkansas, where
> prosecutors are pressing to wrap up their investigation
> of the first lady's legal work for a failed savings and
> loan owned by her Whitewater business partner.
>
> ``You're sitting in the grand jury and the prosecutors
> read you an entry about Mrs. Clinton from one set of
> billing records, question you about it, then they pick
> up the other set and read other entries about other
> meetings,'' said one recent grand jury witness who spoke
> only on condition of anonymity.
>
> Prosecutors are trying to determine if Mrs. Clinton,
> while a private Arkansas attorney, assisted a series of
> fraudulent S&L land transactions in the mid-1980s
> carried out by her business partner, the late James
> McDougal. They're also investigating whether she lied
> about her work under oath or tried to conceal documents
> in the Whitewater investigation that was begun during
> her husband's presidency.
>
> On Thursday, Mrs. Clinton's private lawyer described the
> second set of billing records, which were found last
> summer by Foster's widow, Lisa, in the attic of their
> Arkansas home.
>
> ``These Rose Law Firm billing records for Madison
> Guaranty Savings & Loan, which were discovered by Mrs.
> Foster at her home in July of 1997, are virtually
> identical to the records produced by me'' to Whitewater
> prosecutor Kenneth Starr, attorney David Kendall said.
>
> ``There are a few additional handwritten notations, and
> fifteen additional pages, in the set produced two years
> ago,'' Kendall said.
>
> Starr's office and Foster's lawyer, James Hamilton,
> declined comment.
>
> Foster and former Associate Attorney General Webster
> Hubbell were partners with Mrs. Clinton at the Rose Law
> Firm in Little Rock. They directed the firm to print the
> billing records in 1992 when questions about Whitewater
> arose during Clinton's first presidential campaign.
>
> But when prosecutors subpoenaed them later on, the
> records had mysteriously disappeared.
>
> In January 1996, more than two years after they had been
> first subpoenaed, the records were turned over after a
> presidential secretary found them on a table in the
> White House living quarters.
>
> The 100-plus pages of billing records outline Mrs.
> Clinton's legal work for McDougal's Madison Guaranty
> S&L, including more than a dozen meetings with Hubbell's
> father-in-law, Seth Ward, an S&L employee who was paid
> more than $300,000 in disputed commissions. The first
> lady and Ward say they recall nothing of the meetings.
>
> Hubbell has testified that Foster was the last one he
> saw handling the billing records.
>
> Last July, Lisa Foster was going through some stored
> belongings in her attic when she pulled a set of Mrs.
> Clinton's billing records from a briefcase used by her
> late husband just before his 1993 suicide.
>
> The briefcase also included correspondence from The New
> York Times seeking answers to questions about
> Whitewater, sources familiar with the briefcase's
> contents say.
>
> Mrs. Foster turned the briefcase and the materials over
> to her lawyer, who provided them to Starr.
>
> In court arguments a year ago, prosecutors identified
> Mrs. Clinton as someone who could be indicted and
> alleged that her account to investigators in the
> Whitewater investigation had changed over time. Among
> the things they are investigating is whether she was
> involved in the disappearance of the billing records.
>
> Federal bank examiners have previously reported Mrs.
> Clinton created a document in 1986 involving one of
> McDougal's most controversial land deals, Castle Grande,
> that was used by his S&L to deceive federal regulators.
>
> In 1988, Mrs. Clinton authorized the destruction of her
> files on Castle Grande and McDougal's S&L.
>
> The first lady has emphatically denied wrongdoing and
> says she directed the ``routine'' destruction of her
> records to reduce a paper backlog at the law firm. At
> the time, McDougal's S&L was under criminal
> investigation.
>
> The recent grand jury witnesses said much of the
> questioning has focused on Castle Grande, Mrs. Clinton,
> Hubbell and Ward.
>
> Hubbell, who resigned under a cloud in 1994 as Clinton's
> associate attorney general, was released from prison
> last year after serving a term for defrauding his former
> law firm and clients.
>
> One grand jury witness said a ``central focus'' for
> prosecutors concerned references in the billing records
> to Feb. 28, 1986.
>
> The records state Mrs. Clinton talked that day to Ward,
> whose $1 million-plus loan for Castle Grande property
> was paid off that day at McDougal's S&L.
--
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