Sue Hartigan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
Evidence found
lacking against
first lady, but
McDougal
indicted again
for contempt
WASHINGTON, May 4 — Hillary Rodham Clinton
will not be indicted in the Whitewater
investigation, sources close to the investigation
told NBC News on Monday. The sources said
the decision was not a close call. Independent
counsel Kenneth Starr found the evidence was
simply not strong enough for what would have
been an unprecedented indictment of a first lady,
they said.
BUT WHITEWATER business partner Susan
McDougal did not escape. She was indicted on
new
charges related to her refusal to tell a grand
jury what she
knows about President Bill Clinton’s and
Hillary Clinton’s
business dealings. The indictment, handed down
by a grand
jury that is completing its last week of work,
charged
McDougal with two counts of criminal contempt
of court
and one count of obstruction of justice.
The charges come nearly two years after
she first
refused to testify before a federal grand jury
after being
convicted by a jury on fraud charges related to
the failed
savings and loan at the center of the original
Whitewater
investigation.
Legal observers said that just because
Hillary Clinton
was not indicted doesn’t mean she’s out of
trouble.
Former independent counsel Michael
Zeldin told
MSNBC’s “Internight” that though the Arkansas
grand jury
found no wrongdoing on Whitewater matters, the
first lady
will still need to justify the missing FBI
files and the firings in
the travel office to a separate Washington,
D.C., grand jury.
Other attorneys said Starr may have
foregone an
indictment against the first lady in part so
that prosecutors
can focus their attention on allegations
against the president.
“Starr is learning to go after what he
thinks is
important,” criminal defense attorney Pam
Metzger told
MSNBC. In the past, she said, Starr has had a
“political tin
ear.”
But Zeldin told MSNBC that Starr should
get some
credit for his exercise of judgment.
“In the end, he did what he was
empowered to do,
which is to hear the evidence,” Zeldin said.
MCDOUGAL: 18 MONTHS AND COUNTING
McDougal has already served 18 months
for civil
contempt for refusing to answer questions
before the grand
jury, the maximum time a federal judge can
order.
She was freed in March and is currently
serving a
prison sentence for the fraud charges stemming
from her
1996 trial.
She was brought back before the grand
jury again last
month and again refused to answer prosecutors’
questions.
U.S. Marshals escort Susan
McDougal to the Little Rock,
Ark., federal building in
April.
William
Henley,
Susan McDougal’s
brother, said before
the indictment that
she
expected to take any
new charges to trial
so
that she can present
evidence concerning
recent allegations
that
a key prosecution
witness may have
received financial
assistance from
conservative critics
of
President Clinton.
“I think it is going to give us an
opportunity to show
what a tainted investigation this was. ... If
it will give us the
opportunity bring evidence forward and to bring
witnesses
forward, Susan is more than willing to go
through this,”
Henley said.
He said his sister had been informed by
prosecutors in
a letter that she would be indicted if she
refused to talk by
noon Monday.
The grand jury in Arkansas, which is set
to expire
Thursday after two years of work, reconvened
Monday.
Starr has not said whether he would ask for a
new grand
jury, although he has said he was eager for the
current
panel’s work to be complete.
The investigation has narrowed its focus
in recent
months to Hillary Clinton’s legal work for the
savings and
loan that McDougal once owned with her former
husband,
the late James McDougal.
--
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