Word: starrs
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...months independent counsel Kenneth Starr has been investigating the Whitewater affair, he has always telegraphed his punches. Early on, he did not deny reports that Arkansas Governor Jim Guy Tucker was a prosecutorial goal-and eventually Tucker was indicted. In May, Starr quashed speculation about the imminent indictment of presidential adviser Bruce Lindsey; Lindsey has not been indicted...
...White House lawyers working on Whitewater were relieved last week when the 21-count felony indictment of Tucker and former Clinton business partners Susan and James McDougal didn't mention the Clintons-or Whitewater-at all. Starr hammered the point home: "The indictment does not charge criminal wrongdoing by President William Jefferson Clinton or First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton." To White House officials, this was vindication: Starr, they believe, has accepted their contention that the Whitewater mess was only one small scam in a host of shady deals by Jim McDougal...
...Indeed, Starr's latest charges focused on a series of allegedly fraudulent loans made to the McDougals and to Tucker, then a lawyer. The loans were issued by former Arkansas municipal judge David Hale, who ran a federally backed investment company for small businesses called Capital Management Services; the money helped finance various real estate developments in the mid-1980s. The indictment alleges that Hale gave McDougal four loans backed by the Small Business Administration in exchange for $825,000 in financing by McDougal for a fraudulent real estate deal. The financing was provided by McDougal's savings and loan...
...based heavily on testimony by Hale, who has already pleaded guilty to reduced charges in exchange for his cooperation. He remains unsentenced and reportedly under protective custody. But while Hale may have helped take the spotlight off the White House last week, he has other allegations that may, if Starr chooses to give them credence, still trouble the Clintons. Shortly after being indicted on other loan-fraud charges in September 1993, Hale claimed that on two occasions Bill Clinton personally pressured him to give Susan McDougal a $300,000 SBA loan. Later, about $25,000 of that SBA-backed money...
...Starr has a remarkable record of persuading his indictees to turn state's evidence. Nine of the 14 charged so far have pleaded guilty in return for cooperation with the prosecution. Jim McDougal has always taken a feisty stand, but his health is poor and he might theoretically find cooperating an appealing alternative to a stretch behind bars. (Almost all counts of the latest indictment are punishable by up to five years in prison.) TIME has learned from attorney Bobby McDaniel that his client Susan McDougal has refused an offer from Starr to plead guilty to a misdemeanor in return...