Hillary-Clinton-Whitewater-Scandal-2016-02-03
Judicial Watch Releases Independent Counsel Memo Laying Out Criminal Case against Hillary Clinton in Whitewater Land Scandal — Judicial Watch released 246 pages of previously undisclosed Office of Independent Counsel (OIC) internal memos revealing extensive details about the investigation.
‘The Castle Grande transactions were crimes’
Hillary Clinton ‘destroyed’ her personal records
A case of ‘possible obstruction’ of justice
Sources say redacted portions of memoranda contain a draft indictment of Mrs. Clinton
Never-before-published prosecution memos from April 1998 say Clinton’s ‘sworn statements to the RTC, the FDIC, the Senate and the House of Representatives and to OIC … reflected and embodied materially inaccurate stories’
A 4/10/98 OIC memo uses terms ‘crime(s),’ ‘criminal,’ ‘fraudulent,’ ‘misrepresented,’ ‘inaccurate,’ ‘deceive,’ ‘mislead,’ ‘misstatement,’ and ‘concealed’ 27 times in 20 pages to describe actions by Clinton and Whitewater associates
(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch today released 246 pages of previously undisclosed Office of Independent Counsel (OIC) internal memos revealing extensive details about the investigation of Hillary Rodham Clinton for possible criminal charges involving her activities in the Whitewater/Castle Grande fraudulent land transaction scandal. The memos are “statements of the case” against Hillary Clinton and Webster Lee “Webb” Hubbell, Hillary Clinton’s former law partner and former Associate Attorney General in the Clinton Justice Department. Ultimately, the memos show that prosecutors declined to prosecute Clinton because of the difficulty of persuading a jury to convict a public figure as widely known as Clinton. (Links to the full set of documents are below.)
Although some details of the documents have been previously reported, Judicial Watch is today publicly releasing the independent counsel prosecution memos for the first time. The prosecution memos—portions of which were heavily redacted—were obtained by Judicial Watch from the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request.
An April 10, 1998, memo summarizes “the crimes under consideration”
What, then are the crimes under consideration? Between January 1994 and February 1996 both Hillary Clinton and [Webster] Hubbell made numerous sworn statements to the RTC, the FDIC, the Senate and the House of Representatives, and to the OIC. Each of these reflected and embodied materially inaccurate stories relating to: how RLF [Clinton and Hubbell’s Rose Law Firm] came to be retained by MGSL [the Madison Guaranty Savings & Loan]; Hillary Clinton’s role in the IDC/Castle Grande venture; Hillary Clinton’s role in representing MGSL; Hillary Clinton’s role in representing MGSL before state agencies’; Hubbell’s representations to the RTC [Resolution Trust Corporation] and FDIC regarding Hillary Clinton’s role in the IDC/Castle Grande venture; and the removal of records from the RLF. The question, generally, is not whether the statements are inaccurate, but whether they are willfully so.
The records released today by Judicial Watch were prepared for an “All OIC Attorneys” meeting on April 27, 1998, at which a final decision about whether to indict Clinton and Hubbell was the subject of a lengthy debate. The records explore in detail the role Clinton played in the fraudulent Castle Grande transaction, the role of Madison Guaranty Savings & Loan, and the subsequent lengthy cover-up as the Clintons sought and won the White House.
Clinton, according to prosecutors, drafted an option agreement that concealed from federal bank examiners a fraudulent $300,000 cross-loan in the Castle Grande transaction. Her concealment of her role in this fraudulent transaction, including the hiding of her Rose Law Firm billing records concerning her legal work for Madison, were the subject of an OIC obstruction of justice probe.
The 1998 memoranda include substantial evidence depicting Clinton and her former Rose Law Firm partners—Hubbell, and Vincent Foster, both of whom went on to senior positions in the Bill Clinton presidency—as complicit in activities that “facilitated crimes.”
Page 18 of the OIC documents notes that Clinton “destroyed” her personal records of her work for Madison Guaranty. Page 39 of the documents notes:
Section II contains a chronological background and contextual summary of the investigation so that the facts relating to possible obstruction can be placed in the context of the ongoing investigation by OIC.
The evidence in the new documents covers:
- Castle Grande. “The Castle Grande transactions were crimes.” The statement is followed by an explicit six-paragraph dissection of the land-flipping scheme.
- Madison Guaranty S&L. Clinton minimized the role she played in seeking state regulatory assistance for the corrupt savings and loan, headed by key Clinton financial and political supporter James McDougal. At the time, Bill Clinton was governor of Arkansas.
- Vincent Foster and the Missing Rose Law Firm Billing Records. The Rose records were a key piece of evidence in the probe. They were missing for years. After Foster’s July 1993 suicide, the OIC documents note, where the billing records went “is an open question…. Several pieces of evidence support the inference that personal documents which Hillary Clinton did not want disclosed were located in Foster’s office at the time of his death and then removed.”
- Removal of Records from Vincent Foster’s Office. “ [O]n the afternoon of July 21st Bernard Nussbaum, then White House Counsel, initially agreed to allow two career DOJ employees to review the documents in Foster’s office for evidence that might shed light on the cause of his death. That evening and the next morning Nussbaum, Hillary Clinton, Susan Thomases, and Maggie Williams (Hillary Clinton’s chief of staff) exchanged 10 separate phones calls … That morning, according to the DOJ employees, Nussbaum changed his mind and refused to allow the DOJ prosecutors to review the documents; instead, he reviewed them himself and segregated several as ‘personal’ to the Clintons.”
- Hiding the Billing Records. “On the evening of July 22nd, Thomas Castleton … assisted Williams [Maggie Williams, Hillary Clinton chief of staff] in carrying a box of personal documents up to … a closet in Hillary Clinton’s office. The closet is approximately 30 feet from the table in the Book Room, where the billing records were found 2 years later…. There is a circumstantial case that the records were left on the table by Hillary Clinton. She is the only individual in the White House who had a significant interest in them and she is one of only 3 people known to have had them in her possession since their creation in February 1992.”
- Buying the Silence of a Co-Conspirator? Hubbell, criticized by the OIC for his lack of cooperation with the probe, received several “jobs” from Clinton supporters for which he apparently did little or no work. During a taped conversation in prison, Hubbell appears to acknowledge that he withheld information from the OIC. Several of Hubbell’s job-providers fell most strongly within the hush money allegation. The OIC notes eight of them on page 197.
- The Missing Draft Indictment. More than 60 pages of the OIC memoranda are completely censored, withheld by the National Archives. Multiple sources tell Judicial Watch that these pages include a full draft indictment of Clinton and Hubbell, as well as a detailed “order of Evidence” list.
The National Archives is withholding additional documents Judicial Watch believes to be critical to understanding Clinton’s full role in the Whitewater scandal.
On March 9, 2015, Judicial Watch submitted a FOIA request seeking all draft indictments of Clinton in the files of Hickman Ewing Jr., who served as deputy independent counsel in the Whitewater probe. In 1999, Ewing testified that he wrote a draft indictment of Clinton.
On March 19, 2015, the National Archives admitted locating records responsive to the Ewing material request, confirming that it found 38 pages of responsive records in a folder entitled “Draft Indictment,” and approximately 200 pages of responsive records in a folder entitled “Hilary Rodham Clinton/Webster L. Hubbell Draft Indictment.” Judicial Watch is suing in federal court to force the release of the draft indictment, which is being withheld by the National Archives to protect the privacy of Hillary Clinton.
Ultimately, as an April 24, 1998, memo suggests, prosecutors were persuaded that a jury would not convict Clinton based upon circumstantial evidence. OIC attorney Paul Rosenzweig wrote:
In a high profile case of this sort, however, I think that some jurors are likely to put OIC to the full measure of proof beyond a reasonable doubt and, in effect, insist that circumstantial evidence is an inferior form of evidence on which they cannot convict. Such a distinction would be “lawless” in a formal sense, as contrary to their jury instructions – but we blink reality if we do not expect this reaction to a primarily circumstantial high profile case.
The prosecutor concluded:
Bottom line: We can anticipate the following: 2% = Rule 29; 18% = Acquittal; 70% =Hung Jury; 10% = Conviction. Not enough in my view.
“These new Hillary Clinton prosecution memos are damning and dramatic,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “Hillary Clinton’s bank fraud, obstruction, lies, and other fraud began in Arkansas, continued in the White House and actually accelerated because the suicide of her friend Vincent Foster. The memos suggest that if she weren’t First Lady, she would have been successfully prosecuted in federal court. As we continue the court fight to get the actual draft indictment of Hillary Clinton we first uncovered in this investigation, Americans would do well to read these memos. If you want to understand the deplorable ethics and corruption at the Clinton State Department, these documents provide important background.”
Links to the complete set of documents are available here:
Part one of “HRC Meeting” NARA Whitewater OIC document
Part two of “HRC Meeting” NARA Whitewater OIC document
Part three of “HRC Meeting” NARA Whitewater OIC document
Part four of “HRC Meeting” NARA Whitewater OIC document
http://www.judicialwatch.org/press-room/press-releases/judicial-watch-releases-office-of-independent-counsel-oic-memoranda-laying-out-criminal-case-against-hillary-clinton-in-whitewatercastle-grande-land-scandal/?utm_source=SilverpopMailing&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Judicial%20Watch%20Tipsheet%20-%20Template%202%20%287%29&utm_content=
Once Upon A Time in Arkansas
The Castle Grande Land Deal
By PBS Front-Line
At the heart of the controversial transactions commonly known as Whitewater, lies a real estate deal called Castle Grande. It is this particular deal, and subsequent events related to it, that have drawn the most intense scrutiny of financial regulators, congressional investigators and the independent counsel, Kenneth W. Starr.
In 1996, the independent counsel obtained the first Whitewater
convictions of its four-year investigation. Jim McDougal and Arkansas Governor Jim Guy Tucker were convicted on multiple counts of financial fraud directly related to the Castle Grande deal. Susan McDougal was convicted of fraudulently obtaining a $300,000 loan that was tied to Castle Grande.
In November 1998,independent counsel Starr indicted President Clinton’s longtime friend, Webster L. Hubbell, on charges that he allegedly “schemed to falsify, conceal and cover up the true nature” of the role he and Mrs. Clinton played in the Castle Grande deal. Two federal agencies concluded that Castle Grande involved “insider dealing, fictitious sales and land flips.” It’s estimated that the deal ended up costing taxpayers nearly four million dollars. Starr’s November 1998 indictment of Hubbell does not mention Mrs Clinton by name but does refer to Hubbell’s “1985-86 billing partner.”
In recent years, prosecutors have been narrowing in on questions about the veracity of sworn statements by the President and First Lady relating to their involvement in the Castle Grande controversy. In particular, prosecutors want to know whether the President was truthful when he testified that he had no knowledge of or involvement with the fraudulent loan to Susan McDougal. And prosecutors are also investigating Mrs. Clinton’s statements, as well as her actions subsequent to questions being raised about her ties to McDougal and Castle Grande — actions the prosecutors believe may have entailed the obstruction of justice.
The story of Castle Grande begins in 1985, when Jim McDougal decided to expand his land holdings just 10 minutes south of Little Rock. As the owner of a Savings and Loan, Madison Guaranty, McDougal had experienced success at turning large tracts of rural land into affordable residential developments.
The Castle Grande project consisted of 1,000 acres of scrub pine that had failed previously as an industrial development. The sales price was $1.75 million and the plan was simple: carve out half-acre lots and drop in double wide trailers. For a small investment, and only 5% down, working-class families could buy into a “quiet and roomy” community with “plenty of trees and lots of room to stretch.”
McDougal had big plans for his new development — a shopping center and even a microbrewery. But first he needed money. As he did with many of his deals, he borrowed from his own S&L. But State regulations prohibited McDougal from investing more than 6% of his institution’s assets. So, he put up $600,000 of Madison money and then, to cover the difference, he turned to a friend and part-time employee, Seth Ward.
Ward kicked in the remaining $1.15 million, money he borrowed from McDougal’s S&L. Significantly, the Madison loan to Ward was non-recourse — that is, he had no personal obligation to repay it. If federal regulators were to uncover the true nature of the Ward loan (i.e., that Ward was being used as a filter for Madison money), McDougal’s entire operation could be in trouble since the institution, had, since its previous examination, been operating under orders to correct its lending practices.
So, as regulators prepared to revisit Madison Guaranty in early 1986, McDougal set in motion a complicated series of transactions intended, in part, to conceal the non-recourse Ward loan. The transactions would become known as the Dean Paul loan and were orchestrated primarily by McDougal and local municipal judge, David Hale.
Since 1979, David Hale had operated a Small Business Investment Corporation, Capital Management Services, Inc., that was licensed to provide lending to minorities and the economically disadvantaged. The loans were matched and backed by the Small Business Administration. According to the testimony of David Hale, he and McDougal, along with future-Governor Jim Guy Tucker, concocted a scheme that would use Hale’s SBIC as a pass-through to generate additional loans from Madison.
It worked this way. Dean Paul, a friend and business associate of Hale’s, borrowed $825,000 from Madison to buy three properties from David Hale. But, Paul never saw the money, it went straight to Hale, who used much of it to recapitalize his SBIC with matching funds from the SBA. Hale then loaned a $150,000 downpayment to Jim Guy Tucker and business partner, R.D. Randolph, who together bought out a portion of Ward’s Castle Grande holdings for $1.2 million. Tucker and Randolph borrowed the additional $1.05 million from Madison.
McDougal then loaned his old friend and political mentor, Senator William Fulbright, $700,000 to buy out the bulk of Ward’s remaining holdings. The net effect was to remove Ward’s non-recourse loan from the Madison books and generate substantial sales profits and commissions for Madison.
Confused? You should be. The transactions were designed to be confusing; complicated enough to keep the regulators from discovering the Ward loan and the true extent of Madison’s full investment in Castle Grande. All of this, however, had to be done quickly. The federal thrift examiners would arrive the first week of March, 1986. The Dean Paul loan and attendant transactions were rushed through Madison on February 28.
But the last-minute flurry of loans did not fool the examiners. After several months of close examination, Jim Clark, the Federal Home Loan Bank Board Examiner-in-Charge at Madison, discovered that Seth Ward was a “straw man” in the Castle Grande deal; the property had been purchased exclusively, and illegally, with Madison money. The Castle Grande deal, like other transactions at the S&L, was essentially a sham deal — a “pyramid scheme” intended to enrich institution insiders and bolster the institution’s stated net worth. According to Clark, Madison was one of the three worst cases of insider dealing that heíd seen in his 20 years as an examiner.
Clark also uncovered some additional transactions between Ward and McDougal, including an option agreement, suggesting that Ward would receive payments for his role in the Castle Grande deal. At the time, Clark was told by Madison officials that these transactions were not related to Castle Grande. But later, investigators with the Inspector General of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, determined that the option agreement was indeed part of a concerted effort to further conceal Ward’s role as a “straw man” in the sham Castle Grande deal.
The investigators also determined that the Ward option agreement was drafted by Madison’s lawyer at the Rose Law Firm, Hillary Rodham Clinton. Mrs. Clinton, it turns out, had been retained by McDougal to handle various legal needs for the S&L. The extent of her work for Madison was not fully understood until a long-missing copy of Rose Law Firm billing records surfaced mysteriously in the White House in January, 1996 — nearly two years after they were subpoenaed by Federal investigators.
According to the billing records, Mrs. Clinton billed Madison for some 60 hours of work over a 15 month period. Nearly half, or 29.5 hours, of the work was done on matters relating to Castle Grande, including preparation of the Ward option. An April 7, 1986 entry on the records reflects a telephone conference with Madison’s senior loan officer Don Denton. During the call, according to Denton, he and Mrs. Clinton discussed the ways by which McDougal would compensate Ward.
Mrs. Clinton, whose historic testimony was taken before a grand jury shortly after the billing records appeared, has said the records confirm that she, in fact, performed very little work for Madison — so little, that she does not recall specific details. Mrs. Clinton has also said that she has no idea how the billing records got to the White House. The Independent Counsel is continuing to investigate these statements and any role that Mrs. Clinton may, or may not, have had in keeping the records from investigators for two years.
The Independent Counsel is also investigating the sworn testimony of President Clinton, who, in 1996, provided videotaped testimony at the Whitewater trial of Jim and Susan McDougal and Governor Jim Guy Tucker. At the trial, David Hale testified that then-Governor Bill Clinton had, on several occasions, inquired about a $300,000 loan Hale provided to Susan McDougal from the funds generated by the Dean Paul loan. According to Hale, Governor Clinton showed up at McDougal’s Castle Grande office during which time Clinton, McDougal and Hale discussed the SBIC loan to Susan McDougal.
For his part, Jim McDougal first said that the President was not at such a meeting. Following his Whitewater conviction, however, McDougal began cooperating with the Independent Counsel and changed his story. Now, McDougal says that the President did come to his Castle Grande office to ask about the loan to Susan.
In his videotaped testimony, the President says that he never met with McDougal and Hale about the loan to Susan and never even knew about any such loan. Meanwhile, Susan McDougal will not answer any questions about the President’s alleged involvement. She has been serving an 18-month sentence in Federal prison for refusing to testify before the Grand Jury — refusing, she says, to answer any questions that might help the Independent Counsel’s ongoing investigation. In May 1998, the Federal Whitewater Grand Jury indicted her on new charges of criminal contempt and obstruction of justice for which she now will have to stand trial.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/arkansas/castle
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