By JUDITH HANEY ARTICLE DEDICATION USNewsLink/February 5, 2003 A new book by Whitewater figure Susan McDougal has hit the stands falling far short of providing fresh insight into her refusal to cooperate with a 1990s federal grand jury in its investigation of her 1980s business dealings with Bill and Hillary Clinton in Little Rock, AR. In her latest version of events, McDougal continues her cover-up of salient facts concerning her business dealings with Clinton, a powerful, second term governor of Arkansas and his wife, Hillary, then a prominent, high-profile, corporate lawyer for Arkansas' business and social elite. In her book, McDougal loses all credibility by continuing the lame course she plied in 1996 of misrepresenting the facts and avoiding responsibility for certain events surrounding her unlawful misapplication of SBA loan funds. Said loan funds were utilized to pay Whitewater debts on behalf of herself, her husband, James, and both of the Clintons. Within this new book as well as her various media appearances, McDougal pretends to forget that a boatload of tangible evidence was introduced at her federal fraud trial in support of the various indictments brought against her, charges for which she was later convicted and sentenced to a two-year prison stint. And if secreting, ignoring, and misrepresenting the facts of the Whitewater partnership wasn't enough garbage to fill the pages of her book, McDougal continues laying on her implausible, somewhat ridiculous, alibi of blaming her problems and prosecution(s) on a laundry list of Republican players. On background, during the 1990s, McDougal and her former husband, James McDougal (deceased), became subjects of a federal grand jury investigation into their business partnership with Bill and Hillary Clinton in an Arkansas land development known as "Whitewater." Simultaneously, the McDougal's were under investigation for their role in causing the demise and failure of Madison Guaranty Savings and Loan which they owned, and whose failure cost American tax payers $20 Million Dollars when it was taken over by the Resolution Trust Corporation (RTC) in the early 1990s. (Final Report of the Independent Counsel In Re: Madison Guaranty Savings & Loan Association) In her book, and in all of her media appearances since 1998, Susan McDougal's account of the federal grand jury investigation, and her subsequent conviction for defrauding the Small Business Administration (SBA), fails to explain in any believable, rational, manner her refusal to cooperate in the investigation. In exchange for her sworn testimony, McDougal was offered a blanket grant of immunity from prosecution before and during her federal trial, And post conviction she could have avoided prison by cooperating with the grand jury's investigation. But, instead of cooperating with the investigation, McDougal defied a federal court order and refused to testify before the federal grand jury empanelled in LIttle Rock. Following her refusal to testify, U.S. District Judge George Howard,Jr. ordered her incarcerated for 18 months for contempt of court. She later served three months of a two-year sentence for her conviction of the charges related to defrauding the SBA. In June, 1998, Judge Howard set her free on medical grounds, reducing her sentence on the federal convictions to time served. In her latest public relations piece entitled Susan McDougal: The Woman Who Wouldn't Talk, McDougal does nothing to resolve the lingering, unanswered, questions about Bill and Hillary Clinton's involvement and knowledge of the SBA scam from which they benefited. In truth, she expends all of her efforts in shrouding the truth in empty, transparent, rhetoric that has long since lost its effectiveness as a tool to transfer blame away from herself and onto her accusers. Throughout her time under the prosecutorial microscope, Susan McDougal captured the sympathy of the public through a steadfast, convincing, message of assigning blame together with a well-spoken, compelling, personality and physical attractiveness. During the years since she first came into view, the public has stood in awe of McDougal and her endless ability to survive adversity and the ordeal of prosecution and prison. She has dazzled onlookers with her smile and entertained them with her sense of humor. Most of all she caused Americans to doubt the facts concerning Whitewater and Madison Guaranty, indisputable facts that are in the public domain via her federal trial. And, in the process of telling her 'story' to the American people, Susan McDougal has been 'moderately' successful in pulling the wool over their eyes through persistent, wildly dishonest, mischaracterizations of the motives of career investigators and prosecutors. She has consistently conned her way through the ups and downs of her life following Whitewater by telling the "tale" that her prosecution was nothing if not an unsuccessful ploy by a right-wing political group to "get Bill Clinton." Her account of the facts are geared toward creating the illusion that her prosecution was malicious and unfounded. Nothing could be farther from the truth. There is another more accurate version of events surrounding Susan McDougal's indictment, prosecution, and conviction, i.e., it was about her and her illegal, dishonest, unethical, business dealings. It was not about the Clintons, or anyone else, only her and the bad judgment and slippery business practices she willfully engaged in over a period of years which involved a variety of matters. Be that as it may, McDougal offers superb insight into the horrors of incarceration from a woman's point of view. The book is worth reading for that aspect alone. As for the rest of her book, it should be taken with a grain of salt offered up as "truth" by someone with a significant history of lying, willful obstruction of justice, and an unmistakable contempt for the American system of justice. FOOTNOTE: In her new
book, "Living History," published in June, 2003, Hillary Rodham Clinton says
that the Whitewater matter that dogged much of their time in the White House was only a
"public relations mistakes in how we handled the growing controversy."
"Whitewater never seemed real because it wasn't," she writes. Mrs. Clinton is a prisoner of her past transgressions. She is also a potential target for future justice department investigations into what role she played in the 11th hour pardons of many of the Clinton's most avid supporters, including Susan McDougal. Since taking office as a junior senator from the state of New York, Mrs. Clinton has passively supported George Bush in many of his legislative initiatives. And in so doing has silently confirmed what many Clinton watchers already know, i.e., she cannot afford to alienate the Bush Administration, particularly when there are so many, as yet, unanswered questions about possible unlawful conduct on hers and her husband's part during the Clinton White House years. Judith Haney covered both Whitewater trials in Little Rock, AR, in 1996 as a reporter and broadcaster. She has studied and amassed volumes of Whitewater and Madison Guaranty related information which comprise the public, historical, record back to 1989. She became acquainted with Susan and James McDougal during their 1996 trial in Little Rock, AR. Additional Reading: Me and Bill and Hillary The Special
Committee's Whitewater Report |
