On a couple of occasions during this election season, I’ve written in detail about Hillary Clinton and the Whitewater/Castle Grande scandal. Although the events in question took place 25 years (or so) ago, they are relevant today because at the heart of that scandal, insofar as Hillary is concerned, was the theft and/or wrongful destruction of documents. Such conduct is also a central issue in Hillary’s current email scandal, although this matter also raises concerns that she compromised national security.
Now, the invaluable Judicial Watch has obtained and published an April 1998 memo by the Office of Independent Counsel, called “HRC Order of Proof.” It includes the names of 121 witnesses and a discussion of the evidence to be used at trial against the Whitewater/Castle Grande conspirators. The memo thus constitutes a road map to the Independent Counsel’s criminal case.
Ken Starr, the Independent Counsel, decided not to proceed against Hillary Clinton. He did so, it is said, because he believed his team could not win the complicated, largely circumstantial case against such a high-profile figure. It’s quite possible that, in addition, political calculation came into play.
In any event, the evidence against Clinton was substantial, as the newly released “HRC Order of Proof” confirms. Here are some of the items the memo shows the Independent Counsel had the testimony needed to establish:
* Carolyn Huber, a Clinton aide, received a call from Mrs. Clinton on the night of March 7, 1992, instructing her to get certain records at the Rose Law Firm (Hilary’s former employer) and deliver them to the Clinton presidential campaign.
* That night, Rose Law firm documents were passed to a campaign aide in the firm’s parking lot.
* Rose Law Firm billing records were taken out of storage in February/March 1992 and not returned.
* During this same period, there was a furious Clinton effort to locate documents and shut down witnesses.
* Tulsa-based senior Resolution Trust Corp. investigator Jean Lewis, later the subject of a vituperative campaign of personal destruction by the Clinton side, was dispatched “by her local supervisor and someone in Washington to go to Little Rock to determine if Whitewater had caused a loss” to Madison Guaranty Savings & Loan Association (a central issue in the Whitewater scandal).
* Lewis visited Little Rock in April 1992 (shortly after the billing records had been removed), and drew up Criminal Referral C-0004, which was sent “directly to the Little Rock U.S. Attorney and Little Rock FBI on 9/1/92.”
* U.S. Attorney Paula Casey, a Clinton associate, and the Little Rock FBI office agreed to hold the criminal referral “in abeyance until after the election.” Meanwhile, the FBI and RTC investigations moved forward. Nine more RTC criminal referrals involving Whitewater-related schemes were drawn up.
* A Justice Department probe was underway on July 20, 1993, when search warrants were obtained in Little Rock for Whitewater-related documents. That evening in Washington, Vincent Foster, the former Rose Law Firm partner serving as both the Clintons’ personal lawyer and White House deputy counsel, committed suicide.
* Numerous witnesses saw documents being removed from Foster’s office, including papers that resembled the Rose Law Firm billing records under subpoena at that time, which were nowhere to be found.
* Maggie Williams, Hillary Clinton’s top White House aide, was seen removing documents from Foster’s office.
* Around this time, Williams told Treasury Department official and Clinton friend Roger Altman that “HRC is paralyzed” over the thought that an Independent Counsel would be going back over their last 20 years in Arkansas.
* In August 1995, White House staffer Carolyn Huber (the same person who in 1992 had passed Rose Law Firm records to the Clinton campaign) found what turned out to be a box of Rose Law firm billing records in the “book room” on the third floor of the White House.
* Huber had not seen the box of documents on her last visit to this room, which she says occurred a few week earlier.
* In July 1995, a Secret Service employee encountered Mrs. Clinton on the third floor of the White House residence. She was carrying a cardboard box when he saw her in a doorway across the main corridor from her office.
* In the box that Mrs. Clinton was carrying, the Secret Service man saw documents that looked like the billing records. He said the documents were placed in the box length-wise, with one end sticking out of the box. The documents were the same length and thickness as the billing records later produced to the Office of Independent Council.
* Two other witnesses saw Mrs. Clinton carrying a cardboard box on the third floor during the same time period.
* Fingerprint analysis of the Rose Law Firm billing records “found” at the White House found the prints of Vince Foster and Hillary Clinton.
This is just part of the Independent Council’s case described in the memo. If you read the whole thing in conjunction with my earlier post, I think you will conclude that Hillary Clinton deserved to be indicted and might well have been convicted.
You probably will also agree with me that document theft or destruction is nothing new for Hillary Clinton.
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