ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, April 2, 1996 TAG: 9604020038
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A5 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: ANTHONY LEWIS
ON WHITEWATER, it is time to follow Al Smith's advice: ``Let's look at the record.''
For there is a record, the reports of a detailed and dispassionate investigation. And practically no one has read those reports.
The investigation was ordered by the Resolution Trust Corp., the government body for failed savings and loans, and done by the respected San Francisco law firm of Pillsbury Madison & Sutro. Several volumes were published in 1995, the last on Dec. 28. After billing records turned up in the White House, the investigation resumed; a further 164-page report was submitted on Feb. 25.
The reports examine charges against President and Mrs. Clinton in exhaustive detail - and find one after another without substance.
* On the suggestion that the Clintons bore some legal responsibility for wrongdoing by the Whitewater developer, James McDougal:
``There is no basis to charge the Clintons with any kind of primary liability for fraud or intentional misconduct. This investigation has revealed no evidence to support any such claims. Nor would the record support any claim of secondary or derivative liability for the possible misdeeds of others. ...
``There are legal theories by which one can become liable for the conduct of others - e.g., conspiracy and aiding and abetting. On this evidentiary record, however, these theories have no application to the Clintons.''
* On criticism of the fact that Madison Guaranty, the savings and loan owned by McDougal, retained the Rose Law Firm of Little Rock, Ark., in which Mrs. Clinton was a partner:
``A trier of fact is highly unlikely to find that there was anything untoward, let alone fraudulent or intentionally wrongful, in the circumstances of the Rose Law Firm's retention.''
* On the charge that a retainer of $2,000 a month paid by Madison Guaranty to the Rose firm really went to the Clintons:
``The suggestion that the retainer was some sort of gratuity, or was handled improperly, lacks foundation.'' In fact, the investigation found, the Rose firm deposited it in a trust account and returned the balance to McDougal after billed fees were deducted from it.
``There is no evidence that the Clintons ever received anything like $2,000 a month from this engagement, and every reason to believe that they never received more than a trivial sum. ... Mrs. Clinton's share [after division by the firm] would have been less than $20 a month.''
* On the claim that the Rose Law Firm conspired with McDougal in wrongdoing over Castle Grande, a development for mobile homes:
``The conspiracy theory is hopelessly flawed. The Independent Counsel has alleged a different conspiracy [involving Jim Guy Tucker, now being tried]. It strains common sense to place a second set of conspirators on the same property - a set ... that was not cut in on the deals, a set whose senior members stood to gain something on the order of $20 a month.''
* On the charge that the Rose firm and Mrs. Clinton wrongly discarded files on Castle Grande:
``New evidence shows that the Castle Grande files were discarded in 1988, long before Whitewater in any form became an issue. ... There is no evidence that Mrs. Clinton knew anyone might need the files.''
Those and many other findings are each backed by a painstaking statement and analysis of the evidence. Reading the reports, one is struck by the triviality of the long-ago events at issue - and by the detachment and clarity with which they are examined.
It is a different world from the conspiracy theories and smears of Sen. Alfonse D'Amato and his Whitewater committee hearings. Which is no doubt why Republicans have done their best to see that the Pillsbury reports get no attention. Though they were transmitted to the committee, they have not been published in the usual pamphlet form. The last, of Feb. 25, has not been released by the D'Amato committee at all but was made available by a House Democrat, Henry Gonzalez.
The press, too, has a responsibility for the fact that hardly anyone knows about the findings of the Pillsbury investigation. Newspapers have paid scant attention to the reports. It is as if they had an investment in the existence of a scandal.
It is time for the press to apply to the Whitewater charges the journalistic principles of skepticism and fairness. A good way to begin is to look at the findings of the Pillsbury investigation.
Anthony Lewis is a New York Times columnist.
New York Times News Service
LENGTH: Medium: 85 lines ILLUSTRATION: GRAPHIC: caricature of Clinton - KEVIN KRENECK/Los Angelesby CNBTimes Syndicate