ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, April 6, 1996 TAG: 9604080022
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-3 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: LITTLE ROCK, ARK.
SOURCE: Associated Press
Defense attorneys in the Whitewater trial ripped into the prosecution's star witness Friday as a tax cheat, a thief and a liar who concocted allegations against President Clinton to save his skin.
``Do you have any idea what your story has done to this nation?'' Sam Heuer, the attorney for Clinton's Whitewater partner Jim McDougal, snapped at the witness, David Hale.
``I hope that it helps clean up some corruption'' in Arkansas, Hale replied.
``You're to be commended,'' Heuer said sarcastically.
McDougal, his ex-wife, Susan, and Gov. Jim Guy Tucker are on trial on charges of conspiring to defraud the McDougals' savings and loan and Hale's Small Business Administration-backed lending company of some $3 million.
In a deal with prosecutors, Hale pleaded guilty to defrauding the SBA, got more than two years in prison and agreed to testify for the government. Hale testified Clinton attended a meeting on one of the loans. Clinton has said he doesn't recall ever discussing money with Hale, and he denied Hale's central allegation - that Clinton pressured him to make an improper loan.
Under cross-examination Friday, Hale admitted, ``I've done a lot of wrong things, and I am sorry for it.'' But he insisted Clinton, the McDougals and Tucker were involved in illegal loans.
``You knew the only way you could sell your story was to create the Bill Clinton connection,'' Heuer said.
``No, sir, the U.S. attorney did that'' by investigating Whitewater, Hale said.
Heuer showed that Hale telephoned arch-conservative former Arkansas Supreme Court Justice Jim Johnson more than two dozen times in 1993.
``You knew that Justice Jim Johnson hated Bill Clinton,'' Heuer said.
``I did not know'' about Johnson's views on Clinton, responded Hale, saying he was simply trying to find a lawyer because he was under indictment.
Testifying for a fifth straight day, Hale was forced by the defense to admit to a litany of crimes that have nothing to do with any of the defendants.
Tucker attorney George Collins got Hale to admit he hasn't paid taxes on the $63,000 in cash living expenses Hale said he has been handed from FBI agents while cooperating in the Whitewater investigation. Hale said he simply hadn't thought about the tax question until Collins brought it up.
Heuer depicted Hale as a thief, showing how Hale and two other prosecution witnesses in the Whitewater trial collected close to $1 million from Hale's lending company in 1986.
LENGTH: Medium: 55 linesby CNB