ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, May 10, 1996 TAG: 9605100069
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: LITTLE ROCK, ARK.
SOURCE: Associated Press NOTE: Lede
In dramatic video testimony to a hushed courtroom, President Clinton insisted Thursday he had nothing to do with a $300,000 loan at the heart of the criminal case against his former Whitewater partners.
``These things are simply not true,'' the president said, disputing as he always has the account of the prosecution's chief witness.
The defense abruptly rested its case after Clinton testified.
A witness for the defense, Clinton was questioned in the White House on April 28. The tape was shown to rapt jurors, some of whom took notes. He was addressed by both the prosecutor and defense attorneys as ``Mr. President.''
Although Clinton is not charged in the case, his videotaped appearance marked one of few times in history that a president has testified in a criminal trial.
It thrust Clinton into a criminal case involving issues from his days as Arkansas governor that have dogged him since the 1992 political campaign.
In the 10th week of their trial, Jim McDougal and Gov. Jim Guy Tucker are charged with conspiring to defraud McDougal's savings and loan of nearly $3 million in government-backed loans in the mid-1980s, including one to McDougal's former wife, Susan. The McDougals are former business partners of the Clintons'; Tucker is Clinton's successor.
Conspiracy charges against Susan McDougal were dropped Monday, but four felony counts remain, accusing her of misusing a loan.
At the start of his testimony, the president disputed the testimony of David Hale, the chief prosecution witness, who had said Clinton pushed him to make a $300,000 loan from Hale's federally backed lending company to Susan McDougal in 1986. The loan was never repaid.
``All I know is that any suggestion that I tried to get any money from him, or I tried to keep that a secret, or I put any pressure on him, these things are simply not true. They didn't happen,'' Clinton testified.
Throughout the 21/4-hour tape, the president appeared mostly relaxed as he related his early political and business dealings with the McDougals. He exhibited some irritation only when prosecutor Ray Jahn questioned him repeatedly about contacts with McDougal.
``I don't know how else to answer your question,'' the president snapped at one point.
Afterward, Jim McDougal laid out the stakes of Clinton's testimony. ``We've rested our futures on'' it, McDougal said outside the federal courthouse. ``If it don't work, you go to the slammer, which I imagine would take up most of my future.''
Clinton may soon face more testimony in a separate Whitewater case involving two Arkansas bankers charged with using bank funds to reimburse Clinton campaign contributors. U.S. District Judge Susan Webber Wright urged a defense attorney Thursday to seek a subpoena of the president soon because the trial is slated for mid-June.
In his testimony, Clinton said he never met with Hale and Jim McDougal to discuss arranging the loan to Susan McDougal. Hale, a former municipal judge, had testified such a meeting took place and that Clinton was to benefit from part of the loan but wanted his involvement kept secret.
The president countered that Hale has ``told two or three different versions of this. I've tried to keep up with these different stories.''
The president was dressed in a dark suit and was seated as he testified. From the Hale account to various events involving his Whitewater land venture, his testimony was a replay of what he has been saying for two years.
Clinton said he never borrowed money from the McDougals' failed savings and loan and never asked anyone else to borrow it on his behalf.
The president said he might have been involved in helping obtain a $20,000 unsecured bank loan in 1978 that he and Jim McDougal used as a down payment for the Whitewater venture.
``I might have. I had some friends who worked there. And I knew the people who owned the bank,'' Clinton said.
During cross-examination, Jahn strayed from the central focus of the trial to examine the Clinton-McDougal relationship. How did the two couples form the Whitewater venture? How did Jim McDougal raise the funds to help Clinton retire a debt from his 1984 campaign?
Jahn suggested it must have been difficult for Clinton to raise money to repay the old campaign debt.
``Not if you are a governor who won with over 60 percent of the vote,'' Clinton shot back - to laughter in the courtroom.
The president also testified that his and Hillary Rodham Clinton's signatures on Whitewater-related documents might be bogus. He said, too, he had not given anyone permission to sign his name.
Clinton also said he didn't recall talking to Jim McDougal about giving S&L business to Hillary Clinton's law firm. McDougal has said Clinton jogged by the S&L owner's office one day and the two discussed it. Clinton says he recalls jogging by McDougal's office a few times.
The events at issue occurred a decade ago.
Clinton is the fourth chief executive in the past two decades to give videotaped testimony in a criminal trial. Presidents Ford, Carter and Reagan are the others.
U.S. District Court Judge George Howard Jr. must still decide whether the Clinton videotape can be shown outside the courtroom, as requested by four television networks and two journalism groups. Clinton aides worry about the use of the tapes in the political campaign.
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