ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, April 16, 1997 TAG: 9704160073
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: WASHINGTON
SOURCE: SUSAN SCHMIDT THE WASHINGTON POST
Hubbell met with more than 20 Clinton officials between his departure in March 1994 and his guilty plea that December.
In the nine months after he resigned from the Justice Department in 1994 and before he pleaded guilty to charges of bilking his former law firm, Webster Hubbell had more than 70 meetings with Clinton administration officials, records show.
An appointment calendar, telephone message slips and other documents obtained by the Washington Post indicate that the extent of Hubbell's contacts within the upper reaches of the White House and the administration was much broader than was previously known. After stepping down as the No.3 official at Justice, the records show, Hubbell golfed with the president and met with several of his senior aides. A calendar entry shows he also had lunch with former White House counsel Bernard Nussbaum's secretary, whose office had received a subpoena for Vincent Foster's files days earlier.
In all, Hubbell met with more than 20 Clinton administration officials after his departure from Justice in March 1994 and before his guilty plea in December of that year. While some were old friends from Arkansas, others were political advisers who had worked on Clinton's 1992 campaign and then found jobs in the administration.
White House officials said recently that Clinton's former chief of staff, Mack McLarty, and Erskine Bowles, the president's current chief of staff, had sought to help Hubbell find employment after he left Justice.
The affable Hubbell, often described then as President Clinton's closest friend, remained a welcome figure at the White House even as his legal ethics were under review by the Arkansas bar and his billing practices were actively under investigation by independent counsel Kenneth Starr. Hubbell made at least four trips to the White House that spring and summer, including one 2 p.m. session July 8 described in his appointment book with the notation ``Discussions w/W.H.''
Starr is conducting a grand jury investigation of Hubbell's activities during the period after he left the Justice Department and is trying to determine whether Clinton associates orchestrated more than $500,000 in payments to him to buy his silence to questions about Whitewater. A federal grand jury in Little Rock heard testimony from Bowles Tuesday about his efforts to assist Hubbell. Bowles denied any impropriety.
Hubbell abruptly resigned from the Justice Department after his former Rose Law Firm partners accused him of stealing from the firm and its clients. At a time when he was pitted against his former partners in Little Rock, Hubbell had at least a dozen meetings with associate White House counsel William Kennedy, who had been a partner at Rose with Hubbell and Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Hubbell had been involved in legal work for a savings and loan owned by the Clintons' Whitewater business partners, as had Hillary Clinton - a matter that was then actively being investigated by the independent counsel.
After he pleaded guilty, prosecutors declined to recommend a reduced jail sentence because they thought he had not cooperated in their investigation. Hubbell went to jail in August 1995 and served 18 months.
The White House has compiled a list in recent weeks of Hubbell's visits to the White House during the period after he left the Justice Department, but it has so far refused to make the information public. The list, drawn up at the request of several news organizations, was drawn from Secret Service logs that also show who authorized a visitor's entry.
White House spokesman Lanny Davis said he did not know how many times Hubbell had been to the White House or whether he'd seen the president and first lady while he was there. ``I have no information,'' he said yesterday. Other aides, he said, are talking to those Hubbell visited to learn why he was there. ``We are still trying to research the matter so we have a complete report,'' he said. ``We don't want to give out incomplete information.''
Hubbell made at least two trips to Camp David in the summer of 1994. In mid-July, he appears to have played golf with Clinton, Arkansas oilman Truman Arnold - one of those who hired him that year - and former Arkansas congressman Beryl Anthony, brother-in-law of the late Vincent Foster. Neither Arnold or Anthony returned phone calls for comment.
LENGTH: Medium: 80 linesby CNB