Whitewater refers to an investigation begun in 1994 into charges of financial misconduct by President Bill Clinton and his wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton. The investigation ended in 2000. A number of people were indicted (legally accused) on criminal charges, but the Clintons were not indicted. The Whitewater investigation led to other charges against Bill Clinton, however, which resulted in his impeachment by the House of Representatives in 1998. Clinton was acquitted by the Senate in 1999, and he continued to serve out his second term as president.
The initial investigation.
In 1978, shortly before Bill Clinton was elected governor of Arkansas, the Clintons invested in the Whitewater Development Corporation, a small company that bought land in Arkansas for a vacation home development. They sold their interest in 1992, the year Clinton was elected to his first term as president of the United States.
The charges against the Clintons centered on alleged illegal and unethical acts by the Whitewater corporation, in which the Clintons had been partners. The Clintons denied any wrongdoing and pointed out that they had lost a large sum of money on their investment. But because of increasing public criticism, President Clinton promised a full investigation.
In January 1994, Attorney General Janet Reno appointed a Republican lawyer, Robert B. Fiske, as an independent counsel to investigate the Whitewater affair. In August 1994, a panel of federal judges appointed another Republican lawyer, Kenneth W. Starr, to take Fiske’s place. Republicans had charged that Fiske was favoring the Clinton administration.
Starr’s five-year investigation resulted in 24 indictments and 16 convictions. The convictions included those of James McDougal and Susan McDougal, former owners of a savings and loan institution and the Clintons’ partners in the Whitewater venture. The McDougals were found guilty of fraud and conspiracy in actions not related to the Whitewater investment. Webster L. Hubbell, a long-time Clinton friend and a former Justice Department official, pleaded guilty to defrauding former clients and partners in a law firm where he and Mrs. Clinton had been partners.
Impeachment.
In January 1998, Starr received permission from the U.S. Department of Justice to widen his investigation beyond the scope of the Whitewater affair. Starr sought to discover whether President Clinton had lied when he denied having a sexual affair with Monica Lewinsky, a White House intern. Starr also wanted to find out whether Clinton had urged Lewinsky to lie to lawyers in a sexual harassment case brought against Clinton by former Arkansas state employee Paula Corbin Jones.
On Aug. 17, 1998, Clinton submitted to questioning before a grand jury about whether he had urged Lewinsky to lie. In a televised statement later that day, Clinton told the nation that he had had a relationship with Lewinsky that he called “inappropriate.”
In September, Starr sent a report to Congress, along with a videotape of Clinton’s grand jury testimony. The report suggested that Clinton may have committed impeachable offenses in trying to conceal his relationship with Lewinsky. The House of Representatives opened an impeachment inquiry and, in December 1998, voted to impeach Clinton for perjury and obstruction of justice. In February 1999, the Senate found Clinton not guilty, and he remained in office.
End of the investigation.
In October 1999, Starr stepped down from the post of independent counsel and returned to private law practice. One of his assistants, Robert W. Ray, took over the task of completing a final report on the Whitewater investigation.
In September 2000, Ray officially ended the investigation with a statement that there was insufficient evidence to show that either of the Clintons had committed a criminal offense.
In January 2001, as Bill Clinton’s presidency was coming to a close, he faced the possibility that, after he left office, Ray might seek to bring criminal charges against him for lying under oath in the Lewinsky affair. The president signed a statement acknowledging that he had given “evasive and misleading answers” under oath about his involvement with Monica Lewinsky. As a punishment, he agreed to have his Arkansas law license suspended for five years and to pay a fine of $25,000.
Ray’s final reports on Whitewater and the Lewinsky affair became public in 2002. The Whitewater report restated that there was insufficient evidence to show that Clinton and his wife had engaged in criminal wrongdoing. In the Lewinsky report, however, Ray concluded that there was ample evidence to convict Bill Clinton of perjury and obstruction of justice. Ray declined to bring charges against Clinton in the matter, saying he believed Clinton had already been punished enough.
