[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 61 (Tuesday, May 17, 1994)]
[Senate]
[Page S]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                               WHITEWATER

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wyoming.
  Mr. WALLOP. Madam President, 2 weeks ago 40 Republican Senators wrote 
our leader asking him to convey to the majority leader our deep concern 
over the seeming reluctance of the majority to set up a mechanism for 
holding Whitewater hearings. It has been nearly 2 months since the 
Senate passed 98-0 a resolution calling for hearings to be convened in 
a timely fashion. In the interim, Senators on this side of the aisle 
have been quite patient while the two leaders negotiated the guidelines 
and parameters for such an inquiry.
  Those negotiations appear to have proven fruitless. Perhaps that was 
to be expected. Perhaps Senators on the other side of the aisle are not 
eager to schedule or hold Whitewater hearings. Perhaps they would 
prefer to stall as long as possible in the hope that interest will wane 
and somehow hearings will no longer be deemed necessary. This Senator 
believes they are mistaken.
  Questions have been raised by the press, media analysts, and 
political pundits about the Whitewater matter. Has the media coverage 
been overblown from the start? Should it take precedence over other 
issues of national concern? Has the administration satisfactorily 
answered the questions, put the matter behind them? This Senator would 
reply ``No'' to each of those questions.
  This matter has not been overblown, in fact it has been largely 
ignored by all but a few domestic news outlets. While this issue should 
not take precedence over all other issues, neither is this an either or 
proposition. Surely we can get to the bottom of the Whitewater matter 
and still conduct the rest of the Nation's business, unless a dedicated 
few truly do not want Whitewater investigated.
  Finally, the White House has not put the Whitewater matter behind it 
precisely because they have not answered fundamental issues raised by 
the Clintons' actions and associations. Until that is done--either by 
the Clintons, the special counsel, or by Congress--this matter will nip 
at the administration's heels.
  Madam President, in recent weeks the President and the First Lady 
have each held a press conference to answer Whitewater questions and 
allegations. While both press conferences were public relations 
successes--and reportedly that was their true purpose--each failed to 
answer legitimate questions about the Clintons' activities and 
associations here and back in Arkansas. That is not simply the 
conclusion of the Senator from Wyoming, Mr. President. It is also the 
considered judgment or most independent observers.
  After Mrs. Clinton's press conference, the New York Times 
editorialized:

       As political theater, Hillary Rodham Clinton's news 
     conference Friday afternoon was undeniably a smash hit . . . 
     but her performance, however deft, leaves plenty of troubling 
     issues for the special prosecutor and Congress to explore.

  Mr. President, let me repeat that: leaves plenty of troubling issues 
for the special prosecutor and Congress to explore. The New York Times 
believes there are sufficient questions to necessitate congressional 
inquiry.
  The New York Times wrote that Mrs. Clinton failed to adequately 
address the question of whether wealthy benefactors who did business 
with the State government were padding the Clinton family income while 
Mr. Clinton was attorney general and Governor. On the matter of the 
commodities trading, the Times noted that Mrs. Clinton's dealings with 
Tyson Foods lawyer James Blair might have raised an ethical red flag 
with some people, but Mrs. Clinton said she saw no problem because Mr. 
Blair and his wife are among our very best friends.
  The New York Times also dismissed the First Lady's account of the 
Clinton's involvement with the McDougals in the Whitewater Development. 
The Times noted that Mrs. Clinton:

       Could not explain why Mr. McDougal wound up losing a lot 
     more money than the Clintons did in what was supposedly a 50-
     50 deal. Her only real answer was that for 10 years she had 
     no idea of what was going on and that she did not receive 
     ``any documents until late in the 1980's.'' That was a 
     strange confession of ignorance from a woman who had spent 
     the previous hour insisting that she maintained hawklike 
     vigilance over her commodities trades and was deeply 
     concerned with building a family nest egg.

  However, perhaps the most damning assessment of the First Lady's 
performance was left for last. The Times lamented:

       Nor was it comforting to find the First Lady slipping into 
     answers that seemed guarded or legalistic. When asked if her 
     commodities broker might have given her a favorable advantage 
     because of her position, she replied with a lawyerly 
     ``there's really no evidence of that. I didn't believe it at 
     the time.'' . . . She said she knew ``nothing to support'' 
     allegations that money was diverted from . . . Madison S&L 
     into Whitewater to benefit the Clintons.

  Once again, Madam President, those quotes come from the New York 
Times editorial 2 days after the First Lady's press conference.
  The Washington Post editorial was only slightly less critical of the 
First Lady's performance. In response to Mrs. Clinton's claim that she 
had not received favorable treatment during her commodities dealings, 
the Post noted that her flimsy rationalization about lack of margin 
calls:

       Along with her inability to explain how she was permitted 
     to enter the market with $1000 when a single contract cost 
     $1200, was better than not hearing anything from her at all. 
     But it probably won't halt speculation about the help she 
     received in ballooning her financial investments.

  The Post concluded that ``[T]he central question of whether funds 
from the failed-Madison Guaranty Savings and Loan were improperly 
shifted to Bill Clinton's gubernational campaign or to the Clintons' 
Whitewater real estate venture remains a live issue after the news 
conference''--let me repeat--``Remains a live issue after the news 
conference.''
  Finally, the Washington Post alluded to the ``penetrating question'' 
posed by the Resolution Trust Corporation's senior investigator in the 
Whitewater--Madison Guaranty case: ``If you [the Clintons] aren't 
putting money into the venture, and you also know the venture isn't 
cash flowing, wouldn't you question the source of the funds being used 
for your benefit?'' To this, the Post wrote, ``Mrs. Clinton offered a 
less than satisfying response: `Well, Shoulda, Coulda, Woulda, we 
didn't.' '' The Post concluded: ``answers like that won't put away 
Whitewater.''
  Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that both the New York Times 
and the Washington Post editorials be inserted in the Record in their 
entirety following my remarks.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. (See 
exhibit 1.)
  Mr. WALLOP. Madam President, if we are truly seeking answers, we must 
face reality: We are not getting them. The Clintons are either 
unwilling or unable to provide thorough, complete, and factually 
accurate answers, even after being hounded and cajoled. As the 
editorials I have just mentioned conclude, the press conferences have 
not been enough. And as experience with this administration indicates, 
we cannot rely upon the Clintons to be unilaterally candid and 
forthcoming. That is also the common perception among the people, 
according to polls. The American people may not believe each of the 
specific aspects of Whitewater is of great consequence, but they are 
disturbed by equivocation and dissembling with which the administration 
has handled matters.
  In an April 13 Washington Post OP-ED, liberal columnist Richard Cohen 
gave voice to this concern in describing the advice he would have given 
to the Clintons on Whitewater had they asked: ``Answer all the 
questions, hold nothing back and--no matter what--tell the truth.'' 
Then, Mr. Cohen noted:

       For some reason though, the Clintons have done nothing of 
     the sort. They have, in fact, given out stories that have 
     prompted the White House Press Secretary, Dee Dee Myers, to 
     resort to formulations not heard in Washington since 
     Watergate itself. An account of Hillary Clinton's dealings in 
     the futures market, for instance, is ``No longer operative.'' 
     In other words, it wasn't true.

  Richard Cohen's conclusion, I believe, aptly underscored a critical 
issue now enmeshed in this whole affair. He wrote:

       Whatever Whitewater--and related matters--might eventually 
     be about (maybe nothing), it is now about candor. The 
     Clintons--not the press and not some right-wing Daddy 
     Warbucks--have made it that. The White House seems incapable 
     of just coming out with it--the details, the facts, the 
     bloody truth. Maybe the Clintons think they are more clever 
     than the rest of us. Maybe they think that since the truth 
     and their preferred political image do not conform, it's okay 
     to monkey with the former to match the latter. Maybe Clinton 
     does have a character problem--an impulse to say whatever 
     will suffice at the moment, never mind the literal truth. 
     Maybe all of these speculations are true.
       But the fact that they are raised at all has little to do 
     with the vaunted adversarial nature of the press and 
     everything to do with the way Bill and Hillary Clinton have 
     played cute with the truth. If they were children, they'd be 
     grounded. Since they are President and First Lady the most 
     the press can do is ask questions--and the least the Clintons 
     could do is answer them frankly. If they had done that from 
     the beginning, Whitewater would be about an obscure land deal 
     and not about the character of the First Family.

  Madam President, some may believe this to be a rather harsh 
indictment of the Clintons. But regrettably, Mr. Cohen's assessment is 
borne out by the facts.
  Simply look at the White House's handling of just about any of the 
issues which have arisen to date--Travelgate, Vince Foster's suicide, 
the First Lady's commodities trading, their involvement with James 
McDougal in the Whitewater Development--and we are repeatedly 
confronted with myriad claims, revised versions of events, and 
continuous corrections.
  The impression being left with the American people is that either the 
Clintons have something to hide--and thus all the prevarication--or 
they are simply incapable of distinguishing or telling the truth. When 
the Clintons provide answers to inquiries, the answers tend to be 
purposely vague and guarded or simply incorrect. This pattern has been 
repeated time and again and it is increasingly difficult to ascribe 
these inconsistencies to innocuous or innocent motives.
  Madam President, in 1992 the New York Times first raised questions 
about Whitewater. At that time, the Clinton campaign had a Denver 
attorney and old friend of Bill Clinton's, James M. Lyons, hire an 
accounting firm to prepare a report which ostensibly ``exonerated the 
Clintons of any misrepresentations.'' The Lyons report was released by 
the Clinton campaign to diffuse questions about the Clintons' 
involvement in Whitewater.
  Now, very troubling press stories are emerging with respect to the 
Lyons report. Claims contained in the Lyons report conflict with the 
very financial records upon which the report was purportedly based. 
According to the Los Angeles Times article which appeared on April 15, 
1994--Tax Day, ironically:

       Newly released tax returns for the Whitewater Development 
     Corp. raise fresh questions about the assertion by President 
     Clinton * * * that they poured tens of thousands of dollars 
     into the losing venture and received nothing in return.
       Yet the corporate tax returns of the Whitewater 
     Development, made public for the first time earlier this 
     week, do not show evidence of payments anywhere near as large 
     as the Clintons have said they made. Instead of documenting 
     the $46,636 that the Clintons say they lost on the Whitewater 
     project, the tax records and supporting documents show only 
     about $13,000 * * * in such payments.

  Madam President, in the interest of time, I would ask that a series 
of additional passages from this article be printed in the Record at 
this point and that the full text of the article be placed in the 
Record following my remarks.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

   Selected Passages From 4/15/94 L.A. Times Article on Lyons Report

       [The Clintons] have consistently defended themselves . . . 
     by arguing that they lost $46,636 on the land development 
     project during the 1970's and 1980's. Most of the money they 
     spent, they have said, [was] large interest payments made for 
     Whitewater Development from their personal funds.
       The corporate tax records seem to support assertions made 
     in recent months by [James] McDougal . . . [who] claimed that 
     the Clintons only invested about $13,000 in the Whitewater 
     Project, not the larger amounts cited by the President.
       The Clintons' personal tax returns for the years in 
     question show that they claimed $46,636 as tax deductions, 
     though no canceled checks or bank statements have been 
     released to substantiate the deductions. The Clintons have 
     said the payments they claimed on their personal returns were 
     made directly to banks holding Whitewater Mortgage or to 
     other corporations owned by James B. McDougal, the Clintons' 
     partner in the Whitewater venture. In that case, the payments 
     also should have shown up on Whitewater Development's 
     corporate tax returns, according to independent tax 
     accountants who reviewed the corporation's financial records.
       Tax experts said the corporate tax returns should have 
     included entries corresponding with the payments listed in 
     the personal returns, but they do not. The White House 
     declined to comment on the discrepancies. A source familiar 
     with the Clintons' tax records said he could not explain why 
     the full $46,636 was not reflected in Whitewater 
     Development's corporate returns.
       The Whitewater Development tax returns also call into 
     question findings contained in [the Lyons] report issued by 
     the Clinton Presidential campaign in March, 1992, in response 
     to disclosures about the Whitewater controversy. . . 
     .financial information in the corporate tax returns conflicts 
     sharply with the figures in that report. For example, the 
     [Lyons] report stated that the Whitewater venture suffered 
     losses during the years in which the corporation's tax 
     returns show that it made money. And the corporate returns 
     indicate that Whitewater Development was bringing in as much 
     as $60,000 annually from land sales during years in which the 
     Lyons report said that no land was sold.
       The accounting firm that prepared the 1992 [Lyons] report 
     clearly had access to the Whitewater Development tax returns. 
     The campaign [Lyons] report said the analysis was based on 
     the returns and many of the line entries in both the report 
     and the Whitewater Development tax returns are identical.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  (See exhibit 2.)
  Mr. WALLOP. I thank the Chair.
  Madam President, these facts and details have gone largely unreported 
in much of the media, but they have not been ignored by everyone. The 
New Republic magazine in its May 9 issue discussed these revelations 
and their import:

       The [Los Angeles] Times reports that whitewater's own 
     corporate documents suggest that the Clinton's invested a 
     mere $13,000 in Whitewater--not several times that amount, as 
     they first claimed. The Clinton's own tax returns claim 
     $46,636 in payments. There are two possible explanations: 
     either the Whitewater documents are in error or the Clintons 
     dissembled the amount on their tax returns. More 
     interestingly, the original Lyons report, put out by the 
     Clinton campaign two years ago to lay Whitewater to rest, had 
     access to the development corporation's documents--yet it 
     concluded that the venture took a far greater loss than the 
     documents show, as well as claiming that it was taking losses 
     in years the newly released documents show it to have been 
     making profits. For example, the corporate returns indicate 
     that Whitewater was bringing in as much as $60,000 annually 
     from land sales during years in which the Lyons report said 
     no sales were made. Once again, there are two possible 
     explanations: Either the Clinton campaign and Mr. Lyon's team 
     of accountants simply misread the returns, or they 
     deliberately dissembled about their contents.

  Madam, President, why is this particular facet of the Whitewater 
controversy important? Obviously, if the Clinton's claimed tax 
deductions to which they were not entitled, they will have to rectify 
their mistakes--as they recently did in the case of the previously 
unreported profits from Mrs. Clinton's commodities trading. However, 
there is a larger issue at stake, best described by columnist William 
Safire in an April 11, 1994, New York Times op-ed:

       Why pursue this old story to its source? Because when 
     Whitewater was first exposed by the New York Times in early 
     1992, candidate Clinton effectively squelched it with a 
     legal-accounting report that was at least misleading, and may 
     turn out to be a tissue of lies. If so, President Clinton 
     should be held accountable. * * *  Would it weaken this 
     Presidency? Sadly, yes. But for one party government to 
     condone a campaign cover-up would damage the American system 
     far worse--which is why the truth about Whitewater must be 
     flushed out.

  Madam President, the charge of a campaign coverup is certainly a 
serious one--both in the damage it could cause if proven true and in 
the cost to the country if true but not investigated or pursued. While 
it is premature to accuse the Clinton campaign of deliberately using 
the Lyons report to dissemble the facts, it may be equally premature to 
totally dismiss such speculation.
  On ABC's Nightline, April 19, 1994, Clinton campaign strategist James 
Carville tried to deflect press and public attention from the 
Whitewater matter by proclamining:

       Well, my word is that this is an overblown story. It is not 
     a very good time for the media. The American people are 
     turning, the story is turning in favor of the President, and 
     it's time to get off of it and move to something else. Or if 
     you've got something, you want to say there's some 
     wrongdoing, come forward with it. But there is an onslaught 
     of opinion that the mainstream media has overplayed its hand 
     on this story.

  To this, Max Frankel, executive editor of the New York Times 
responded:

       In all of 1992, we who started this particular string 
     going, we had one story on Whitewater. * * * We were 
     confronted by a massive blockade: Detectives, public 
     relations experts, lawyers. No more answers, no more 
     documents. We met a stone door, and for us this became 
     unfinished business. We have had one or two, at the height of 
     it I think three reporters on this out of 350, 400. The 
     charge that this is overtaking our coverage of patiently 
     ridiculous. * * * And what could have been a three-day story 
     if it was really innocent has become now a three-month story 
     because every day a new fact is dribbled out, only to be 
     contradicted the next day. We got very little help on this 
     particular strand of the Clinton's background, and the 
     chickens are coming home to roost.

  So this pattern--``We were confronted by a massive blockade * * * no 
more answers, no more documents * * * every day a new fact is dribbled 
out, only to be contradicted the next day''--is not new, it was the 
modus operandi of the Clinton campaign and is now apparently that of 
the Clinton administration.

  Mr. Carville's comments are curious indeed when juxtaposed with 
comments attributed to him in a recent Newsweek magazine article. Let 
me quote from the April 11, 1994, article which described a particular 
situation on the 1992 campaign trail:

       After the Illinois primary [Hillary Clinton] said in 
     response to a reporter's question that she had never, ever 
     profited from state business. The [campaign] staff was 
     horrified to discover that this was not entirely true, when 
     it turned up a 1986 memo detailing her decision to give up 
     the bond profits. The [campaign] war room was plunged into 
     gloom as it tried to decide what to do with the information. 
     This is a disaster, said campaign strategist James Carville 
     at the time * * * Carville & Co. were furious with the 
     Clintons for failing to come clean with their own advisers. 
     I've had blind dates with women I've known more about than I 
     know about Clinton, said Carville. The arrogance, exclaimed a 
     senior adviser that night. The arrogance that they--because 
     they are smarter than most people--can talk their way out of 
     any problem.

  Frankly, Madam President, that article actually begs the question of 
whether Newsweek deliberately sat on this story during the campaign to 
keep from embarrassing the Clintons and possibly hurting the Clinton-
Gore election effort. But if the Newsweek report is accurate, what does 
it tell us about the mores of the Clintons and their campaign 
operatives? We can certainly dismiss out of hand Mr. Carville's 
incredulity at the media attention Whitewater has received.
  Madam President, let me conclude. There apparently is a feeling in 
the country that the reason there is so little interest in the details 
surrounding Whitewater is that the electorate simply believes that this 
is nothing out of the ordinary with politicians--it is ``politics as 
usual.'' Well, Madam President, this Senator does not believe the 
electorate at large truly knows the complete details surrounding the 
various aspects of the whole Whitewater saga. If they understood the 
magnitude and the gravity of matters at issue, I do not believe they 
would simply shrug it off in a matter-of-fact fashion.
  Madam President, if this is politics as usual, then our society 
suffers from a moral and political deterioration much more grave than 
this Senator believed. If, as this Senator firmly believes, this is not 
politics as usual, but we do nothing; we thereby give the impression of 
our acquiescence or, even worse, our approval, and we are ultimately 
responsible for the continued debasement of our political process, our 
institutions, and our heritage.
  Therefore, Madam President, due to the apparent impasse over 
convening Whitewater hearings, those of us who do not believe this is 
``politics as usual'' are compelled to come to the floor and delineate 
why we believe there are legitimate issues at stake and questions that 
need to have answers--real answers, Madam President, not the variety to 
which we have been treated in the last couple of months.
  Hearings are necessary, Madam President. Our democracy will not be 
shattered by a public hearing on this matter. But democracy without 
truth is a fatal deceit upon which its future cannot survive.
  Madam President, I yield the floor.

                               Exhibit 1

                [From the New York Times, Apr. 24, 1994]

                       Mrs. Clinton Steps Forward

       As political theater, Hillary Rodham Clinton's news 
     conference Friday afternoon was undeniably a small hit. She 
     serenely answered an hour's worth of aggressive questions on 
     her complex adventures in the commodities and Arkansas real 
     estate market. She was also forthrightly remorseful about her 
     earlier resistance to the press and to the appointment of a 
     special counsel.
       The First Lady, declaring she had decided to emerge from 
     her ``zone of privacy,'' seemed finally to grasp a central 
     truth that has eluded the White House staff and her husband 
     for months: In presidential behavior, unanswered questions 
     create a vacuum that sucks everything into it--including the 
     energies of the press, the legislative vitality of Congress 
     and the attention of the chief executive.
       It is of course up to Robert Fiske, the special counsel, to 
     determine whether the Clintons' financial dealings broke the 
     law or whether they merely reflected the fluid ethical mores 
     of Arkansas. But from the beginning, the White House's 
     inability to provide a consistent factual narrative of the 
     Clinton's financial history has made the entire business seem 
     suspicious. Mrs. Clinton's appearance, even this late in the 
     game, was a welcome if belated antidote to months of 
     stonewalling.
       Mrs. Clinton did not, however, adequately dispense with one 
     central issue: whether wealthy benefactors who did business 
     with the state government were padding the Clinton family 
     income while Mr. Clinton was Attorney General and Governor. 
     She conceded that most of her highly profitable commodities 
     trades were executed on the advice of James Blair, a lawyer 
     for Tyson Foods, a large company that was heavily regulated 
     by and received substantial tax credits from the Arkansas 
     government. That might have raised an ethical red flag with 
     some people, but Mrs. Clinton said she saw no problem because 
     Mr. Blair ``and his wife are among our very best friends.''
       Mrs. Clinton likewise insisted that James McDougal, the 
     Clintons' partner in the Whitewater land deal and the owner 
     of a savings and loan regulated by the state, and provided no 
     special favors. But she could not explain why Mr. McDougal 
     wound up losing a lot more money than the Clintons did in 
     what was supposedly a 50-50 deal. Her only real answer was 
     that for 10 years she had no idea of what was going on and 
     that she did not receive ``any documents until late in the 
     1980's.'' That was a strange confession of ignorance from a 
     woman who had spent the previous hour insisting that she 
     maintained hawklike vigilance over her commodities trades and 
     was deeply concerned with building a family nest egg.
       Nor was it comforting to find the First Lady slipping into 
     answers that seemed guarded or legalistic. When asked if her 
     commodities broker might have given her a favorable advantage 
     because of her position, she replied with a lawyerly 
     ``There's really no evidence of that. I didn't believe it at 
     the time.'' Often she denied awareness of events without 
     quite denying the events themselves, as when she said she 
     knew ``nothing to support'' allegations that money was 
     diverted from the troubled Madison S. & L. into Whitewater to 
     benefit the Clintons.
       The First Lady's willingness to open herself to questions 
     is welcome but her performance, however deft, leaves plenty 
     of troubling issues for the special prosecutor and Congress 
     to explore.
                                  ____


               [From the Washington Post, Apr. 25, 1994]

                      Mrs. Clinton Meets the Press

       The Hour or so Hillary Rodham Clinton devoted last Friday 
     to fielding Whitewater-related questions from the White House 
     press corps was time well spent. She appeared and sounded as 
     confident and unflappable as Bill Clinton did during his 
     prime-time televised news conference last month. The 
     setting--Mrs. Clinton was seated casually in a chair and 
     spoke without notes--conveyed an openness and eagerness to 
     engage in a full give and take about her business moves as 
     well as the other Arkansas affairs that now occupy the 
     attention of a special counsel, Republicans in Congress and, 
     of course, the press. This was an event that could well have 
     happened long ago.
       Many people have been having trouble sorting out what to 
     make of Mrs. Clinton's successful venture into the 
     commodities markets. White House disclosures about her 
     trading activities clearly had a hide-and-seek quality that 
     didn't help. Mrs. Clinton accepted blame for the shifting 
     stories coming out of the White House. ``I'm not in any way 
     excusing any confusion that we have created,'' she said. ``I 
     don't think that we gave enough time or focused enough.'' But 
     beyond that concession and her acknowledgment that she had 
     been a chief foe of the appointment of a special counsel--for 
     reasons of precedent--Mrs. Clinton held her ground that she 
     crossed no ethical lines as the governor's wife in trading 
     cattle futures on the advice of a close friend who also 
     served as outside counsel for Arkansas's biggest employer.
       She maintained that she never received ``any favorable 
     treatment'' in her commodity dealings because of who she was 
     or her husband's position. In explaining why she wasn't 
     required by her broker to meet ``margin calls'' or to put up 
     additional money to cover losses in her account, as is 
     customary, Mrs. Clinton speculated that the company was 
     either backed up with paperwork or she was too good a 
     customer for them to worry about. That answer, along with her 
     inability to explain how she was permitted to enter the 
     market with $1,000 when a single contract cost $1,200, was 
     better than not hearing anything from her at all. But it 
     probably won't halt speculation about the help she received 
     in ballooning her financial investments.
       The central question of whether funds from the failed-
     Madison Guaranty Savings and Loan were improperly shifted to 
     Bill Clinton's gubernatorial campaign or to the Clintons' 
     Whitewater real estate venture remains a live issue after the 
     news conference. Mrs. Clinton flatly declared that she knows 
     nothing about any such diversion. To the penetrating question 
     raised by the Resolution Trust Corp.'s senior investigator: 
     ``If you [the Clintons] aren't putting money into the 
     venture, and you also know the venture isn't cash flowing, 
     wouldn't you question the source of the funds being used for 
     your benefit?'' Mrs. Clinton offered a less than satisfying 
     response: ``Well, shoulda, coulda, woulda, we didn't.'' 
     Answers like that won't put away Whitewater. But as Friday 
     demonstrated, fielding questions is better than going in the 
     bunker.

                               Exhibit 2

              [From the Los Angeles Times, Apr. 15, 1994]

 Tax Documents Raise New Questions on Whitewater; Inquiry: Real Estate 
 Company's Returns Do Not Reflect Losses Claimed by President Clinton 
                              and His Wife

                            (By James Risen)

       Newly released tax returns for the Whitewater Development 
     Corp. raise fresh questions about the assertion by President 
     Clinton and his wife that they poured tens of thousands of 
     dollars into the losing venture and received nothing in 
     return.
       The Clintons have consistently defended themselves against 
     critics by arguing that they lost $46,636 on the land 
     development project during the 1970s and 1980s. Most of the 
     money they spent, they have said, consisted of large interest 
     payments made for Whitewater Development from their personal 
     funds.
       Yet the corporate tax returns of Whitewater Development, 
     made public for the first time earlier this week, do not show 
     evidence of payments anywhere near as large as the Clintons 
     have said they made. Instead of documenting the $46,636 that 
     the Clintons say they lost on the Whitewater project, the tax 
     records and supporting documents show only about $13,000 in 
     such payments by the Clintons.
       Tax accountants said the corporation would have been 
     obligated to reflect the full amount if it was adhering to 
     standard accounting practices.
       The Clintons' personal tax returns for the years in 
     question show that they claimed $46,636 as tax deductions, 
     though no canceled checks or bank statements have been 
     released to substantiate the deductions.
       The Clintons have said the payments they claimed on their 
     personal returns were made directly to banks holding 
     Whitewater mortgages or to other corporations owned by James 
     B. McDougal, the Clintons' partner in the Whitewater venture. 
     In that case, the payments also should have shown up on 
     Whitewater Development's corporate tax returns, according to 
     independent tax accountants who reviewed the corporation's 
     financial records.
       ``If a good job of bookkeeping was being done, you would 
     find some record or some notation in the tax returns that the 
     corporation was being relieved of its obligations,'' by the 
     Clintons, said Mark Rogers, a Little Rock, Ark., accountant 
     hired by The Times to review the Whitewater Development 
     returns.
       The apparent discrepancy between the personal and corporate 
     tax returns raises more questions about central issues posed 
     by the Clintons' chief GOP critics: Did the President and 
     First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton actually lose large sums of 
     money on the Whitewater project, as they have said, and did 
     they receive tax benefits to which they were not fully 
     entitled?
       The corporate tax records seem to support assertions made 
     in recent months by McDougal. McDougal has claimed that the 
     Clintons only invested about $13,000 in the Whitewater 
     project, not the larger amounts cited by the President. 
     (Clinton originally had said that he and his wife contributed 
     $68,900 to the Whitewater endeavor, but he later revised the 
     figure.)
       So far, the White House has released no supporting 
     materials, such as canceled checks or bank statements, to 
     document the payments listed in the Clintons' personal tax 
     returns. Tax experts said the corporate tax returns should 
     have included entries corresponding with the payments listed 
     in the personal returns, but they do not.
       The White House declined to comment on the discrepancies. A 
     source familiar with the Clintons' tax records said he could 
     not explain why the full $46,636 was not reflected in 
     Whitewater Development's corporate returns.
       There could be several possible explanations for the 
     discrepancies between the personal and corporate tax returns. 
     Whitewater Development bookkeepers could have failed to 
     properly record all of the payments made by the Clintons or a 
     tax preparer might have overlooked them. Similarly, the 
     Clintons' records might have been faulty. Indeed, the 
     Clintons and McDougal have characterized Whitewater 
     Development's record-keeping practices as somewhat haphazard.
       Whitewater Development's corporate returns show that in 
     1980, Hillary Rodham--the name used by the First Lady at the 
     time--made $10,131 in interest payments on behalf of 
     Whitewater Development. In 1979, the returns show, Bill 
     Clinton made a loan to Whitewater Development of $2,900.
       In 1981, however, Hillary Clinton received $15,185 back 
     from Whitewater Development, according to the corporate tax 
     records. The entry indicates that the payment was in the form 
     of land owned by the corporation and not in cash.
       Hillary Clinton took out a $30,000 loan from a McDougal-
     controlled bank to build a model home on one Whitewater lot, 
     according to documents released by McDougal along with the 
     corporate tax returns. But the corporate returns indicate 
     that the property was not considered an asset of the 
     corporation. Hillary Clinton later sold the property herself.
       The Whitewater Development tax returns also call into 
     question findings contained in a report issued by the Clinton 
     presidential campaign in March, 1992, in response to 
     disclosures about the Whitewater controversy. The report, 
     prepared by an accounting firm hired by James M. Lyons, a 
     Denver attorney and old friend of Clinton, exonerated the 
     Clintons of any misrepresentations.
       Financial information in the corporate tax returns 
     conflicts sharply with the figures in that report. For 
     example, the report stated that the Whitewater venture 
     suffered losses during years in which the corporation's tax 
     returns show that it made money. And the corporate returns 
     indicate that Whitewater Development was bringing in as much 
     as $60,000 annually from land sales during years in which the 
     Lyons report said that no land was sold.
       The accounting firm that prepared the 1992 report clearly 
     had access to the Whitewater Development tax returns. The 
     campaign report said the analysis was based on the returns 
     and many of the line entries in both the report and the 
     Whitewater Development tax returns are identical.
       The White House has distanced itself from the 1992 report 
     in recent months but still uses many of its basic findings to 
     defend the President and Hillary Clinton.
       Rogers said there is nothing in the Whitewater Development 
     tax returns, the Clintons' personal tax returns as released 
     by the White House or the campaign report that explains the 
     discrepancies between the documents.

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