[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1994, Book I)]
[March 25, 1994]
[Pages 552-553]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



Exchange With Reporters
March 25, 1994

Air Collision at Pope Air Force Base

    Q. Mr. President, why are you going to Fort Bragg?
    The President. I'm going down there because it was a very, very 
serious accident. A lot of our service people lost their lives; many, 
many others were quite seriously injured. And I just want to go down 
there and visit the hospital and express my concerns to the people who 
are still hospitalized and to their families and all the people at Fort 
Bragg for the losses they suffered. I think it's an appropriate thing to 
do.

Whitewater

    Q. How do you feel about last night, Mr. President? Do you think you 
put some of this Whitewater business behind you?
    The President. I just tried to answer the questions, and I felt good 
about it. I did my best to answer the questions. I feel good about it.
    Q. [Inaudible]--Mr. President, how you could have forgotten about a 
$20,000 loan and check to your mother to buy a----
    The President. Well, I think what happened was--keep in mind, all 
this happened in the heat of the '92 campaign. And they just said, ``Is 
there any way any of these checks from Madison could have come from 
some--been about something else?'' I said, ``I don't think

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so.'' And what happened was, when I read my mother's autobiography, I 
said, ``You know, that's right, I did help her buy that place.'' So 
then--and Hillary and I were talking, so we asked for the checks. And 
when I saw the check, then I realized that that's where it had come 
from.
    But when Jim McDougal said that, that he was sure that it didn't 
have anything to do with Madison, that's what got me to thinking about 
it. Then I saw it in the book. Then we asked for the check stub. That's 
how we verified it. So it just happened that way.
    You know, keep in mind, keep in mind, when I was first asked about 
this back in '92, just off the top of my head, I said, ``We lost money, 
but I don't think it was a great deal.'' I thought--I think I'm quoted 
in '92 saying I thought we'd lost about $25,000, just from memory. So 
apparently, we lost quite a bit more than that.
    Q. Are you positive the tax returns that are being released today 
will clear the air on this matter?
    The President. Well, they certainly ought to. Like I said, I always 
did what I think most Americans do, I gave all my records every year to 
my accountant. They were normally very simple returns. I didn't have a 
lot of complicated things on them. And we've given them out, all the way 
back to '77 now. So you guys have got them. You can do what you want to 
with them.

Note: The exchange began at 11:30 a.m. on the South Lawn at the White 
House, prior to the President's departure for Pope Air Force Base, Fort 
Bragg, NC.