Death of American Virtue - Ken Gormley [123]
ON Sunday, April 29, 1996, Jim and Susan McDougal—legally divorced since 1988—made their first and last road trip together to the White House. Their onetime friend, Bill Clinton, was slated to give testimony, hopefully beating back the effort by the Starr prosecutors to convict them in Little Rock.
Pausing to chat with the throng of reporters, Jim arrived in advance of the 1:15 P.M. start time to stake out a front-row seat. He was sporting a new straw hat purchased at a Georgetown shop Hats in the Belfry, along with a band-collared shirt with a gold pin and a navy suit. As he answered questions, McDougal leaned thoughtfully against a brass eagle cane. Pointing to a fray in the hat, he proudly told reporters that he had picked it up “at a bargain for a hundred dollars.”
President Clinton had jogged that morning and then attended church with the First Lady. He looked rested and fit as he entered the Map Room. Clinton understood that this videotaped testimony would be shown to the jury back home in Arkansas in the Tucker-McDougal trial; he was in perfect presidential form for the occasion.
The Map Room, on the ground floor of the White House, had been transformed into a makeshift courtroom. President Franklin D. Roosevelt had used this room to monitor events during World War II after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. Now it had been selected as the site for the president’s filmed testimony, a neutral zone because it lacked White House artifacts that jurors might recognize. A different war was being fought between the White House and the Office of Independent Counsel; the Map Room was the new field of battle.
President Bill Clinton, dressed in a dark suit befitting the chief executive, shook hands with the defense lawyers and prosecutors. Clinton gave a bear hug to Jim McDougal and a quick embrace to Susan. Whatever past ill feelings had existed between Jim McDougal and Bill Clinton were forgotten. They were now on the same team, united in disdain for David Hale and the Starr prosecutors. The president took a seat in the center of the room, facing a lectern set up for the questioner.
It was not unprecedented that a sitting president would testify in such a case. President Gerald Ford had testified via videotape in the criminal trial of Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme, the woman who had attempted to assassinate him. President Jimmy Carter had testified in the criminal trial of a Georgia legislator accused of misconduct. In the case of President Bill Clinton, this was the fourth time that he had been called to give testimony under oath in Whitewater-related matters. For an investigation that related to events that were so distant in time, and seemed so peripheral to the Clintons, Whitewater and its related scandals had a way of bringing a perpetual sense of unease to this White House and its occupants.
U.S. District Judge George Howard, Jr., presided from Little Rock, via a satellite hookup that was scrambled to prevent interception. He disliked flying and opted to stay anchored on terra firma in Arkansas. From his safe judicial command post, Judge Howard swore in the president at 1:15 P.M. Washington time; the testimony would last for nearly five hours.
Attorney Sam Heuer, who had been appointed by the court (twice) to represent the indigent Jim McDougal, led off the questioning. He moved directly to the heart of the allegations against the McDougals, asking the president:
HEUER: Did you ever, in any shape, form, or fashion, put any pressure on David Hale for the purpose of obtaining a loan or for the purpose of causing him to make loans through his S.B.I.C.?
CLINTON: I did not put any pressure on David Hale.
HEUER: Do you have any idea what he is talking about in regard to these loans that he has come up with?
CLINTON: No, sir. He has told two or three different versions of this, and I’ve tried to keep up with