Death of American Virtue - Ken Gormley [69]
FISKE’S book of business had continued to grow. In addition to the original Whitewater/Madison case that centered on a bogus $825,000 loan, the Fiske team also investigated whether Governor Jim Guy Tucker had engaged in tax fraud in buying and reselling a cable television company. They also dug into whether the Clinton White House engaged in improper contacts with the Department of Treasury seeking to thwart the Resolution Trust Corporation’s (RTC’s) referrals relating to Whitewater and Madison.
Fiske and his lawyers erred on the side of caution, turning away anything that was not directly linked to their original charter. Prosecutor Bill Duffey, who oversaw the Little Rock office, recalled that whenever a potential new matter came in the door, Fiske would say, “Let’s go back and see where this fits within our statement of jurisdiction.” Lawyers were admonished to keep a copy of the jurisdictional charter in their desks, to make sure that the office did not get sidetracked. Fiske lived by the creed that “sticking to the core jurisdictional charge [Whitewater/Madison Guaranty] and completing our work in a timely manner was more important than taking jurisdiction of a case that was only tangentially related, if related at all.” The Justice Department, he felt, was better suited to handle these peripheral matters.
The most significant add-on that Fiske did agree to accept related to Webster Hubbell. The Hubbell scandal had blown wide open in early March 1994, stunning both the White House and the Arkansas legal community. Hubbell had been one of Hillary’s closest partners at the Rose Law Firm. He was a personal friend and confidant who regularly golfed and smoked cigars with the president. The six-foot-five, three-hundred-pound “gentle giant” had been a beloved Arkansas Razorbacks football player. He had also been mayor of Little Rock, chief justice of the state supreme court, member of the Arkansas code of ethics commission, and all-around good ol’ boy who had moved to Washington and made Arkansans proud. Now Hubbell had been caught red-handed with his hand in the firm’s cookie jar. The third-highest-ranking official in the Clinton administration’s Justice Department was facing serious jail time.
Hubbell would later say, after serving eighteen months in a federal prison, “I can give you reasons and rationalizations for what was going on in my mind. But there are no valid excuses.”
In mid-March, Hubbell faxed a letter of resignation to President Clinton, writing that “the distractions on me at this time will interfere with my service to the country and the president’s agenda.” In fact, the game was over. As new evidence trickled out, it became evident that Hubbell had bilked his own clients and the Rose Law Firm of nearly a half million dollars, improperly racking up charges for restaurant bills, vacations, gasoline, furs, and lingerie. The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reported that Rose Law Firm partners were seeking stiff sanctions from the Arkansas Supreme Court’s Committee on Professional Conduct.
Not only was Hubbell’s abrupt resignation a “personal setback” to President and Mrs. Clinton, it could not have come at a worse time. Bernie Nussbaum, still under fire for his handling of the Vince Foster matter, was now immersed in a new flap over whether White House lawyers had improperly contacted the Treasury Department in an effort to derail the RTC investigation of Madison Guaranty and the McDougals. Nussbaum tendered his forced resignation as White House counsel rather than serve as a lightning rod for further attacks on the Clintons. Now Nussbaum, Vince Foster, and Hubbell were all gone, knocking out three of the Clintons’ closest friends and staunchest allies. To further inflame the situation, reports surfaced that members of the Rose Law Firm were shredding documents relating to Whitewater, in an effort to destroy incriminating evidence. For an administration already under siege, the Hubbell revelations amounted to sand thrown in the Clinton team’s eyes.
Years later, President Clinton sat in his study in Chappaqua,