Reprinted from The Washington Times, March 9, 1998
Whitewater felon James McDougal dies of heart failure
By Joyce Howard Price
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
James B. McDougal, President Clinton's former business partner in the Whitewater land deal, who was cooperating with the independent counsel's investigation of Mr. Clinton, died yesterday at a hospital in Fort Worth, Texas.
McDougal, 57, who suffered from a variety of ailments including heart disease and blocked arteries, died of cardiac arrest, according to the Justice Department.
An investigator in the Tarrant County Medical Examiner's Office said McDougal was pronounced dead at 12:01 p.m. at the John Peter Smith Hospital, a public hospital in Fort Worth. "An autopsy will be accomplished [Monday]," the investigator said.
McDougal was one of the most important cooperating witnesses in the Whitewater probe of Mr. Clinton and first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton. His death means the Clintons no longer face the prospect of their former real estate partner giving damaging testimony against them.
Nor can any sworn statements McDougal made to a grand jury be used in a trial, since defendants must have the right of cross-examination.
While he testified extensively to the Whitewater grand jury in Little Rock and has been cooperating with Mr. Starr since August 1996, McDougal's death means he is no longer a threat as a witness either in a courtroom or an impeachment inquiry against the president.
Former Arkansas Gov. Jim Guy Tucker, however, recently agreed to be a cooperating witness in the Whitewater probe.
Mr. Clinton learned of McDougal's death at around 3 p.m. In a statement, the president said: "I am saddened to learn about Jim McDougal's death today. I have good memories of the years we worked together in Arkansas, and I extend my condolences to his family."
News of McDougal's death prompted Mr. Starr to meet with members of his prosecution team in Washington for six hours yesterday.
After emerging from the meeting, Mr. Starr, interviewed by CNN, described McDougal -- who for years had been one of the Clintons' staunchest defenders -- as a "true Southern gentleman, who had some ups and downs."
"It's a sad day," Mr. Starr said.
At the time of his death, McDougal was serving a three-year sentence for his 1996 conviction on 18 counts of fraud and conspiracy stemming from the failed Whitewater land deal. He had faced a sentence of 84 years but got the lighter punishment when he began assisting Mr. Starr.
In that same trial, McDougal's ex-wife, Susan, was convicted on four felonies and Tucker on two.
"I remember he said after he began to cooperate that he was never again going to lie. I'll always remember that," Mr. Starr said yesterday.
McDougal "acted honorably" in his dealings with the independent counsel's office after his trial, Mr. Starr said.
McDougal had recently finished a book with former Boston Globe reporter Curtis Wilkie (Henry Holt, publisher), and was anticipating what he called "some down-home fun" when it arrived in bookstores. Asked what he thought would be the effect of his book, he told a reporter for The Washington Times, "I imagine my life is about to get busier," adding: "I haven't told you everything. I had to save some for the book."
CNN said yesterday that McDougal, a colorful and flamboyant figure, had predicted he might die in prison.
McDougal and former Little Rock municipal judge David Hale, another cooperating witness, told a Whitewater grand jury that Mr. Clinton attended a meeting in 1986 at which Mr. Hale agreed to give McDougal's then-wife, Susan, an illegal $300,000 Small Business Administration loan, some of which was used by her husband to buy property for the Whitewater venture.
Mr. Clinton has denied the accusation publicly and under oath before federal banking regulators and in sworn, videotaped testimony during the first Whitewater trial.
McDougal initially denied Mr. Clinton's presence at the meeting. But in an April 1997 interview on CNN's "Larry King Live," which was rebroadcast last night in the wake of his death, McDougal said, "I lied to the American people by denying vehemently the story David Hale was telling."
In the CNN interview, he confirmed that Mr. Clinton was at the meeting during which he and Mr. Hale discussed the Small Business Administration loan for his wife.
"Suddenly the governor arrives and he says, 'Did you discuss Susan's loan?' I was flabbergasted, and I still am. I don't know how he got there, why he was there, who asked him to come there," McDougal said.
Asked if he was suspicious that his wife and Mr. Clinton were involved in a sexual relationship and that she may have asked the governor to attend the meeting to help her, McDougal said: "That's been suggested to me repeatedly. I try not to believe it."
Susan McDougal refused to answer questions before a grand jury and spent 18 months in prison for contempt of court.
"Jim McDougal was a gentleman who was very likable, personally," her attorney, Bobby McDaniel, said yesterday. "He was also a man who had had significant emotional problems in the past but who was vehement in his contempt for independent counsel before his conviction."
- Hugh Aynesworth in Dallas contributed to this report.
Copyright 1998 News World Communications, Inc.
Reprinted with permission of
The Washington Times.
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