The Arkansas Project was a series of investigative press reports, funded primarily by conservative businessman Richard Mellon Scaife, that focused on criticism of then-President Bill Clinton and his administration. Scaife spent nearly $2 million on the project. [1]
The investigations included the investigation of the 1970s' real estate investment that Bill and Hillary Clinton had made in a development known as Whitewater, re-opening of allegations that then Governor Bill Clinton had sexually harassed an Arkansas state employee, and a reexamination of the death of White House aide Vincent Foster which multiple official investigations had found to be a suicide.
In the 1980s and 1990s, the politically conservative American Spectator magazine received donations from conservative benefactors. The Arkansas project began shortly after Richard Mellon Scaife, one of the largest donors to the magazine, directed that his donations be used for stories aimed at investigating potentially scandalous material regarding the Clintons. According to R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr., editor-in-chief of the Spectator, the idea for the Arkansas Project was hatched on a fishing trip on the Chesapeake Bay in the fall of 1993. The "Arkansas Project" name that later became famous was conceived as a joke; the actual name used within the Spectator and the Scaife foundation was the "Editorial Improvement Project."
Project reporter/investigators were hired, including David Brock, who later described his role at that of as a Republican "hitman", [2] and Rex Armistead, a former police officer who was reportedly paid $350,000 for his efforts. [3] [ better source needed ] Also assisting the project was Parker Dozhier, a bait shop owner who was reportedly obsessed with bringing down Bill Clinton. [4] They were tasked with investigating the Clintons and uncovering stories tying the Clintons to murders and drug smuggling as well as adultery. [5]
According to Brock, Armistead and Brock met at an airport hotel in Miami, Florida, in late 1993. There, Armistead laid out an elaborate "Vince Foster murder scenario", a scenario that Brock later claimed was implausible. [6] [7] Regardless, by the end of 1993, Brock was writing stories for the Spectator that made him "a lead figure in the drive to" expose Clinton. [2]
Ted Olson, who would later represent George W. Bush in Bush v. Gore and be named U.S. Solicitor General, was a board member of the American Spectator Educational Foundation, and is thought to have known about or played some role in the Arkansas Project. [8] His firm Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher provided $14,000 worth of legal services, and he himself wrote or co-authored several articles that were paid for with Project funds. During Olson's Senate confirmation hearing for Solicitor General, majority Republicans blocked Senator Patrick Leahy's call for further committee inquiries on the subject of Olson's ties to the Arkansas Project. [9] [10]
The investigations funded by Scaife money mostly concentrated on the Whitewater investments, which extended to a conspiracy theory surrounding the death of Vince Foster, a Clinton aide with connections to Whitewater. Christopher W. Ruddy, a reporter for the Scaife-owned Pittsburgh Tribune-Review , published a series of articles claiming Clinton was behind Foster's suicide. [11] Although Clinton was never found to have broken the law by Ken Starr, Ruddy published his book, The Strange Death of Vincent Foster , regardless. His conspiracy theories about Foster have since been dismissed even by some more outspoken conservatives like Ann Coulter. [12] The Spectator stopped receiving Scaife funding when "it ran a scathing review of [the] book ..." [13]
In late November 1997 after Jeff Corry's review of Ruddy's book was published, Reed Irvine of Accuracy in Media (who has received about $2 million from Scaife since 1977 [14] ) "reported in his newsletter that Scaife had called Tyrrell to say he was cutting him off." [14] In fact, "Tyrrell confirmed in an interview that the call occurred but said he couldn't remember details of the conversation that ended all support from the man who had been his principal benefactor for nearly 30 years." [14]
In 1999, Joseph Farah's Western Journalism Center "placed some 50 ads reprinting Ruddy's Tribune-Review stories in The Washington Times , then repackaged the articles as a packet titled 'The Ruddy Investigation,' which sold for $12." [15] Shortly thereafter, the Western Journalism Center "circulated a video featuring Ruddy's claims, 'Unanswered-The Death of Vincent Foster,' that was produced by author James Davidson, chairman of the National Taxpayers Union (NTU) and co-editor of the Strategic Investment newsletter." [15]
In the late 1990s, Ruddy and Farah turned their focus to the internet with help from Scaife. Ruddy founded NewsMax and Farah started WorldNetDaily which report news from a conservative perspective. Eventually, Scaife became an investor and the third-largest stockholder of NewsMax. [16]
As an early part of the Troopergate matter, writer David Brock published an article, His Cheating Heart [17] that refers to a liaison between Clinton and woman named Paula. This led to the Paula Jones affair [18] and later led Jones to sue Clinton, successfully obtaining an out-of-court settlement in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. Brock continued his conspiracy theorizing until a 1997 Esquire article titled "I Was a Conservative Hit Man" in which he recanted some of his claims. In 1998 he went further and personally apologized to Clinton. Brock was let go from the Spectator and published his 2002 book Blinded by the Right: The Conscience of an Ex-Conservative ." [18]
Vincent Walker Foster Jr. was an American attorney who served as deputy White House counsel during the first six months of the Clinton administration.
Accuracy in Media (AIM) is an American non-profit conservative news media watchdog founded in 1969 by economist Reed Irvine.
Robert Emmett Tyrrell Jr. is an American conservative magazine editor, book author and columnist. He is the founder and editor-in-chief of The American Spectator and writes with byline "R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr."
Kenneth Winston Starr is an American lawyer who served as a United States circuit judge and 39th solicitor general of the United States. He is best known for heading an investigation of members of the Clinton administration, known as the Whitewater controversy, from 1994 to 1998. Starr served as a federal appellate judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit from 1983 to 1989 and as the U.S. solicitor general from 1989 to 1993 during the presidency of George H. W. Bush.
The Whitewater controversy, Whitewater scandal, "Whitewatergate", or simply Whitewater, was an American political controversy during the 1990s. It began with an investigation into the real estate investments of Bill and Hillary Clinton and their associates, Jim McDougal and Susan McDougal, in the Whitewater Development Corporation. This failed business venture was incorporated in 1979 with the purpose of developing vacation properties on land along the White River near Flippin, Arkansas.
The American Spectator is a conservative American magazine covering news and politics, edited by R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr. and published by the non-profit American Spectator Foundation. It was founded in 1967 by Tyrrell, who remains its editor-in-chief, with Wlady Pleszczynski its managing editor since 1980.
David Brock is an American liberal political consultant, author, and commentator who founded the media watchdog group Media Matters for America. He has been described by Time as "one of the most influential operatives in the Democratic Party".
Richard Mellon Scaife was an American billionaire, a principal heir to the Mellon banking, oil, and aluminum fortune, and the owner and publisher of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. In 2005, Scaife was number 238 on the Forbes 400, with a personal fortune of $1.2 billion. By 2013, Scaife had dropped to number 371 on the listing, with a personal fortune of $1.4 billion.
"Vast right-wing conspiracy" is a conspiracy theory popularized by a 1995 memo by political opposition researcher Chris Lehane and then referenced in 1998 by the then First Lady of the United States Hillary Rodham Clinton, in defense of her husband, President Bill Clinton, characterizing the continued allegations of scandal against her and her husband, including the Lewinsky scandal, as part of a long campaign by Clinton's political enemies. The term has been used since, including in a question posed to Bill Clinton in 2009 to describe verbal attacks on Barack Obama during his early presidency. Hillary Clinton mentioned it again during her 2016 presidential campaign.
Blinded by the Right: The Conscience of an Ex-Conservative is a 2002 book written by former conservative journalist David Brock detailing his departure from the conservative movement. It is also the story of his coming out as a gay man.
Troopergate is the popular name for a political controversy that emerged in the 1990s in which several Arkansas State Troopers claimed that they had arranged sexual liaisons for Arkansas governor Bill Clinton during his time in office and had helped deceive his wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Joseph Francis Farah is an American author, journalist and editor-in-chief of the conservative website WorldNetDaily(WND).
The Western Journalism Center was founded in 1991 by Joseph Farah and James H. Smith. Based in Sacramento, California. The center produces a conservative newsletter.
The Clinton Chronicles: An Investigation into the Alleged Criminal Activities of Bill Clinton is a 1994 documentary that accused Bill Clinton of a range of crimes. The claims in the video are controversial; some have been discredited, while others continue to be debated. The philandering and sexual harassment claims in the film have since been reported, and in some cases confirmed, by mainstream media. Years after the film was released, Clinton paid an out-of-court settlement to resolve the accusations made by Paula Jones in the movie.
Christopher Ruddy is an American journalist who is the CEO and majority owner of Newsmax Media.
The Strange Death of Vincent Foster: An Investigation is a 1997 book by the journalist Christopher Ruddy. Ruddy first wrote about the Foster story while reporting for The New York Post and the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, owned by the millionaire Richard Scaife. The book is about a conspiracy theory tying Bill and Hillary Clinton to the alleged murder of Vincent Foster. There were three separate official investigations of Foster's death, each concluding that he committed suicide. Ruddy believes Kenneth Starr's investigation was part of the conspiracy, calling Starr a "patsy for the Clintonites and those that believe that the stability and reputation of America is more important than justice."
Deputy White House counsel Vince Foster was found dead in Fort Marcy Park off the George Washington Parkway in Virginia, outside Washington, D.C., on July 20, 1993. His death was ruled a suicide by five official investigations.
Ambrose Evans-Pritchard is the international business editor of the Daily Telegraph.
Rex Armistead was a private detective, Mississippi Highway Patrol officer, and the leading operative for the since disbanded Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission. Later, he was heavily involved as an investigator for the Arkansas Project, a co-ordinated attempt in the 1990s to investigate then U.S. President Bill Clinton. The project was funded by conservative media billionaire Richard Mellon Scaife.
William H. Kennedy III is an American lawyer from Arkansas, who served as Associate White House Counsel during the Clinton administration.
