David Hale (Whitewater)

Last updated

David Hale is a former Arkansas municipal judge and former Arkansas banker. He alleged the charges that resulted in the Whitewater scandal trials.

Contents

Biography

He worked with Jim McDougal on $3 million in loans from a lending company he ran. He pleaded guilty and went to jail for conspiring to defraud the Small Business Administration in looting the funds from a dummy business that he had established. [1] He was sentenced to two years and four months in prison for fraud unrelated to the Whitewater deal. As part of his guilty plea for looting money from an insurance company, he provided the allegations for the Whitewater scandal and testimony for its investigators. [2]

He testified in the trial of Jim and Susan McDougal in 1989 when the Madison Guaranty Savings and Loan originally failed, and at the time, he never mentioned Clinton in a detailed account of the $300,000 loan. [3] It was only when Hale came under indictment on other charges that he alleged any crime by Clinton.

Hale testified in U.S. District Court that (then) Governor Bill Clinton pressured him to make a fraudulent $300,000 loan for him not be named in the loan. On June 23, 1994, Eugene Fitzhugh pleaded guilty to trying to bribe Hale.

See also

Related Research Articles

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jim Guy Tucker</span> 43rd Governor of Arkansas

James Guy Tucker Jr. is an American politician and attorney from Arkansas. A member of the Democratic Party, he served as the 43rd governor of Arkansas, the 15th lieutenant governor, state attorney general, and U.S. representative. Tucker resigned the governorship and was replaced by Mike Huckabee on July 16, 1996, after his conviction for fraud during the Whitewater affair.

David Evan Kendall is an American attorney, a graduate of Wabash College, Yale Law School, and Worcester College, Oxford, who clerked with Supreme Court Justice Byron White, worked as associate counsel at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, and has been a partner at Williams & Connolly LLP of Washington, DC since 1981, where he has provided legal counsel to individuals and corporations on high-profile business and political matters.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Susan McDougal</span> American real estate investor

Susan Carol McDougal is one of the many people prosecuted as a result of the Whitewater controversy of the 15 individuals who were convicted of federal charges.

Mark John Geragos is an American criminal defense lawyer and the managing partner of Geragos & Geragos, in Los Angeles.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Impeachment of Bill Clinton</span> 1998 presidential impeachment proceedings against Bill Clinton

Bill Clinton, the 42nd president of the United States, was impeached by the United States House of Representatives of the 105th United States Congress on December 19, 1998, for "high crimes and misdemeanors". The House adopted two articles of impeachment against Clinton, with the specific charges against Clinton being lying under oath and obstruction of justice. Two other articles had been considered but were rejected by the House vote.

Webster Lee "Webb" Hubbell is a former United States Associate Attorney General from 1993 to 1994 who as part of the Whitewater controversy pled guilty to one count of wire fraud and one count of failing to disclose a conflict of interest, and was sentenced to 21 months.

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.

Madison Guaranty Savings and Loan Association was a savings and loan association based in Little Rock, Arkansas. The company operated from 1979 until 1989 when it was shut down by federal regulators as a result of bank failure, leading to a loss of $60 million for the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. Beginning in 1982, the bank was owned and managed by Jim McDougal, a friend of Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton. On March 8, 1992, during the 1992 United States presidential election the bank was the subject of an article in The New York Times by Jeff Gerth, which linked the bank to Whitewater Development Corporation, owned by McDougal and the Clintons. After Clinton's election as president, the bank was the subject of investigations by the United States Congress and special prosecutor Ken Starr as part of the Whitewater controversy. McDougal was investigated to determine if he improperly diverted money from the bank to Whitewater or the Clinton campaign during the Arkansas gubernatorial election, 1984.

James B. McDougal, a native of White County, Arkansas, and his wife, Susan McDougal, were financial partners with Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton in the real estate venture that led to the Whitewater political scandal of the 1990s. Starting in 1982, McDougal operated Madison Guaranty Savings and Loan Association.

Antoin Rezko is an American businessman and convict. He was a fundraiser for Illinois Democratic and Republican politicians. After becoming a major contributor to Rod Blagojevich's successful election for governor, Rezko assisted Blagojevich in setting up the state's first Democratic administration in twenty years and as a result he was able to have business associates appointed onto several state boards. Rezko and several others were indicted on federal charges in October 2006 for using their connections on the state boards to demand kickbacks from businesses that wished to engage in dealings with the state. While the others pleaded guilty, Rezko pleaded not guilty and was tried. He was found guilty of 16 of the 24 charges filed against him and on November 23, 2011, he was sentenced to 10.5 years in prison.

Robert W. Palmer is a former Madison Guaranty land appraiser. He pleaded guilty to federal conspiracy charges related to Whitewater and was later pardoned by President Bill Clinton.

Christopher Wade is a retired real estate broker/owner of Ozarks Realty Company in Flippin, Arkansas. He was the real estate agent associated to the Clinton's Whitewater controversy in Arkansas.

John Latham is a former CEO of Madison Guaranty that came into front page national news as a result of the Whitewater investigations.

Eugene C. Fitzhugh was a Little Rock, Arkansas lawyer and businessman.

Jeff Gerth is a former investigative reporter for The New York Times who has written lengthy, probing stories that drew both praise and criticism. He won a Pulitzer Prize in 1999 for covering the transfer of American satellite-launch technology to China. He broke stories about the Whitewater controversy and the Chinese scientist Wen Ho Lee.

Stephen A. Smith is a University of Arkansas communications professor who was a top gubernatorial aide to Bill Clinton in Arkansas, helping the governor run his office. He is an internationally known First Amendment scholar and author of numerous books.

Castle Grande was a real estate development in Arkansas about 10 miles south of Little Rock. It came into National news as a result of the Whitewater investigations. The project was a 1,050-acre (4.2 km2) lot where Jim McDougal hoped to build a microbrewery, shopping center, a trailer park and other future projects in 1985. The land was scrub pine forest that had failed already as an industrial development. The sales price was $1.75 million. State regulations prohibited Jim McDougal from investing more than 6% of his Madison Guaranty S&L assets. So, he put in $600,000 of Madison money and then for the difference had Seth Ward put in the remaining $1.15 million. This money Ward borrowed from Madison Guaranty on non-recourse, no personal obligation to repay. If federal regulators found out, McDougal's S&L could be shut down, since it had already been operating under orders to correct its lending practices.

George Howard Jr. was an American World War II veteran, attorney, and a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas and the United States District Court for the Western District of Arkansas. He was the first African-American United States District Judge in Arkansas. Howard played an important role in the Whitewater controversy, presiding over several Whitewater-related cases, including the separate trials of Jim and Susan McDougal, and once called on President Bill Clinton to testify.

Susan Webber Wright is a Senior United States District Judge of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas. Wright is a former judge on the United States Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. She received national attention when she first dismissed the sexual harassment lawsuit brought by Paula Jones against President Bill Clinton in 1998, and then, in 1999, found Clinton to be in civil contempt of court.

References

  1. "First Trial for Whitewater Prosecutor". The New York Times. 1994-06-10. Retrieved 2008-08-20.
  2. "Caught in the Whitewater Net". CBS News. 1998-05-19. Retrieved 2008-08-20.
  3. Susan Schmidt (1996-04-03). "Clinton Discussed Loan, Hale Testifies". The Washington Post. Retrieved 2008-08-20.