See also
- People who appeared or who were discussed in the film
- Other efforts to accuse Clinton of misdeeds
| The Clinton Chronicles: An Investigation into the Alleged Criminal Activities of Bill Clinton | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | Patrick Matrisciana |
| Produced by | Patrick Matrisciana |
Release date | 1994 |
Running time | 85 minutes |
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.
While the film was directed by Patrick Matrisciana, who has a production company called Jeremiah Films, the production was credited to Citizens for Honest Government, a project of a Westminster, California organization named Creative Ministries Inc. that has connections to Matrisciana. [1] It was partially funded by Larry Nichols, a long-time Clinton opponent, and distributed with help from the Rev. Jerry Falwell, who also appears in the film. [2] Over 300,000 copies of the film were put into circulation [3] with perhaps half that being sales. [1]
The film was produced shortly after Clinton's election to the presidency and provides background on a number of conspiracy theories associated with now former president Bill Clinton. Several of these theories date to Clinton's tenure as the governor of Arkansas. Allegations include:
The video was characterized by The Washington Post as a "bizarre and unsubstantiated documentary." [2] The New York Times reported that it was a poorly documented "hodgepodge of sometimes-crazed charges." [3] The producers were criticized after it came to light that a number of the people in the documentary had been paid to appear. The director admitted the payments but denied he had instructed any paid participants to say anything that was false. [1]
The movie helped perpetuate the Clinton body count conspiracy theory about a list of associates Clinton was purported to have had killed. The Los Angeles Times reported that Larry Nichols, who appears throughout the film and is the primary source for a number of the murder and mysterious death claims, was fired from his Arkansas state government job and once admitted to an Associated Press reporter to being motivated by spite. [4] The fact checking site TruthOrFiction.com states that "There is no credible evidence that any of the deaths is related or can be attributed to Bill Clinton". [5]
To promote the film, Falwell aired an interview with Matrisciana, who was silhouetted to conceal his identity as he pretended to be a journalist who was afraid for his life. [1] Matrisciana later acknowledged that he was not in any danger, but that the interview was staged for dramatic effect at Falwell's suggestion. [1]
The New York Times interviewed some of the participants in the film after it aired for followup developments. Gary Parks, who appeared in a segment of the film discussing the suspicious circumstances of the death of his father, who investigated Clinton's womanizing, admitted he embellished some details in the film, but still believes his father was killed for political reasons. [3] Linda Ives, the mother of Kevin Ives, stated that her interest for participating was solving the mystery of her son's death, and was concerned her comments were used for political purposes. Bill Duncan, a former IRS agent who investigated the Mena accusations regretted appearing on the film, stating, "I would not have willingly been a part of it had I known where that footage would end up". [3]
Matrisciana produced a followup video focused exclusively on the Mena airport drug smuggling and murder accusations. Two police officers accused in that film of being involved with the murders of Ives and Henry attempted to sue Matrisciana for defamation. They initially prevailed; however, lost the case when it was appealed. The appeal focused primarily on free speech and the ability to criticize public figures. Even though the judges overturned the ruling of defamation, they were critical of the film in their ruling, saying it blurred the lines between fact and fiction. [6]
A number of the incidents mentioned in The Clinton Chronicles continued to be investigated after its release. Paula Jones, who appeared in the film accusing Clinton of harassing her, sued the president for sexual harassment. The president paid Jones $850,000 to settle the case out of court. Special prosecutor Ken Starr was assigned to investigate a number of incidents mentioned in the film. While the Starr Report accused Clinton of obstruction of justice in covering up an affair, and other players in the Whitewater controversy were charged and sentenced, Starr declined to recommend charges for Clinton over Whitewater and cleared Clinton of involvement with Vince Foster's death. [7]
Linda Ives continued to search for justice for her son's death. The film mentioned that her son's death was controversially ruled accidental by an examiner who had a history of questionable rulings. After the film aired, she had her son's body exhumed and a second autopsy performed. She successfully had the original examiner's ruling overruled and the cause of death for Kevin Ives and Don Henry was changed from accidental to homicide. [3] The movie connected these deaths to smuggling activities at the Mena Airport, suggesting the boys had become accidental witnesses to a drug drop. However, their bodies were found along train tracks in Alexander, Arkansas, approximately 120 miles (190 km) to the east of Mena. Official investigations have focused on drug smuggling activities in Saline County, Arkansas. [8] In February 2018, Billy Jack Haynes, a professional wrestler with a history of making controversial claims on camera, claimed to have been hired as a body guard for drug smugglers and a witness to these murders. He advocated for the case to be re-opened; however, the case remains unsolved. [9]
Kenneth Winston Starr was an American lawyer and judge who as independent counsel authored the Starr Report, which served as the basis of the impeachment of Bill Clinton. He headed an investigation of members of the Clinton administration, known as the Whitewater controversy, from 1994 to 1998. Starr previously 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 Starr Report, officially the Referral from Independent Counsel Kenneth W. Starr in Conformity with the Requirement of Title 28, United States Code, Section 595(c), is a United States federal government report by Independent Counsel Ken Starr concerning his investigation of President Bill Clinton. Delivered to the United States Congress on September 9, 1998, the allegations in the report led to the impeachment of Bill Clinton and the five-year suspension of Clinton's law license.
Paula Corbin Jones is an American civil servant. A former Arkansas state employee, Jones sued United States President Bill Clinton for sexual harassment in 1994. In the initial lawsuit, Jones cited Clinton for sexual harassment at the Excelsior Hotel in Little Rock, Arkansas on May 8, 1991. Following a series of civil suits and appeals through the U.S. District Court and the U.S. Court of Appeals from May 1994 to January 1996, Clinton v. Jones eventually reached the United States Supreme Court on May 27, 1997. The case was later settled on November 13, 1998.
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.
Susan Carol McDougal is a real estate investor who served prison time as a result of the Whitewater controversy.
"Vast right-wing conspiracy" is a phrase 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 conspiracy 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.
Adler Berriman "Barry" Seal was an American commercial airline pilot who became a major drug smuggler for the Medellín Cartel. When Seal was convicted of smuggling charges, he became an informant for the Drug Enforcement Administration and testified in several major drug trials. He was murdered on February 19, 1986, by contract killers hired by the cartel.
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.
Kathleen Willey is a former White House volunteer aide who, on March 15, 1998, alleged on the TV news program 60 Minutes that Bill Clinton had sexually assaulted her on November 29, 1993, during his first term as President. She had been subpoenaed to testify in the Paula Jones sexual harassment case.
Jeremiah Films is a media production and distribution company. The organization was founded by Patrick Matrisciana in 1978. As of 2012, they are based in Jacksonville Beach, Florida.
The United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has been accused of involvement in drug trafficking. Books and investigations on the subject that have received general notice include works by the historian Alfred McCoy, professor and diplomat Peter Dale Scott, journalists Gary Webb and Alexander Cockburn, and writer Larry Collins. These claims have led to investigations by the United States government, including hearings and reports by the United States House of Representatives, Senate, Department of Justice, and the CIA's Inspector General.
Mena Intermountain Municipal Airport is a city-owned, public-use airport located two nautical miles (4 km) southeast of the central business district of Mena, a city in Polk County, Arkansas, United States. It is included in the National Plan of Integrated Airport Systems for 2011–2015, which categorized it as a general aviation facility.
Richard Wayne Snell was an American white supremacist convicted of killing two people, a black police officer and a pawn shop owner whom he mistook for a Jew, in Arkansas between November 3, 1983, and June 30, 1984. Snell was sentenced to death for one of the murders, and executed by lethal injection in 1995.
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.
The Clinton body count is a disproven conspiracy theory that asserts former U.S. President Bill Clinton and his wife, former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, have secretly had their political opponents murdered, totaling as many as 50 or more listed victims. The Congressional Record (1994) stated that the compiler of the original list, Linda Thompson, admitted she had "'no direct evidence' of Clinton killing anyone. Indeed, she says the deaths were probably caused by 'people trying to control the president' but refuses to say who they were."
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.
Bill Clinton, the 42nd president of the United States (1993–2001), has been publicly accused of sexual assault and/or sexual misconduct by several women: Juanita Broaddrick accused Clinton of raping her in 1978; Leslie Millwee accused Clinton of sexually assaulting her in 1980; Paula Jones accused Clinton of exposing himself to her in 1991 as well as sexually harassing her; and Kathleen Willey accused Clinton of groping her without her consent in 1993. The Jones allegations became public in 1994, during Clinton's first term as president, while Willey's and Broaddrick's accusations became public in 1999, toward the end of Clinton's second term. Millwee made her accusations in 2016.
Larry Raymond Nichols was an American political commentator known for his accusations against Bill Clinton. He was one of the creators of the 1994 film The Clinton Chronicles.
Around 4:00am on August 23, 1987, the bodies of 16-year-old Don Henry and 17-year-old Kevin Ives were hit by a freight train in the town of Alexander, Arkansas, United States, as they were laying on the tracks. The locomotive engineer engaged the brakes while blowing the horn, but the train could not stop in time and rolled over the bodies. A second autopsy revealed that Don Henry had been stabbed in the back and Kevin Ives' skull had been crushed prior to being run over.