Rtc Decides Not To Sue Clintons Agency Won’t Pursue Losses Caused By Whitewater Venture

In one of its final acts, the Resolution Trust Corp. has decided not to sue President Clinton or his wife for losses that the Whitewater land venture caused an Arkansas savings and loan association that collapsed six years ago.

The agency’s decision was included in a report made public Wednesday during debate by the full Senate over subpoenas issued by the Senate Whitewater committee. The report followed an investigation of nearly two years into the relationship between the failure of the savings and loan, Madison Guaranty, run by James B. McDougal, and Whitewater Development Co., whose principals were McDougal, Clinton and their wives.

The RTC, which has been supervising the federal bailout of the savings and loan industry, closes its doors at the end of the year. Its regulators were facing a statute-of-limitations deadline of Dec. 31 to bring any new civil actions against borrowers or advisers of Madison Guaranty who might have contributed to the savings and loan’s collapse.

That collapse ultimately cost taxpayers more than $60 million, and congressional and other federal investigators have spent months scrutinizing what role, if any, Clinton and his wife, Hillary, played in it.

As a partner at the Rose Law Firm in Little Rock, Mrs. Clinton did some legal work on behalf of the savings and loan, which was already in deep financial trouble, before state regulators appointed by her husband, who was then governor of Arkansas.

Her precise role in the firm’s taking on that work has been the subject of considerable debate in Congress in recent weeks, but the RTCs report did not address it.

While the report was hailed by both the Clintons and Democrats in Congress as a complete exoneration of the first family, it is not expected to have any effect on the significantly broader investigation being conducted of the president, Mrs. Clinton and Madison Guaranty by the Whitewater independent counsel, Kenneth Starr.