Whitewater Hearings End Nussbaum, Hubbell Draw Tough Questions On Final Day
As Whitewater hearings concluded Thursday, lawmakers subjected two fallen government officials to prickly questions about the ethical conduct of Hillary Rodham Clinton’s law firm and the White House’s version of events after Vincent Foster’s death.
In a sometimes bombastic Senate hearing, ex-White House counsel Bernard Nussbaum was repeatedly pressed to explain why his testimony differed from accounts of others regarding the search of Foster’s office after the deputy counsel’s suicide in July 1993.
Twice, senators implored Nussbaum to pick up Foster’s briefcase - now in Senate evidence - and explain how he overlooked a torn, anguished note from Foster inside it during the search July 22, 1993, two days after his death. Another White House lawyer found it four days later.
“It was the kind of thing that if I had found it on the 22nd - and believe me I wish I had - I would have” immediately turned it over to the police, Nussbaum told lawmakers.
Later in the day, Justice Department lawyer David Margolis contradicted much of Nussbaum’s testimony, saying that Justice Department lawyers were used as window dressing during Nussbaum’s July 22 search.
Under questioning by Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., Margolis also said he objected when Nussbaum wouldn’t let him and another Justice Department lawyer, Roger Adams, look at Foster’s office documents during a search for a suicide note.
Margolis said he agreed to remain at the meeting despite his reservations, but he believed Nussbaum wanted Justice Department officials there to make it seem they had a bigger role in the search than they had.
Across the Capitol, the House Banking Committee confronted former Associate Attorney General Webster Hubbell about the ethical conduct of the Rose Law Firm where he, Hillary Clinton and Foster were partners before coming to Washington.
Two regulators told the panel that the firm failed to disclose conflicts of interest as required before it was awarded federal savings and loan cleanup work, and later overcharged the government for some of that work.
One of those undisclosed conflicts involved Hillary Clinton doing legal work for Madison Guaranty S&L in 1985. Four years later, the government awarded Rose a contract to oversee the government cleanup of Madison. The firm was paid more than $300,000.
Madison, which failed at a cost to taxpayers of more than $60 million, was owned by the Clintons’ Whitewater business partner.
“The Rose Law Firm had a pretty powerful economic incentive to conceal this conflict,” contended Rep. Dick Chrysler, R-Mich.
Added committee Chairman Jim Leach, R-Iowa: “This could be described as an insider firm reaping profits from the public after insiders had defrauded … the public.”
At the White House, President Clinton brushed aside a question about the hearings, saying, “I have cooperated fully. There’s nothing else for me to do.”