Lawyer Appears To Contradict, Also Supports Hillary Clinton Witness’s Memory Fails Him At Senate Whitewater Hearing

In five hours of testimony before the Senate Whitewater committee, a lawyer at Hillary Rodham Clinton’s former law firm said Thursday he cannot remember events of 11 years ago clearly enough to support the first lady’s account of how the firm came to represent a troubled Arkansas savings and loan.

Under Republican questioning, the lawyer, Richard Massey, appeared to contradict significant aspects of the first lady’s account, but under Democratic questioning, he offered support for some aspects of her account.

Through much of the hearing, Massey struggled, seeming to try to hold true to his recollections without appearing to criticize Hillary Clinton. He did not resist efforts by several Democrats to guide him with leading questions so as to appear sympathetic to her. Nor did he challenge Republicans when they characterized his answers as demonstrating that Hillary Clinton has been less than forthright with investigators.

The relationship between the savings association, Madison Guaranty, and the Clintons long has been a critical point for regulators, congressional investigators and prosecutors on the Whitewater independent counsel’s staff. Recently, Senate Republicans have suggested that Hillary Clinton may have lied about her legal work for Madison Guaranty.

Since 1992, Hillary Clinton has said she did nothing improper by representing the savings association or working on Madison’s behalf before state regulators who had been appointed by her husband when he was governor of Arkansas.

Madison was owned and operated by James B. McDougal, the Clintons’ partner in the Whitewater Development land venture. In 1989, the savings association failed at a cost to taxpayers of more than $60 million.

Hillary Clinton repeatedly has told investigators and reporters that she did minimal work on behalf of Madison. Rather, she has said, Massey, then a first-year associate at the Rose Law Firm, reached an agreement in 1985 with John Latham, a young executive of the savings association, that it would use the firm to gain approval of a financing plan that was submitted to regulators appointed by then-Gov. Clinton.

She also has said Massey approached her for help in overcoming the resistance of other Rose lawyers who had had a prior dispute with the owner of Madison about bills and that he asked her to be the billing partner for the account.

Massey said Thursday he has no recollection of being the primary force in winning the Madison account or of going to Hillary Clinton and asking her to be the billing partner.

Republicans on the Whitewater committee played a videotape Thursday of Hillary Clinton’s April 1994 news conference in which she said she simply had served “as a backstop” for Massey and had played little more than a perfunctory role.

Under Republican questioning, Massey said he was unable to recall enough of the details to support Hillary Clinton’s account.