Prosecutor Says Clinton Tape Hurts Whitewater Defendants He Claims Case Proved Even Without President’s Accuser

A prosecutor invoked President Clinton’s name several times during closing arguments Monday, saying the president’s videotaped testimony bolstered the government’s case against Arkansas Gov. Jim Guy Tucker and Clinton’s former Whitewater business partners.

Lead prosecutor W. Ray Jahn spoke for more than three hours, laying out a document trail that he said proves the government’s case even without the testimony of David Hale, the government’s star witness whose credibility has been a central issue in the case. Jahn cautioned jurors to use Clinton’s testimony only to judge Hale’s credibility, not to evaluate the tale told independently by the documents.

“I submit to you ladies and gentlemen, the government has proven each and every essential element of the crimes in this case,” Jahn said.

Jahn sketched a circuitous outline of an alleged “smorgasbord of crimes” involving illegal land flips, inflated appraisals and bogus loans in a scheme, he said, to benefit the defendants and others in the Arkansas “political family.” He urged jurors to use their common sense and to be the “conscience of your community” in judging whether the three defendants had abused the “public trust and the private trust.”

Tucker, James B. McDougal and his former wife Susan McDougal were indicted last August on 21 counts, including conspiracy, fraud and misapplication of funds. The indictment said the three agreed with Hale in the fall of 1985 to obtain $3 million in illegal federally backed loans through Hale’s small business investment company and McDougal’s Little Rock thrift, Madison Guaranty Saving & Loan.

At the end of the prosecution’s case, U.S. District Judge George Howard Jr. dismissed four of 11 charges against Tucker and four of eight charges against Susan McDougal, including the conspiracy charge. The judge said the office of independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr failed to provide enough evidence.

The trial, which started March 4, brought 33 prosecution witnesses to the stand.

Defense attorney, Sam Heuer, is scheduled to begin his closing argument Tuesday.