Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, February 17, 1994 TAG: 9402170143
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: From the Los Angeles Times and The Associated Press
DATELINE: LITTLE ROCK, ARK. LENGTH: Medium
After meeting with Fiske, U.S. District Judge Stephen Reasoner ruled that a new grand jury should be impaneled to work exclusively on the Whitewater case because the one now meeting in Little Rock is not prepared to continue long enough to hear the evidence.
The move underscores the considerable scope and length of the probe that the special counsel is preparing to undertake.
"The investigation is anticipated to involve more than 1 million documents, 200 to 300 interviews and over 20 Federal Bureau of Investigation agents and other assistants," the judge observed in his order. "As such, the duties of any grand jury investigating this matter are much more extensive than the court had previously envisioned."
Although Fiske has declined to estimate how long his investigation will last, he told the Los Angeles Times in a brief telephone interview that he has rented an apartment in Little Rock for a year and expects to be finished by the time his lease is up. He said the three-year lease on his new offices was negotiated by the government and "it means nothing."
Fiske, a New York attorney, was appointed last month by Attorney General Janet Reno and assigned to examine the investment Clinton and his wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton, made with James and Susan McDougal in an Arkansas real estate development project known as Whitewater.
Among other things, he is trying to determine whether the Clintons paid the appropriate taxes on their income from the project, whether federally guaranteed money from McDougal's failed Madison Guaranty Savings and Loan was used for the project or found its way into Bill Clinton's political campaign funds, and whether Clinton used his position as governor to benefit McDougal or Whitewater.
In another matter, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. said Wednesday it has determined that Hillary Rodham Clinton had no conflict of interest stemming from her work for regulators in a case against a former political supporter of her husband.
FDIC spokesman David Barr also said regulators will decide within days whether Webster Hubbell, now the No. 3 official at the Justice Department, misled the agency when seeking a contract to sue Madison's accountants.
Regulators are trying to learn whether Hubbell told the FDIC that the Rose Law Firm, in which Hillary Rodham Clinton and Hubbell were partners, had once represented Madison when he sought and obtained a $400,000 contract to sue Madison's accountants.
by CNB