Little Rock
A SMALL COTERIE OF LAWYERS, reporters, and retirees looking for entertainment gathers each morning at the federal courthouse in downtown Little Rock. It’s just a few blocks to the state capitol, where Bill Clinton had his office for 12 years; the Rose law firm, where Hillary Rodham Clinton had her offce for 16 years; the Excelsior Hotel, where Paula Corbin Jones claims Bill Clinton sexually harassed her in May 1991; and other stops on the Clinton scandal tour.
The scandal tour may have hit its final destination. Republicans who were expecting a new bombshell to come out of downtown Little Rock during the Whitewater trial of Democratic governor Jim Guy Tucker, James McDougal, and Susan McDougal have been sorely disappointed. Nothing has emerged to derail the president’s reelection campaign, and few people are paying attention to the trial of the president’s former Whitewater business partners and his successor as governor. At this point, it’s far from certain the prosecution can obtain any convictions. The defense rested last week after just two witnesses — James McDougal in person and the president on videotape.
It’s been a long haul. U.S. district judge George Howard, Jr. is the Lance Ito of Arkansas — he allows trials to drag on for weeks and even months, and this one has been a drag too. Courtroom regulars have been spotted napping on warm spring afternoons, leading to speculation about just how alert the jurors can possibly be. If they weren’t alert, the prosecution is probably doomed. Prosecutors took the jury on a convoluted journey through a series of complex and obscure financial transactions at the heart of the case. Tucker and the McDougals are accused of defrauding the government and two financial institutions during the 1980s in transactions totaling about $ 3 million. Most of the case is based on information given to the prosecution by a former municipal court judge and Little Rock businessman named David Hale. THale was the trial’s key witness, and it is vital to the prosecution’s prospects that jurors found him credible during his nine days on the stand.
It would come as no surprise if the jurors liked Hale, who has a talent for making people like him. He is a former national president of the Jaycees, which marks him as a past master of schmooze, with a big smile, shiny shoes, funny jokes, and a sincere demeanor. During his first few days on the stand, Hale showed his Jaycee colors, speaking with confidence, maintaining eye contact with the jurors, and deftly handling the questions that were asked.
As his testimony continued into a second week, however, cracks began to develop. By the time he was excused, Hale had admitted lying not only to the Small Business Administration (big deal), but to the FBI (a real big deal). Hale has made the only direct allegations against the president in the Whitewater case. He claims that then-governor Clinton benefited from a $ 300, 000 loan Hale’s firm made to a marketing firm owned by Susan McDougal. Hale says Clinton put pressure on him in 1986 to make the loan. That allegation led the defense to call Clinton as a witness, which led in turn to the testimony the president videotaped in the White House on April 28.
In both a legal and political context, much of what is happening in Little Rock is about spin, and Tucker is the chief spinner down here. After being indicted in August by a federal grand jury, Tucker began trying to influence the potential jury pool. He quickly characterized himself as the victim of overzealous Republican prosecutors who, unable to hang Clinton legally, had decided to go after the next biggest Democratic target in Arkansas. Tucker’s party line — that Whitewater independent counsel Kenneth Starr and his people are modern-day carpetbaggers intent on destroying the reputations of as many southern boys as possible — was picked up by other members of the state’s Democratic establishment and several newspaper columnists. The questions about Starr soon spread beyond the borders of Arkansas. Indeed, there has been much more national media focus in recent weeks on Starr’s perceived conflicts of interest than there has been on the trial itself.
Though Arkansans seem uninterested in Starr and have long since gotten used to the peculiar antics of Jim and Susan McDougal (it would take pages to detail them all), they are genuinely interested in what happens to Tucker. The most common sentiment heard in coffee shops and on courthouse squares across the state this spring is that Tucker is guilty of some of the charges, but that the jury won’t ever convict him.
A statewide poll of voters who participate regularly in state elections, conducted in early April by the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, showed that only 19 percent believe Tucker when he says he is innocent of the charges against him. Forty-four percent think the governor is lying, and 37 percent are not sure what to think. Tucker’s ratings probably would be even lower among those who don’t vote. His popularity has plummeted, as evidenced by the fact that his plan for rewriting the state constitution received only 20 percent of the vote in a special election in December, and a bond issue he favored got only 13 percent of the vote in a January special election. Unlike Clinton, Tucker seems to have little political capital remaining. He also has yet another Starr indictment to contend with after this trial is over.
Most Arkansans don’t trust their governor, but right now the opinion of only 12 Arkansans matters. As for former Arkansans Bill and Hillary Clinton, they couldn’t be happier that few people outside Arkansas are paying attention to the goings-on in Judge Howard’s courtroom.
EDITOR-NOTE:
Rex Nelson is political editor of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
by Rex Nelson
