Whitewater scandal

Long-running financial scandal that dogged the US presidency of Bill Clinton 1992-2000. The complex affair relates to activities during the 1980s when Clinton was governor of Arkansas, specifically Clinton family investments in the Whitewater Development Corporation, an Arkansas property venture, and its links to the Madison Guarantee Savings company, which went bankrupt in 1989, costing taxpayers US$50 million. The scandal involved allegations of sham land deals, tax benefits, illegal political funding, conflicts of interest, and suspicions over the mysterious death, in July 1993, of White House deputy counsel Vincent Foster. After six years and $50 million/£36 million spent, the independent counsel in charge of the Whitewater investigation concluded on 20 September 2000 that there was insufficient evidence to bring charges against Bill Clinton or his wife, Hillary.

In January 1994 Robert Fiske was appointed as special prosecutor (Independent Counsel) to investigate the allegations and was replaced, from August 1994, by Kenneth Starr, a more partisan conservative Republican. In January 1996 Hillary Clinton, the first lady, was subpoenaed to testify before the Whitewater investigation. In September 1996 Susan McDougal, a business partner with the Clintons in the Whitewater venture, was imprisoned after refusing to testify about the president's role in the case. Her husband, James McDougal, died in prison in March 1998. During 1998, Starr's investigations broadened to touch on allegations of sexual harassment made against the president by Paula Jones, a former Arkansas state employee. In May 1998 the Whitewater grand jury in Little Rock, Arkansas, announced the end of 30-months' long investigation.