Second Whitewater Trial Now In Hands Of Jury

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AllPolitics, July 25) -- The jury in the second Whitewater trial began their deliberations into whether two of President Bill Clinton's longtime supporters abused bank funds to gain political power.

Perry County Bank owners Robert Hill and Herby Branscum, Jr., are charged with funneling their bank's money into then-Gov. Clinton's campaign coffers. After contributing the legal amount to various campaigns, Hill and Branscum used more than $13,000 of their bank's money to reimburse themselves and friends who gave money to Clinton and other politicians, prosecutors say.

Prosecutors allege there was a quid pro quo of campaign contributions for state posts. Then-Gov. Clinton appointed Hill to the powerful state Banking Commission in 1986 and Branscum to the state Highway Commission in 1990. Hill delivered sizable checks for Clinton's gubernatorial campaigns in those years.

During his summation, chief prosecutor W. Hickman Ewing showed the jury checks Hill and Branscum received from their bank and checks the defendants wrote to reimburse friends for political contributions made around the same time.

"According to them, it's a coincidence," said Ewing. "We submit it was a conspiracy."

The defense dismissed the prosecution's conspiracy claims as "just preposterous." Branscum's attorney, Dan Guthrie, said during closing remarks that Branscum didn't need to curry favor with Clinton, whom he had known since the early 1970s.

While prosecutors said the defendants granted quick loans and would do anything "to please the campaign," Guthrie pointed to the 12 percent interest rate the bank charged Clinton's campaign for $285,000 in loans.

"Do you ingratiate yourself with someone when your bank charges them the highest rate they can charge under the law?" said Guthrie.

As with the first Whitewater trial, President Clinton took the stand via videotape for the defense. In his 90-minute testimony last week, Clinton denied promising or giving jobs in exchange for campaign cash. Clinton was not charged in this case.

But this 21-day trial still brought the criminal probe closer to the White House, with Clinton aide Bruce Lindsey named as an unindicted co-conspirator. Prosecutors say Lindsey, Clinton's 1990 gubernatorial campaign treasurer, plotted with Hill and Branscum to hide $52,500 in cash transactions from the IRS. Federal law requires banks to report transactions over $10,000

Prosecutors said Lindsey hid the transactions so a future Clinton presidential campaign wouldn't have to face embarrassing questions on how earlier campaign money was spent.

Defense attorneys thundered back that Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr's Whitewater investigations are politically motivated efforts to embarrass the president. There has been "an effort by the independent counsel to manufacture a crime where there is no crime," said Guthrie.

This case follows the successful prosecution of three of Clinton's former business partners in the first Whitewater trial. Former Arkansas Gov. Jim Guy Tucker and Jim and Susan McDougal were convicted in May of 24 of the 30 fraud charges against them.

Second Whitewater Trial Now In Hands Of Jury

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