November 2, 1995
Web posted at: 8:45 a.m. EST
From Correspondent Bob Franken
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Whitewater hearings were to resume Thursday, with questions to sort out discrepancies in earlier testimony surrounding the death of Deputy White House Counsel Vincent Foster. Called to reappear before the Senate Whitewater Committee were two associates of Hillary Rodham Clinton -- her chief of staff, Margaret Williams, and a friend, Susan Thomases. And there's no doubt Republicans are zeroing in on the first lady herself.
Phone records turned over to the committee by the White House last week provided what Republican Sen. Lauch Faircloth of North Carolina called "new information of a triangle" involving Mrs. Clinton, Williams and Thomases. (108K AIFF sound or 108K WAV sound) The records go back to July 22, 1993, two days after Foster's death, ruled a suicide by investigators.
That was the day Foster's boss, chief White House lawyer Bernard Nussbaum, suddenly put tight restrictions on access to documents in Foster's office, including records of the Clintons' Whitewater investment. When she testified last July, Williams insisted there was no connection between the phone calls and Nussbaum's action. There was "not some big plot," she said.
But some committee Republicans are not so sure. The phone records show a series of early morning calls on July 22, 1993. First, Williams called Mrs. Clinton at her mother's home in Little Rock, Arkansas. The first lady then called Thomases in Washington. Then, according to previously disclosed records, Thomases immediately paged Nussbaum. Republicans think the chain of calls may suggest Mrs. Clinton directed that Nussbaum hinder access to Foster's papers.
In her testimony last August, Thomases said she did not
remember having any conversation with Mrs. Clinton about the
documents. She insisted it was Nussbaum who made the
decisions regarding the handling of the Foster matter.
"(Nussbaum) moved very quickly into telling me 'don't worry,
I'm in charge. I've got this whole thing under control,'" she
testified.
On Thursday, committee Republicans will try to shake those stories and see if they can build a compelling case to have the first lady, herself, to testify.
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