February 8, 1996
Web posted at: 4:00 p.m. EST
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Newly discovered, expletive-laden White House notes stunned the Senate Whitewater Committee Thursday, fueling new debate over the Clintons' role.
The notes, written by former White House Communications Director Mark Gearan, reveal that White House aides were so concerned about what a former Arkansas securities commissioner might tell the committee that aides considered sending people to Arkansas to check her story out -- as the notes put it, to "make sure her story is okay."
If they botched the effort, Gearan noted, "We're done."
Republicans immediately questioned whether there was an attempt to improperly influence former regular Beverly Bassett Schaffer's testimony on Whitewater.
"Try to poke holes in their story," a White House note said, referring to the Whitewater Committee hearings.
Gearan wrote in one note on January 7, 1994: "Let's not talk it to death, let's just get it done," referring to the emissaries that were to probe Schaffer.
"Item by item, make sure her story is okay," Gearan wrote. That particular note contained abbreviations of three non-White House employees whom Gearan thought could handle the job.
"Try to poke holes in their story," the note added.
White House counsel Jane Sherburne, who was questioned during Thursday's session, said she did not know what the notes meant. But she suggested they could mean White House aides were just trying to get the facts.
Schaffer has been a central focus of the senate committee ever since it was disclosed in 1992 that Hillary Rodham Clinton, then a private lawyer, talked once to Schaffer in pursuit of a state ruling in favor of her Whitewater business partner's failing savings and loan.
Republicans have questioned whether Hillary Clinton received favorable treatment from Schaffer, a charge both deny.
Gearan's notes were turned over to the committee Wednesday night. The White House said Gearan inadvertently took the notes with him when he left the White House, and they were only recently retrieved.
Senator Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, said he was "personally disturbed by the implications" of Gearan's language in the notes. (204K AIFF sound or 204K WAV sound)
Also during Thursday's session, Sherburne and David Kendall, the Clintons' family attorney, talked about Carolyn Huber's demeanor after she found Hillary Clinton's missing legal billing records from her Arkansas law firm.
The two described Huber as "flustered" and "nervous." (170K AIFF sound or 170K WAV sound)
On Wednesday, Webster Hubbell, one of Hillary Clinton's former law partners, said he gave the long-sought billing records to future White House lawyer Vincent Foster during the 1992 campaign. Hubbell said he never saw them again.
His testimony came as committee members focused on what role Hubbell and Foster, another of Hillary Clinton's law partners before coming to Washington, may have had in handling the records.
Republicans have questioned whether the billing records could have been in Foster's White House office the night of his July 1993 suicide. The documents were missing until they mysteriously reappeared Jan. 5 in the White House living quarters, nearly two years after they were subpoenaed by investigators.
Mrs. Clinton has said she doesn't know how the missing records got to the book room of the White House family residence. (68K AIFF sound or 68K WAV sound) The records were discovered in a box by a longtime aide.
They address a question Whitewater prosecutors have been trying to answer for more than two years: Precisely what work did Hillary Clinton do for the now-defunct Madison Guaranty Savings & Loan owned by the Clintons' Whitewater partners.
The financial institution was owned by James and Susan McDougal, who were partners with the Clintons in the failed Whitewater real estate venture in the Ozark Mountains of Arkansas.
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