McDougal Doesn’t ‘Recall’ Much About Whitewater

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — Repeatedly stating “I don’t recall” and “I don’t remember,” Susan McDougal testified Thursday that she had forgotten what little she knew in the 1980s about the fraudulent land deals at the heart of the Whitewater investigation.

In her second day under cross-examination by one of independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr’s prosecutors, President Clinton’s ex-Whitewater partner was confronted with information she provided to accountants in 1986 about the failed savings and loan of her ex-husband, the late James B. McDougal.

Susan McDougal, charged with criminal contempt and obstruction of justice, continued to maintain that she knew little about the financial deals. “I was talking to Jim” and passing along what he said to the accountants, she testified.

At the time, the accountants were trying to track thrift losses caused by the McDougals’ numerous real estate projects. James McDougal, who had been removed from the S&L; by federal regulators, was recovering from a stroke suffered earlier in the year.

On Thursday, prosecutors started to show a videotape to the jury of Susan McDougal’s 1996 interview with ABC-TV in which she talked about Whitewater.

At one point, she was asked what was the one thing she wanted to say after four years of silence in the Whitewater investigation.

In a joking manner, the defendant, who had been convicted and sentenced before the interview, said “that I hate” the prosecutors “and that I want them dead and their children dead.”

During two days of questioning by prosecutor Mark Barrett, McDougal said more than 40 times that she did not recall various business deals. She said her former husband, who died in federal prison last year, handled most of the financial matters.

She is on trial for criminal contempt and obstruction of justice for refusing to answer questions before a federal grand jury in the Whitewater investigation. McDougal contends prosecutors were pressuring her to give false testimony to implicate the Clintons.

On Thursday, Susan McDougal testified that she didn’t remember dealing personally with former Arkansas Gov. Jim Guy Tucker on a proposed shopping center, even though the accountants’ written summary of her 1986 interview said she dealt with Tucker on the project, which was never built.