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White House: Senior Staff Made Calls On Hubbell's Behalf
WASHINGTON (AllPolitics, April 1) -- Two senior administration aides made calls for work on behalf of Webster Hubbell in the days after he resigned as associate attorney general, the White House has acknowledged.
In March 1994, then Chief of Staff Mack McLarty and current Chief of Staff Erskine Bowles, then head of the Small Business Administration, each acted independently to try to help Hubbell, White House Special Counsel Lanny Davis said in a statement.
"These calls were motivated out of friendship or concern about the plight of someone who was in trouble financially, and at a time when there was no reason to believe he [Hubbell] had done anything wrong other than be in dispute with his former law partners," Davis said.
Hubbell had resigned from the Justice Department because of the distraction due to that dispute. His former law partners included First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Davis said the idea that the calls "were motivated by anything other than concern about his plight as a friend was totally baseless."
McLarty mentioned his concern for his close friend to the first lady and remembers her expressing concern as well, Davis said. Mrs. Clinton, according to Davis, does not remember the specific exchange, but says it may well have happened and that would have been her reaction. McLarty said he also may have expressed his concern to the president.
A few days later, under no direction from anyone, McLarty called businessman Truman Arnold, who indicated he was interested in assisting Hubbell and in contacting others to help him, according to Davis. Arnold subsequently hired Hubbell.
Erskine Bowles, acting independently of McLarty, had a conversation with then U.S. Trade Representative Mickey Kantor about Hubbell, Davis said. Kantor was talking about Hubbell's situation, and Bowles said he might make some calls.
Bowles called Will Dunbar with Allied Capital, a Washington company that Bowles' former firm did business with, Davis said. He personally introduced the two in April 1994. Bowles also made a call to Sam Poole and Reef Ivey, lawyers with the Sanford Law Firm in North Carolina. Bowles didn't know the results of the calls and didn't discuss any of them with the Clintons, Davis said.
Hubbell was sent to jail in 1995 after he pleaded guilty to fraudulent billing of clients at the Rose Law Firm of Little Rock, Arkansas, before he joined the Justice Department. He and Hillary Rodham Clinton were partners at the firm.
Last month, the New York Times reported that Hubbell received payments from the Riady family of Indonesia that owns the Lippo group for work on a project in China after he resigned. The White House said none of the calls made on Hubbell's behalf involved Lippo.
Hubbell is involved in the investigation of Clinton's participation in the Whitewater land deal in Arkansas. Investigators are trying to determine if the money he received for the China project was intended to keep him from cooperating with the probe.
"Neither the president nor first lady ever asked for or suggested that anyone, including Mr. McLarty or Mr. Bowles, hire Webb Hubbell or assist him in obtaining employment," Davis said.
However, he said the Clintons "would not have discouraged Mr. McLarty from assisting Webb Hubbell because he was an old friend."