Missing File on Clinton Associate Prompts Probe

Investigators are trying to learn if a missing file on a former business associate of President Clinton was taken from the office of a White House aide after he committed suicide, it was reported today.

The federal investigators have been told that Vincent Foster Jr. kept a file in his office on James McDougal and Whitewater Development Corp., McDougal’s real estate investment firm, the New York Times reported.

Foster committed suicide on July 20. The file was not listed in an inventory of his office that was conducted two days after his death, the newspaper reported, quoting law enforcement sources.

It might have been turned over to Foster’s widow in a box of personal items given to the family’s lawyer, one source said.

Whitewater was a joint venture entered into by Clinton, his wife, Hillary, and McDougal and his wife, Susan, in 1978 to develop land in Arkansas.

McDougal, who was once an economic adviser to Clinton when he was governor of Arkansas, eventually left government and bought a small savings and loan association, Madison Guaranty.

He built it into one of the largest state-chartered associations in Arkansas before it failed in 1989, costing taxpayers $47 million. McDougal was acquitted of charges related to the failure.