Whitewater ‘Mystery Woman’ Leaves Much Unanswered : Inquiry: Former real estate partner of Clintons, Susan McDougal, declares innocence, accuses GOP of persecution. She doesn’t discuss pivotal loans.

Susan McDougal, the former real estate partner of then-Gov. Bill Clinton and his wife, Monday broke the long silence that has made her the “mystery woman of Whitewater.” But in a sometimes emotional press conference, she shed little light on that mystery.

Refusing to answer questions about the critical transactions that have plunged the White House into controversy, McDougal instead declared her innocence and accused the Republicans of persecuting her and her former husband, Madison Guaranty Savings & Loan executive James B. McDougal.

“I know that Jim McDougal did not ever knowingly violate any laws--and neither have I,” she said, her voice quivering at times as she read a brief statement from handwritten notes.

Left unanswered, despite repeated questions from reporters, was whether Clinton played a role in helping her obtain a $300,000 loan in 1986 from the Small Business Administration-backed investment fund of former judge David Hale.

Hale, who goes to trial on federal fraud charges later this month, has said that he made the loan, intended for minority and disadvantaged borrowers, at the specific request of the governor. James McDougal and the White House have denied that Clinton played such a role.

Also unanswered was why she borrowed the money and what she did with it. James McDougal has acknowledged spending about $110,000 of the Hale loan to purchase land in the name of Whitewater Development Corp., the Clinton-McDougal partnership that in 1978 bought 230 acres of raw land on the White River to develop an Ozark Mountain resort.

Through her attorney, Bobby McDaniel of Jonesboro, Susan McDougal said that she would not discuss those transactions or answer any questions about the Clintons who, the attorney said, she regards as her friends.

In her own statement, read as she clutched a white tissue and fought back tears, McDougal blamed Clinton’s political critics for resurrecting investigative attention on the now-defunct Madison Guaranty Saving & Loan in which she and her former husband were the major stockholders.

“We have suffered enough,” she declared. “This can only be judged persecution. . . . I want it to stop.”

In 1989, three years after the McDougals were forced out of the S&L; by federal regulators, James McDougal and two of Susan McDougal’s brothers were indicted on multiple federal counts of fraud. All three were acquitted after a brief trial.

On Monday she said that the jury verdict should have ended the controversy, but that Clinton’s election had renewed it.

“That is wrong,” she said. Then, stepping from the podium, she turned the press conference over to McDaniel, who spent the next 45 minutes deflecting questions about the controversial transactions.

McDaniel did acknowledge that he had met once with Special Counsel Robert B. Fiske Jr. to offer assurances of future cooperation but not to negotiate immunity from prosecution, as has been reported by some media outlets.

While pledging that Susan McDougal would cooperate fully with Fiske’s office, McDaniel said that he would advise her not to testify about any financial matters related to Madison or Whitewater until she was allowed access to financial records presumably held now by the special counsel.

McDaniel also acknowledged that the McDougals’ Whitewater records were all delivered to the governor’s mansion in a box at some time in 1991, before or possibly around the time that Clinton declared his candidacy for President. The attorney said that Clinton personally requested the records and that Susan McDougal had one of her brothers deliver the box to the Clinton residence.

“She expected to get them back in a relatively short period of time,” McDaniel said, but Susan and James McDougal said they have not seen those documents since.

McDaniel called Susan McDougal “the first job-loss casualty of Whitewater,” saying that a flood of press inquiries had made it impossible for her to keep her job in the Nashville area. However, he declined to identify the firm or to describe the nature of her work, citing her concerns about protecting her privacy.

Despite some efforts by reporters to involve Susan McDougal in the question-and-answer session, McDaniel fielded all inquiries.

When one reporter asked if she could comment on Mrs. Clinton’s and the Rose Law Firm’s representation of Madison Guaranty, McDougal sat silently shredding her tissue as McDaniel launched a staunch defense of the law firm’s integrity.