Clinton’s Taped Testimony Puts White House in Bind

President Clinton’s coming videotaped testimony in a Whitewater-related fraud trial has left the White House with an uncomfortable choice: try to keep the tape out of public circulation, or risk embarrassment from its use by political foes and late-night satirists.

Clinton is scheduled to give testimony on videotape Sunday, April 28, in the fraud and conspiracy trial of Susan and James B. McDougal, his former partners in the Whitewater land deal, and Arkansas Gov. Jim Guy Tucker.

The tape will be taken to Little Rock, Ark., and played for the jury, probably during the following week. But because cameras are not allowed in the courtroom, that will not provide the media or others with a chance to record the event on tapes of their own.

Instead, the decision on whether to release the tape publicly rests with the trial judge, U.S. District Judge George Howard Jr. The White House’s recommendation on how the issue should be resolved likely will carry some weight with Howard.

If the White House argues that the tape should be kept out of circulation, officials may find themselves under attack for trying to conceal the facts. And if they acquiesce in its release, they may see unpleasant images of Clinton under cross-examination on GOP ads or lampooned on the likes of “Saturday Night Live.”

“If prosecutors want to play hard-nosed--tie the president up in knots for hours of questioning, try to get him to really squirm--then those images are going to be there on tape forever,” said Richard Beckler, who represented former National Security Advisor John M. Poindexter in an Iran-Contra trial in which former President Reagan testified on tape.

“On the other hand,” he said, “just about nothing’s worse than having it look like a president is trying to suppress his testimony.”

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The text of Clinton’s comments will be released in any case.

Clinton will be asked specifically about an allegation by former banker David Hale that the president pressured him to give an illegal $300,000 loan to Susan McDougal. Clinton has called the allegation “a bunch of bull.”

A lawyer himself, Clinton is likely to be fairly polished on the stand. Yet the slightest flaw in his testimony could prove to be an embarrassment in subsequent news coverage. And in the hands of a skilled prosecutor, some questions can appear embarrassing, no matter what the answer.

In the tape he made for the Iran-Contra trial, Reagan forgot the name of the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and was foggy on other details.

The general’s name wasn’t a vital part of the testimony, “but the press just crucified him over that,” Beckler said. “And if you get a guy under cross-examination for eight hours, you can always find something to make him look like a jerk.”

Perhaps for that reason, the defense and the White House are expected to try to keep the scope of the questioning as narrow as possible. But the prosecution can be expected to poke around at length in Clinton’s knowledge of Arkansas financial dealings and the nature of his associations with people who had unsavory pasts.

Judge Howard seems to think the prosecutors may have a lot to talk about with Clinton. This week, he suggested that the taping begin at noon, rather than 2 p.m., lest the testimony drag on until 10 p.m.

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White House officials say Clinton is looking forward to giving his side of things. “He’s eager to do all he can to set the record straight,” said Jack Quinn, the White House counsel.

Yet the question of what to do about the tape is still alive in the West Wing. “We’re giving it a good deal of thought,” one senior White House official said.

Beckler said he believes that Clinton would have been better off flying to Little Rock to appear live in the trial, because cameras are not allowed in the courtroom and testimony would not be taped. But the White House may have believed that such an appearance would have created a multimedia spectacle that the public would long remember.

Judges have been willing in past cases to impose some restrictions on the use of taped presidential testimony. Judges did not release videotapes made when President Ford testified in the trial of would-be assassin Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme, nor when President Carter testified by tape in the case of Georgia legislators accused of corruption.

But in this case, lawyers may have more grounds to argue for release, since Clinton is closer to the events than Ford or Carter were in theirs. Reagan’s taped testimony was eventually released.

If current plans are followed, the taping will take place in the early afternoon of April 28. The taping probably will take place in the upstairs residential section of the White House.