McDougal Prosecutors Say Loan Was Used to Retire Clinton Debt

Independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr’s investigators alleged for the first time Thursday that a fraudulent loan to Susan McDougal in the 1980s was used to retire a $27,600 debt in President Clinton’s name that was taken out for their Whitewater land venture.

In opening testimony at McDougal’s obstruction of justice and contempt trial, FBI agent Mike Patkus told jurors that he would have liked to ask her “whether Bill Clinton had any knowledge” about the link between the two loans but that she refused to answer questions before a grand jury.

Prosecutors have used the early stages of McDougal’s trial to air evidence they say calls into question the president’s sworn testimony during a 1996 criminal trial.

In the face of Patkus’ testimony, McDougal lawyer Mark Geragos attacked Starr’s tactics. He said prosecutors had let McDougal “languish in jail” and did not even try to question her about the Clinton loan.

In the 1996 trial, Clinton testified that he never received any loans from the McDougals’ failed savings and loan and that he knew nothing about the fraudulent $300,000 loan she received in 1986.

Patkus testified that, using microfilm records, he discovered that the McDougals’ S&L; had made out a loan and cashier’s check totaling $27,600 to then-Arkansas Gov. Clinton in 1982.

The check, which does not bear Clinton’s endorsement, was to pay off an earlier debt in the Whitewater real estate venture started by the Clintons and the McDougals. James B. McDougal died in jail last year.

Patkus testified that he discovered the microfilmed copy of the Clinton check in early December 1996 after James McDougal tipped off Starr’s office about it.

Clinton’s lawyer, David E. Kendall, has suggested that James McDougal simply made out the check and that Clinton didn’t know about it. Susan McDougal has repeatedly refused to testify about the loans. She says she knows of no crimes involving the Clintons and that Starr’s office is trying to get her to lie about the first family.