http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/stories/1998/11/25/mcdougal.ap/
Susan McDougal talks about
Clinton, Whitewater and her
acquittal
By LINDA DEUTSCH
AP Special Correspondent
LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Susan McDougal,
acquitted of embezzlement charges but facing
another court battle with Independent Counsel
Kenneth Starr, sees herself as a casualty of a single
event in American political history -- Bill Clinton's
election.
"None of this would have happened if Bill Clinton
hadn't become president," she said. "Who could
have predicted that? The first time I met him he was
running for attorney general (of Arkansas) and
nobody thought he would win. He was just a kid."
That was long before "Whitewater" crept into the
nation's lexicon, before she went to prison rather
than testify against the president and before she
stood trial in an embezzlement case pressed by
conductor Zubin Mehta and his wife, Nancy.
She still must confront Starr in court in Arkansas,
where he continues to press charges of obstruction
of justice and contempt for her refusal to tell a
grand jury about Whitewater.
In an emotional interview the day after her
courtroom victory over the Mehtas, Ms. McDougal
expressed bitterness against Mrs. Mehta, anger at
Starr, sorrow for her dead husband -- Jim McDougal
-- who ultimately betrayed her to Starr, and regret
about Clinton's treatment of McDougal when he was
old, ill and besieged by financial woes.
Her appearance was in startling contrast to her
words. Fresh-faced and wearing shorts and a
University of Arkansas sweatshirt, she appeared
younger than her 44 years and almost lighthearted
about her courtroom triumph Monday.
"I won this case and I didn't do anything wrong to
get there," she said. "My freedom came from doing
the right thing."
But when the talk turned to McDougal, Starr, Mehta
and Clinton, her words conveyed pain.
Clinton's only comment on Ms. McDougal's
acquittal came through a spokesman who said: "On
a personal level he was pleased that for someone
who's had a lot of adversity in her life -- some of
which (was) not brought on by herself -- that she's
able to put some of these things behind her."
"Bill loved Jim," Ms. McDougal said of the
president's relationship with her late husband. "He
used to pick him up and hug him he was so happy to
see him."
When they were newlyweds in Arkansas -- Susan
and Jim and Bill and Hillary -- they socialized,
sharing movies and Sunday dinners, she said. But
when McDougal's savings and loan collapsed, when
his health deteriorated, she said, he felt abandoned
by the Clintons.
"I feel that at a time when it would have been an
easy thing, they could have reached out to him. But
they didn't."
How does she feel about Clinton now?
"Whole months go by and I don't think about the
man," she said.
But didn't she go to jail to protect him?
No, she insisted. "It didn't have anything to do with
Bill Clinton."
"It was time to do the right thing," she said firmly. "I
told (prosecutors) I knew nothing. If I'd known of
something illegal that had been done I would have
told them. They wanted me to lie."
She recalls discussing it with her fiance, Pat Harris.
"Pat said, 'If you lie for them now then the lies will
never be good enough. They'll go on forever.'
"And that's what happened to Monica Lewinsky,"
she said, changing subjects in midstream. "The lies
were never good enough."
She thinks Lewinsky made the wrong decision in
accepting immunity and testifying.
"I don't think she was guilty of anything. What had
she done to break the law that they used to frighten
her? I would have stood up to them and said, 'Don't
scare me."'
She acknowledges that her husband, who died in
prison, wanted her to lie.
"It was part of his package with the independent
counsel that he could deliver me. It was an easy
promise because I don't remember ever saying no to
Jim ... When I refused to cooperate he told me he'd
never speak to me again and he didn't."
The McDougals married in 1976 and divorced in
1991, but separated long before.
By then, she said, McDougal, a manic depressive,
was addicted to alcohol and antidepressant drugs
and had suffered a stroke. He was convicted of
Whitewater-related crimes and went to prison. Ms.
McDougal was convicted with him on a fraud
charge.
"No one came to help him," she said, "no one at all.
He was very bitter ... The only friends Jim had were
political friends and they wouldn't come near him.
He was a pariah."
Despite his repeated denials, Ms. McDougal is
convinced that Starr and his team encouraged Mrs.
Mehta to go forward with the embezzlement case.
"When I heard her say outside court, 'She stole from
me,' I thought, 'Nancy Mehta stole five years of my
life. I want them back, those years."
Mrs. Mehta's claims against Ms. McDougal took
that long to come to trial. In the interim she served
18 months in jail for her refusal to testify against
Clinton, part of it in solitary confinement in a Los
Angeles County jail while awaiting trial in the
Mehta case.
"It was so personal and awful," she said.
She steadfastly denied taking money from the
Mehtas and jurors agreed, acquitting her of grand
theft, forgery and tax evasion. Jurors expressed
outrage that the case came to court, calling it a
waste of taxpayers' money.
Now she relishes the chance to face Starr in
Arkansas.
"The big fight is on and I won't be sitting quiet this
time," she said. "He says he's cleared the president
of Whitewater charges. So what was I obstructing?"
Her lawyer, Mark Geragos, who sat in on the
interview, held out hope that Starr will dismiss the
obstruction of justice charge before Feb. 16 when
the Arkansas trial is set to start. Ms. McDougal is
less optimistic.
"I think he's a bad guy and he'll be in it to the end."
