McDougal Blasts "Hoodlum" Kenneth StarrCONWAY, Ark. (AllPolitics, Oct. 3) -- In a jailhouse interview, convicted Whitewater defendant Susan McDougal today called independent prosecutor Kenneth Starr a "hoodlum" and said she doesn't expect a pardon from President Bill Clinton. "How can he give me a pardon?" asked McDougal, who was interviewed on CNN's "Burden of Proof" legal affairs show. "First of all, I haven't asked for a pardon. Second of all, how could he? He would probably hurt his presidency and his place in history, after all that Whitewater damage has done to his presidency. I don't see how the man could possibly do it." (160K WAV sound) McDougal repeated her assertion that the independent Whitewater prosecutors offered her probation and an end to pending California theft charges and federal income tax evasion charges if she would offer incriminating evidence about Bill and Hillary Clinton. (128K WAV sound) Starr has denied such an offer was made. During a telephone conversation, McDougal said, her attorney, Bobby McDaniel, asked the prosecutors what they wanted. "They laughed and said, 'You know what we want, our investigation is about the Clintons.'" "This man (Starr) is corrupt, and it's coming down through the ranks of his whole hoodlum operation, to offer me this deal and they wanted something on the Clintons," McDougal said. "I could have walked away..." "You don't get the offer unless they like the information that you give to them," she said. McDougal rejected reports about an offer of help from the president's lawyers. "The only deal that was offered to me was by the hoodlum Kenneth Starr," she said. "The president's never offered me a deal. I've never asked for a deal from them. I'm telling you that I'm sitting in jail because I was offered a deal to do to somebody else what they did to me... (160K WAV sound) "These people (the independent prosecutors) are after the Clintons, it just happens to be the Clintons. But they've got all your money to do it and nobody watching them." McDougal, who has refused to testify before a grand jury in Starr's Whitewater investigation, was jailed for contempt of court in September and faces up to 18 months in jail. She was convicted of four fraud counts in the Whitewater trial and sentenced to two years in prison on those charges. McDougal said she spends her days walking in an exercise yard, helping other inmates write letters, singing gospel songs and reading the Bible, the only reading material she said she is allowed in the Faulkner County Detention Center. "The food is pretty much beans, beans, beans, but I'm losing weight, so that's great," she said. McDougal said if she could turn back the clock, she would have done more to defend herself early on. "I can't believe what these people have done to me, and how little I did to defend myself," she said. Related Stories:
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