WASHINGTON (AllPolitics, 23 November) -- Presidential friend Webster Hubbell pleaded innocent Monday to charges that he covered up his and Hillary Rodham Clinton's roles in a fraudulent Arkansas real estate deal known as Castle Grande.

"I am not guilty," Hubbell told U.S. District Judge James Robertson.

In the 15-count indictment, Independent Counsel Ken Starr alleges Hubbell, a former associate attorney general, lied to Congress and federal banking regulators to cover up work he and Mrs. Clinton did while employed by the Rose Law Firm in Arkansas in the mid-1980s.

Hubbell stands accused of trying to impede federal regulators who were investigating the collapse of an Arkansas savings and loan owned by the Clintons' business partners, Jim and Susan McDougal.

The 40-page indictment refers to Mrs. Clinton three dozen times. It alleges Hubbell lied to federal regulators and Congress over a seven-year span ending on December 27, 1995. That was nine days before the mysterious reappearance of Mrs. Clinton's law firm billing records that revealed her work on Castle Grande, the failed real estate development south of Little Rock, Arkansas.

Mrs. Clinton's records turned up in the White House family residence and were turned over to Starr in January 1996, two years after they were first subpoenaed.

In Starr's testimony before the House Judiciary Committee last week, he said that "after a thorough investigation, we have found no explanation how the billing records got where they were or why they were not discovered and produced earlier. It remains a mystery to this day."

The indictment accuses Hubbell of perjury, fraud, false statements and corruptly impeding the functions of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and the Resolution Trust Corp.

The failure of the McDougals' savings and loans has cost taxpayers $65 million. Regulators estimate $3.8 million in damages to the savings and loans from the Castle Grande transactions.

This is the third set of charges brought against Hubbell. He pleaded guilty in 1994 to bilking law clients and was later charged by Starr with income tax evasion, but that case was thrown out. Starr is attempting to win reinstatement of those charges.

Monday, November 23, 1998

• Poll: Americans want impeachment hearings over
• Hubbell pleads innocent to latest Whitewater charges
• Jury finds McDougal not guilty of all embezzlement charges
• Reno faces decisions on campaign finance investigations
• Landow testimony before House panel delayed
• Health care again on agenda -- but what to do?
• Social Security, taxes to be top priorities, Livingston says

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