Chris Ruddy and Art Bell examine James MacDougall’s 1992 death—six years after Whitewater allegations surfaced—highlighting his solitary confinement, refusal of a drug test, and transfer from a prison hospital lacking ICU care. A key witness in the scandal, MacDougall corroborated losses of $60M tied to Hillary Clinton’s legal work for Madison Guarantee but was never questioned about Vincent Foster’s 1993 death, despite his pre-imprisonment claims of shock over Starr’s failure to probe it. Ruddy links Clinton’s alleged coaching of Monica Lewinsky and Linda Tripp to obstruction patterns, criticizing Starr’s delays and perceived bias, including his $30M apartment reimbursement and early resignation attempt. The episode suggests unresolved questions in Whitewater and Foster’s death could resurface with a new prosecutor, undermining official narratives. [Automatically generated summary]
A local prison official says that Whitewater figure James McDougall was in solitary confinement when he died Sunday of an apparent heart attack.
McDougall, who had a history of medical problems, was placed in, quote, administrative detention, unquote, Saturday night because he had refused to give a urine sample as part of random drug testing.
But the prison spokesman says solitary confinement was safe for McDougal because inmates there are checked on every 30 minutes.
Here is investigative reporter Chris Ruddy, who works for it's a Pittsburgh Tribune Review, isn't it?
Well, I don't know if McDougal was murdered or not.
I'm going to assume the story that we've been told by the government.
However, I believe there should be a full investigation, just as there would be in any case.
Art, if you talk any case where there was a major criminal prosecution and one of the key witnesses suddenly dies of a heart attack, even though he might have had some illnesses, two weeks after a major witness turned that was corroborating, apparently, parts of his story, that's Governor Tucker, just turned apparently two weeks ago and agreed to cooperate with Starr.
And he dies on the anniversary, six years to the day, March 8th, 1992, when the scandal first breaks in the New York Times, when Jeff Gerth, a reporter for the Times, reports that the Whitewater scandal could hurt the Clintons and has all sorts of allegations from a person named James McDougall.
Well, look, again, I want to assume that this is a heart attack, but let's play the devil's advocate.
Oftentimes, when organized crime, for example, does hit, they typically do hits where there's little signals.
And when they do a hit where it doesn't look like a hit, they leave their fingerprints so that others in the circle know and have reason to believe that it's murder.
Right, but let's, you know, Foster's then and McDougal is now, and I really want comments from you on McDougal.
Now, let's get in.
First of all, the audience should know what I know, and that is that now with McDougal having died, the implication for the investigation is that any evidence that McDougal gave can now not be used in court.
So even evidence as damning as a videotape interview with McDougal could not be introduced into evidence by Ken Starr in some subsequent prosecution of whoever it might be?
So his being gone, not only is he dead, but any evidence that he gave is dead as a doornail too, unless they can verify it through the next source, if he indeed pointed to one.
Well, my sources that are close to this investigation are saying this has dealt a very, very serious blow to the investigation.
And the reason it has is that the target of the investigation is Bill and Hillary Clinton.
And the star was moving, with McDougal's help, apparently, towards Hillary because she was the attorney for record for Madison Guarantee, which was McDougal's bank, which went down To the tune of $60 million.
Yeah, I mean, leave aside the issue, and there'll always be conspiracy theorists that'll question that death.
It's sort of fortunate for the people that are being investigated here that this has taken place, especially that there's talk that this is coming to a head now after all of this time.
He apparently had some heart problems over the years.
I was speaking to him about his medical condition, and he indicated to me that he had some medical conditions, but it didn't sound like he was ready to have a heart attack or anything like that.
He said that he was suffering from some psychological depression and things like that.
A federal prison official says Whitewater figure James McDougall was in solitary confinement when he died Sunday of an apparent heart attack.
McDougal, with a history of medical problems, doesn't say heart, was placed in administrative detention Saturday night because he had refused to give a urine sample as part of a random drug test.
But the prisons, now that's important, the prison's spokesman says solitary confinement was safe for McDougal because inmates there are checked on every 30 minutes.
Well, as far as I know, they're doing an autopsy, and it's going to take about, they've done the autopsy, and they're going to take about two weeks to get the toxicology test.
and they're reporting back he died of a heart attack.
But you don't know until there's a full...
A couple of things here.
And again, I know you sort of see the Foster thing as separate.
In fact, Foster and McDougal are sort of ground zero for the Whitewater scandal.
Jeff Gerth and the New York Times first reports Whitewater.
And then what really brings the scandal to a head is 1993, Foster's death.
Aides of the Clintons are running into Foster's office, allegedly removing the Whitewater document.
The U.S. government, you and me, pay $30 million and the rest of your listeners for this major investigation into Foster's death that lasts over three years.
They keep on saying suicide, suicide.
They never tell us really why he died of a suicide.
And what's astounding is I spoke to McDougal just before he left for prison.
To investigative reporter Chris Ruddy, who is on Every Friend of the White House list.
Chris, welcome back.
You know, Chris, while you never, ever, it's true, actually say the words, Vince Foster was murdered, or James McDougall was murdered, the clear implication going unsaid and between most of the lines that one hears from you is that you suspect that.
Well, in the Foster case, all I have been saying, and this carries over to the McDougal case, we haven't really seen what the investigators or even the authorities have done yet with McDougal.
And what I'm saying there is that the procedures should be followed.
Normal procedures weren't followed with Vincent Foster.
So this has given rise to conspiracy theories and to murder theories.
So I mean that I'm saying it's murder because they didn't do some of the most basic things you need to do in a typical homicide investigation.
All suicides are supposed to be treated as homicides.
If two of the paramedics are reported officially in their reports that Foster was murdered, that is a story the public should know about.
If Webster Hubble on the night of the death was indicating it, that is a story the public should know about.
If there's no explanation of where Foster was on the afternoon of his death, I think that's a gaping hole that the authorities should fill in for us.
Foster was the deputy Whitehouse counsel, one of the highest officials in this country, and the cavalier way that they treated that investigation, I know, I think is very, very dangerous to the rest of us, even if it was a suicide, open and shut case.
I'm not going to press you on the matter, but I insist that everything you say leads a casual listener to believe that you believe or are very suspicious that there was a murder.
All right, you think all of this is connected, and I'm even going to bring it on up to the Monica Lewinsky business now.
You told me something earlier today that I think is relevant when you consider McDougall's untimely passing, and that would be that Linda Tripp, who has the tapes allegedly, of Monica Lewinsky, is under guard.
And what I pointed out today to you, Art, was that this is very similar to the situation where David Hale, who was the first cooperating Whitewater witness.
I haven't seen the letter, but I would suppose that she would be a target.
In fact, I know there was a little debate within Starr's office, and a number of his more experienced prosecutors thought he was crazy for even attempting to get her as a Cooperating witness because she's already got sort of tainted credibility.
She claimed, for example, on part of the tapes that she embellishes her lies.
There's former school teachers claiming things about her.
The White House can easily claim, you know, she's just a young woman who's embellishing her stories.
better, according to my people that are close to the investigation, saying, put her in with Vernon Jordan and Bill Clinton, charge them all with being in a conspiracy to obstruct justice with the Paula Jones lawsuit.
But if there's a pattern activity, a jury doesn't have to have one of them admit that that was done.
If a jury thinks and the prosecutors present a good case that how unusual it would be for a White House intern to have Vernon Jordan, the president's right-hand attorney of Washington, going up and down the country looking for a job for this young lady, if he can't produce other White House interns where he's done this, he'd be in a little trouble.
And of course, there were a lot of meetings with Clinton.
Let's imagine that, well, you can imagine all kinds of things.
You can imagine sex if you want to.
I don't care.
But what I'm saying is here, so far, until you get suborning to perjury or, you know, somebody asking somebody to lie, unless you've got proof of that, you're whistling in the wind.
Maybe you are, but the problem is that you have 20 hours of her on tape, so it's going to be hard for her to change her story and to say to a jury that she just embellished for 20 hours.
Yeah, but if I was the president's lawyer, if I was a president's lawyer, I'd say, come on, listen to the whole tape, especially the part where she says she embellishes.
Well, yeah, you can, but then you have the problem of, according to the New York Times, Betty Curry, the president's own secretary, has cooperated with Starr and said that he instructed her and coached her what to say to investigators.
That is criminal.
Well, that is a criminal investigation.
could be a problem so you have a I agree with you that each one of those, when you look at them, but it's the overall pattern.
And if they can prove that there's several lies, for example, on the sexual relations.
Well, again, I don't know, not being a lawyer, but from what I understand, if you can show enough of a pattern of events, the statutes are fairly broad enough that a jury has a lot of leeway.
Now, whether Starr would do that and actually bring indictments against these people is another question.
Now, sure, Starr can go in there and probably, if he does his best, persuade a jury with a mountain of the kind of evidence you've been talking about tonight that they ought to bring an indictment.
He might get that done because you don't have both sides, but try taking that into a court and baby you're dead.
I don't think it's going to happen because I don't think Starr is a very tough prosecutor.
And when this first broke, if you recall, I was on your program, and I basically said anybody that thinks this is going to lead to Clinton's resignation or a quick resolution of this because Starr is at the helm, they don't bet the ranch, don't bet the farm.
And sure enough, everything I said on those opening programs has come true.
And I think one of the reasons you have people like Trent Lott yelling about Starr is that they know, here's a guy that was given jurisdiction over Travelgate, over Filegate.
He took, you know, and again, go back to Vince Foster, it took three years in a case that should have taken a week.
So then he comes out and he gives a press conference and he says, well, actually, I'm going to stay because I never consulted with my own deputies on the status of my own investigation.
And I think I really ought to stay.
I mean, those literally were his words.
So this is a guy who says that he's devoted to this case, and then he went through the embarrassing situation a couple of months ago of having, well, of having, no, the quitting took place in, what was it, early 96?
But then he went through the embarrassing situation a few months ago where he had to reimburse the government for his apartment in Little Rock because he wasn't there.
The maximum he was there in a whole year period was no more than three days a month.
Yeah, all I was driving at was that if he's motivated to drag out the investigation and stay where he is, to make all the money, the millions, whatever, then why did he try to quit, only under pressure returning?
Got any insight?
unidentified
Well, I think he was coming under a lot of criticism at that point.
There was sort of a quiet criticism in Washington from both the right and the left, Carville on one side, and then there started to be some murmurings in Congress at that time.
That was not, I mean, this was not the center of discussion every Saturday or Sunday during all the talk shows when he did resign, but there was a, I guess he felt that the pressure had gotten enough and that he wanted to take a break.
And then when he saw it was a firestorm of controversy when he resigned, he decided to stick it out.
Now, who knows what he's going to do, but I think it would be a little bit difficult for him to resign.
However, I think it would be a good thing if he did.
I think it would be good to get somebody who has A clean slate, who's known as being impartial, who doesn't have as much baggage.
Well, he would literally have to close his investigation down.
The grand juries would all have to issue reports.
I don't know if he could do that at this point, but he would, because there are several cases ongoing and the Arkansas, the Tucker thing cooperation period is ongoing.
What he would do is go back to the court and have a successor independent counsel appointed.
And that's been done before with different independent counsels.
And that would not be that unusual.
So he could do that, and there wouldn't be any problem.
And the new independent counsel could be up and running.
There's no reason.
He was the Whitewater independent counsel.
And we've already discussed in this program, he never bothered, apparently, according to McDougal, even looking at connections between Foster and Whitewater.
Well, we have all the documents, for example, from the Fisk investigation.
And McDougal wasn't even interviewed for the Fisk investigation by the FBI.
That's really weird.
And none of the colleagues of Foster were interviewed and questioned about Foster's connection with David Hale and Madison guarantee for that investigation.
You remember during the course of that investigation that the editor of the Washington Post was under intense pressure to stop this whole thing.
Intense pressure.
The Post in the middle of it anyway, or when it was getting started to the middle, was getting slam-dunked again and again and again and again, under a lot of pressure.
Has your newspaper come under the same kind of pressure from this administration?
Yeah, and they said that he clearly said he asked to identify a reporter they hated the most, that it was me.
What clearest sign, and Howard Kurtz of the Washington Post called me up and he said, I never heard in all the time I've covered Washington, this White House or any White House actually named someone like that.
A reporter being singled out.
The White House for years have been encouraging the press to do stories on people they don't like.
And I'm one of them, my publisher, the newspaper, the Western Journalism Center.
And they turned over a congressional document, a 331-page document, the Communication Stream of Conspiracy Commerce.
And it was all about Vince Foster.
They're very concerned about the Vince Foster case.