After several days of intense discussions with his closest advisers, President Clinton said Thursday that he would instruct his lawyers to give prosecutors all documents relating to an investment he and his wife made in an Arkansas land development company before he became president.
Senior Justice Department prosecutors have said they wanted to examine files on the land deal that were removed from the White House office of a longtime friend of the Clintons after he killed himself in July.But White House aides left the impression that they might resist turning over documents about the business venture, Whitewater Development Corp.
Despite some calls from Republicans, Attorney General Janet Reno told reporters Thursday that she would not appoint a special prosecutor to take over the Whitewater and Foster investigations.
The Clintons were partners in Whitewater with James B. McDougal, who owned Madison Guaranty, an Arkansas savings and loan company. Madison Guaranty was seized by federal regulators in 1989 at a cost of more than $60 million in public funds and is also under a federal criminal investigation into McDougal's stewardship of the institution.
Federal investigators now are exploring the possibility that while Clinton was governor of Arkansas, he gave favorable treatment to McDougal's savings and loan in exchange for personal loans and special treatment.
Questions about Whitewater, which first arose during last year's campaign, have received a fresh burst of attention with the disclosure by White House officials this week that a file containing materials about the Clintons' investment was found by White House officials in the office of a longtime friend and deputy White House counsel, Vincent W. Foster Jr., after his death.
Before he became the deputy White House counsel, Foster served was a law partner of Hillary Rodham Clinton in Little Rock and handled the Clintons' personal legal matters.
The file was removed from Foster's office by Bernard Nussbaum, the White House counsel, and turned over to David Kendall of Williams & Connolly, the Clintons' personal lawyer. White House officials would not say what was in the files.
In a statement made public Thursday night, Mark Gearan, the White House communications director, said, "The president has instructed his personal attorney to provide appropriate law-enforcement authorities with all documents relating to the Whitewater Development Corp.."
Gearan noted, "There has never been any suggestion by any law-enforcement official of any impropriety regarding the Clinton investment in Whitewater."
In an interview, Gearan said the files were being turned over voluntarily and there had never been any request for the papers from law-enforcement authorities.