The Rose law firm where first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton was a partner shredded documents last week relating to Whitewater Development Corp., The Washington Times reported Wednesday.
The paper cited as its source an unidentified Rose employee. President and Hillary Clinton, along with James B. McDougal and his then-wife, Susan, were partners in Whitewater, an Arkansas real estate venture.In Little Rock, Ronald M. Clark, managing partner of the Rose firm, called the report "totally false." Asked specifically whether any documents related to Whitewater were shredded, Clark said: "Absolutely not. To my knowledge, we have no documents in the firm's possession related to Whitewater, and if we do, we are accumulating them in a single location awaiting the appropriate time that they will be examined."
Special counsel Robert B. Fiske Jr., appointed Jan. 20 by Attorney General Janet Reno, is looking into - among other things - whether McDougal improperly diverted funds from the Madison Guaranty Savings Loan Association, which he controlled, to Whitewater and Clinton gubernatorial campaigns.
The Times said it was not clear whether the reported shredding would violate state or federal laws.
Associate Attorney General Webster L. Hubbell and the late White House Deputy Counsel Vincent Foster Jr., also were partners in the Little Rock law firm with Hillary Clinton before moving to Washington to serve in the administration.
Foster committed suicide and the White House has acknowledged that papers relating to Whitewater and other matters were taken from his White House office last July after his death and turned over to the Clinton's personal lawyer in Washington before they could be examined by officials investigating his death.
"There's absolutely no doubt that the records destroyed last Thursday were those the firm had on Whitewater," the Times quoted the Rose employee as saying. "There were a lot of papers and the process took quite a long time.
"A bunch of the stuff was there to be read and it was felt that this could be very bad," the paper quoted the employee as saying.