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THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA'S ROLE

IN THE WHITEWATER SMEAR CAMPAIGN

(This is a Work In Progress)

The full dimensions of the Whitewater Smear Campaign that began in the pages of the Mainstream Media on October 31, 1993 and has continued to the present time can only be determined by a large study effort involving perhaps ten to fifteen researchers. To be successful, the study will require total access to the full text (in some cases, the partial text) of the stories that were printed in several hundred newspapers across the country. My time and more importantly, my data sources are much too limited for an study effort of this size.

This is what I have determined so far . . . . .

from an examination of the "pulls" from the on-line Newslibrary of the Knight-Ridder chain and from a download of the full text of a number of articles from the Washington Post archives as of late October 1998. The timespan covered by the material runs from May 1993 to the end of Dec 1997.

1) What we have come to call "Whitewater" is actually a series of over seventy allegations or accusations containing a very small element of factual information and a great deal of exxageration, fabrication, and outright lying. Looking back from four years later on, and with the results of a four-year, forty million dollar investigation supposedly in hand, "Whitewater" appears to be a brilliant disinformation campaign by radical right wing Republican publicists and activists in which the:

(a) The Mainstream Media has been the victim of one of the greatest scams in history; or

(b) The Mainstream Media (or a large part of it) knew what was going on and actively participated in the partisan political reporting of the "news."

 

2) The news articles and newsclips for the period May 1993 to the end of December 1997 contain seventy-three (73) "Whitewater" allegations or accusations. Although listed as a "GATE," the various LeakGATE series in the Whitewater Smear Campaign were actually a smear technique used by Congressional Republicans to discredit President Clinton and the Congressional Democrats prior to the mid-term elections of 1994 and 1998, and the presidential election of 1996. It consisted of placing a negative spin on depositions by administration personnel or material provided by the White House and other government agencies and by leaking this spun data to the Washington Post or the New York Times. After Kenneth Starr became the Whitewater OIC, the Starr offices in Washington and Little Rock became a major source of leaks of grand jury material and investigative results, and the number of media sources receiving the leaks grew to include other newspaper and TV outlets. By the time of the Clinton-Lewinsky sex scandal of 1998, leaking had extended to virtually all Mainstream Media outlets.

The title and a description of each allegation/accusation or series of allegations/accusations is shown in a table in the web page "The Timeline of a Smear." Here, we will just list the title of the allegation or accusation in date order, and then list the dates on which there was newspaper coverage:

 

01. TravelGATE (May 20, 1993) -May 20, 21, 22, 25,26, Jun 12, 16,

----Jul 2,3, Jan (96) 5, 8, 9, 11, 12, 16, 18, 21,22, 25, May 31. Jun 26, Jul 10,

----Aug 6, 8, Sep 14,

02. HairGATE (May 20, 1993)-May 20, 21,22,23,24,25,26, 27, 28, 30,

-----Jun 4, 6, 13,16, 20 -- debunked Jun 30

03. Whitewater (Lewis) (October 31, 1993) Oct 31, Nov 1, 2,4,11,

-----12,Dec 16, 23,24,25,27,28,29,31, Jan (94) 2,3,4,5,6,7, Feb 1, 6, Apr 2

-----3,7,13,21,23,25, May 9, 12, Jun 9,13,14, Sep 3, Feb (95) 8, 9, Mar 25,

-----Jun 8, 9, 14, 17, 23, Aug 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 18, 29, 30, Sep 1, Nov 30, Dec 5

-----Jan (96) 14, 26,27,31,Feb 1,2, 23, Jul 13, Aug 15, Sep 12, Apr(97) 23,

------May 3, 11, 12, 13, 15, 20, 30, Sep 26, Nov 6,

04. HaleGATE (November 3, 1993) Nov 3, 6, Feb (94) 17, Mar 1, 21,22,

------Jun 20, 23, Apr(95) 14 Feb (96) 15, Mar 17, 26,

05. FundGATE 1 (December 15, 1993) Dec 15, Jan 12,

06. FosterGATE-Whitewater documents (December 19, 1993)

-----Dec 19, 21,22,23,24,25, Feb (94) 4, May 6, 27, Aug 2, 3, 5, Dec 14,

-----Jan (95) 29, Apr 20, 29, Jul 7, 18, 19, 20, Aug 2, 3, 10. Oct 26, 27, Nov 3, 29,

07. TrooperGATE 1 (December 21, 1993) Dec 21,22,23,24,26,27,28,30,

------31, Jan 2, 5,

08. FosterGATE-Suicide (January 7, 1994) Jan 7,9,21,28, Feb 4, 6

------,9,12,24, Mar 3, 5,15, May 1,4,27,13,14, Jun 21, 30, Jul 1, 29, 30, 31

------Sep 1, Jan (95) 4, 11,14, Jun 10, Jul 7, 10, 11, 14, 18, 19, 21,23,24,26,27,28,

------Oct (97) 11, 14

09. RoseGATE (January 10, 1994) Jan 10, Feb 4, 18, 28, Apr 22, 26, Sep 3,

------Sep 23, Oct 21, Nov 17, Dec 25, Aug (95) 5 Jan (96) 3,26,30,

10. FundGATE 2 (January 15 , 1994) Jan15,

11. TaxGATE (January 24, 1994) Jan 24, Mar 15, 20, Apr 14,15,16,18,

------25, Aug (95) 6, May (96) 25,

12. FundGATE 3 (February 2, 1994) Feb 2

13. ShreddingGATE (February 9, 1994) Feb 9,10, 17, Mar 5, 9,10,

------Apr 3, 7

14. TreasuryGATE (February 25, 1994) Feb 25, 26, Mar 2, 3,4,5,6,7,8,

------17,27, Jun 13, 14, 30,Jul 1, 31, Aug 1, 5, Jan (95) 4, May 17, Nov 8

15. HubbellGATE 1 (March 2, 1994) Mar 2,3,4,15,17,19, Nov 30, Dec 2, 3,4

------6, 7 Feb (95) 5, Mar 29, Apr 6, 8, Jun 28, 29,

16. PressureGATE 1 (March 12, 1994) Mar 12, 23

17. CommoditiesGATE (March 18, 1994) Mar 18, 30,Apr 6,9,12,23,

------May 2,5,15,27, Jun 1, 14,

18. AccountGATE (March 23, 1994) Mar 23,

19. McDougalGATE (March 26, 1994) Mar 26, Jul (95), 16,

20. IckesGATE (March 26, 1994) Mar 26, Dec 1

21. FundGATE 4 (April 2, 1994) Apr 2

22. PaulaGATE (May 3, 1994) May 3,6,8,9,10,11,12, 18,29, Jan (95) 10, Jan(97) 12,

-----May 28, 29, Sep 9, 10, Oct 25,

23. FundGATE 5 (May 30, 1994) May 30

24. FundGATE 6 (May 31, 1994) May 31

25. FundGATE 7 (Jul 14, 1994) Jul 14, Feb (95) 17,

26. DocuGATE (Jul 14, 1994) Jul 14

27. LeakGATE (1st series) 1,2,3.4 (Jul 17, 1994) Jul 17,19,23, 25,26

28. MenaGATE (Jul 21, 1994) Jul 21

29. NavyGATE (Jul 22, 1994) Jul 22

30. FundGATE 8 (Aug 20, 1994) Aug 20, Jan (95) 30, 31, Feb 1, 2, 28, Mar 10,

-----May 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 9, 20, 27, Feb (96) 21, Jun 18, Jul 3, 11, 16, 18, 26, 31,

-----Aug 2, 3,

31. TrooperGATE 2 (Sep 24, 1994) Sep 24

32. TrooperGATE 3 (Oct 20, 1994) Oct 20

33. DepositionsGATE (Nov 2, 1994) Nov 2

34. Starr/IntimiGATE 1 (Dec 6, 1994) Dec 6

35. MagazinerGATE 1 ( Dec 22, 1994) Dec 22

36. LeakGATE (2nd series) (Dec 27, 1994) Dec 27,31

37. Starr/IntimiGATE 2 (January 22, 1995) Jan 22, Mar 21, 22

38. TrooperGATE 4 (February 23, 1995) Feb 23, Apr 9

39. MexicoGATE (March 1, 1995) Mar 1

40. Starr/IntimiGATE 3 (March 29, 1995) Mar 29

41. Starr/IntimiGATE 4 (May 2, 1995) May 2,3

42. Starr/IntimiGATE 5 (May 4, 1995) May 4, 5, 7, 9,

43. Starr/IntimiGATE 6 (May 27, 1995) May 27

44. Starr/IntimiGATE 7 (June 9, 1995) Jun 9

45. Starr/IntimiGATE 8 (June 17, 1995) Jun 17

46. WaiverGATE (July 4, 1995) Jul 4

47. LeaseGATE (July 31, 1995) Jul 31

48. DocuGATE 2 (December 1, 1995) Dec 1,7,9,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,20,21,

------22,24,29, Jan(96) 17

49. BillingsGATE (January 6, 1996) Jan 6, 7,8,9,19,20,21,23,27, Feb 3,8,9,15,

------May 1,

50. LiarGATE (January 9, 1996) Jan 9

51. LampGATE, LoveGATE, BookGATE (January 12, 1996) Jan 12

52. RegulatorGATE (January 24, 1996) Jan 24

53. FundGATE 9 (February 14, 1996) Feb 14

54. InfluenceGATE 1 (February 23, 1996) Feb 23

55. Senate/LeaseGATE (April 25, 1996) Apr 25

56. Senate/FingerprintGATE (April 29, 1996) Apr 29, May 3, May 17, Jun 5,

57. LasaterGATE (May 2, 1996) May 2

58. Senate/LandGATE(May 16, 1996) May 16

59. TaxGATE (late May 1996)

60. FileGATE (Jun 6, 1996) Jun 6,8,9,10,11(2),12,13(2),14(2), 15,16,17(2),

-------------18(2), 19(2), 20,21,22,23,24(2), 25,26(2),27(2), 28(2),29(3),30(2)

------------ Jul 14(2), 17, 22,28, Aug 2, 5, Sep 7, 9, 10, 17, 24, 25, Oct 5,16

61. BedroomGATE 1 (August 18, 1996) Aug 18, Dec 15

62. AsiaGATE (October 8, 1996) Oct 8, 10,11,13,14,15,18,20,22, Nov 1, 5,7,9, 29,

-----Dec 3, 18, 19,20,23, Jan (97) 17, 23, 24, 26, 27, Feb 14, 15, Mar 5, 6(2), 7(3), 8,

-----11, 16, 23, Apr 15, 22, 25, 26, 30,. May 13, 27, Jun 8, Jul 9, 21, 27, Sep 9

-----Oct 9, Nov 11, 14, 15, Dec 10

63. Starr/NussbaumGATE (October 26, 1996) Oct 26

64. Starr/FingerprintGATE 2 (November 3, 1996) Nov 3

65. Starr/HubbellGATE 2 (November 22, 1996) Nov 22, Feb (97) 10,13,Mar 25, 28,

------Apr 2,3,5,11,16, May 3, 9, 20, Aug 28, Dec 14

66. CampaignGATE (January 30, 1997) Jan 30, 31, Feb 7, 20, 22, 26, 27(3),

------Mar 3, 4(2), Mar 11, 13, 29, Apr 4, 6, 29, May 10, Jun 8, 28, Jul 3, Aug 2,

------3, 8, 27, 28, Sep 9, 22, Oct 6, 7(3), 8(2), 9(2), 10(3), 11, 13(2), 14, 15(2),

------18, 19, 20, 21, 24, 30, Nov 13, Dec 11

67. TrooperGATE 5 (February 1997)

68. BedroomGATE 2 (February 26, 1997) Feb 26, 27(3)

69. WilleyGATE (mid-1997)

70. InfluenceGATE 2 (August 15, 1997) Aug 15

71. ImpeachmentGATE (October 26, 1997) Oct 26

72. MagazinerGATE 2 (December 19, 1997) Dec 19, 23, 24, 28

73. ZipperGATE (January 21, 1998) Jan 21

3) As you can see, some of the allegations/accusations are robust and long-lived. Others appear just once or twice or have just a short life-span before they disappear from the news pages. The Smear Campaign was orchestrated so that there was a constant series of allegations/accusations being fed to the Media and then disseminated across the country.

Some allegations/accusations appear and then disappear for months or a year or more to be disseminated again with the same message or with a modified meaning.

4)TrooperGATE 1, for example, was active in late 1993 and early 1994, a sufficient period of time to provide a basis for the Paula Jones lawsuit (PaulaGATE). TrooperGATE 2 was active just long enough to get press coverage for a single day. TrooperGATE 3 --the claim by a state troooper that he had heard Clinton pressure David Hale for an SBA loan to Susan McDougal --was widely disseminated across the country in October 1994 and is widely believed although the trooper retracted the story the next day.

TrooperGATE 4 had a short lifetime in early 1995 when the British right-wing polemicist Ambrose Evans-Pritchard claimed in a story in the London Sunday Telegraph that the White House had falsified the time and place of Vince Foster's death. This information, he wrote, came from two of the state troopers previously involved in TrooperGATE 1. TrooperGATE 5 appeared in the Washington Post in June 1997 when reports that FBI agents assigned to the OIC Kenneth Starr in February 1997 had begun a second series of questioning of the same Arkansas state troopers on the subject of the sexual activity of Bill Clinton. The FBI agents also interrogated some twelve to fourteen other women in Arkansas.

5) The various FundGATE allegations were based on or were derived from a series of so-called criminal referrals concerning James McDougal's Madison Guaranty savings and loans, which failed with bail-out costs to the U.S. taxpayer of $73 million dollars. These referrals produced by L.Jean Lewis and a cell of radical right wing Republicans in the Kansas City regional office of the Resolution Trust Corporation. The Kansas City investigators were responsible for examining the books of failed Savings and Loans in Arkansas and in a number of other states. If they determined there was illegal activity involving these failed S&Ls, they were to provide criminal referrals on the suspect S&Ls.

Four other S&Ls in Arkansas failed with much greater bailout costs to the American taxpapyers than Madison. This includes First Federal (bailout costs of $833 million dollars), Savers Savings ($645 million dollars), Independence Federal ($314 million dollars), and Landmark Savings ($91 million dollars

From 1992 to 1994, the investigators spent 5661 hours investigating Madison Guaranty, thirteen (13) hours on First Federal, and 140 hours on Savers Savings, nineteen (19) hours on Independence Federal and three (3) hours on Landmark Savings. Thus four S&Ls with bailout costs of $1,883,000,000, almost two billion dollars were investigated for a total of 172 hours, while Madison, with a known connection to Bill Clinton, the Democratic nominee for president received over ninety per cent of the investigative time. A board member and the CEO of First Federal for a period of time preceding the S&L's failure was the state chairman of the Arkansas Republican Party. To date, no effort has been made to determine why these four S&Ls were never investigated by the Resolution Trust Corporation, although the Little Rock office of the FBI recommended the criminal investigation of both First Federal and Savers Savings.

The criminal referrals on Madison prepared by Lewis and her associates all had to do with the claimed linkages between the illegal shenanigans of James McDougal at Madison Guaranty and political campaigns of Bill Clinton.

We now know that James McDougal and David Hale were involved in a number of highly suspect activities in the mid-to-late 1980's. McDougal through Madison and Hale through his Small Business Administration lending company.

Both Hale and McDougal used a number of legimate companies and dummy companies for the movement of property, monetary instruments, and money in a variety of speculations and outright frauds. In Madison Guaranty, one of the legitimate accounts used for these purposes was the Whitewater account which had been moved there in the early 1980s after James McDougal had purchased Madison. Lewis correctly questioned some of McDougal's Whitewater transactions, but then proceeded on the assumption that ALL of the transactions were illegal and assumed the Clintons were aware of the illegal transactions and were benefiting from them. The later FundGATES were allegations made by Republican members of congress who were looking at any of the Clinton campaigns or actions in office for political dirt.

FundGATE 1- $50,000 (NY Times) - Madison to Clinton for private debts or political campaign.

FundGATE 2- $50,000 - Bank loan to Clinton for 1984 campaign

FundGATE 3- $7,300 - Madison to Clinton for payment on Clinton loan\

FundGATE 4-$60,500- Combines $50,000 with an additional $10,500 so that the new total (and the new story) is $60,500

FundGATE 5-$12,000- Recycled L.Jean Lewis on $12,000 from Madison to Clinton, evidently from the 1985 fund raiser.

FundGATE 6- Allegations that 1986 Clinton campaign report did not reflect all contributions from the 1985 fund raiser.

FundGATE 7- Allegation that Clinton borrowed money from "special interests" in state to fund his legislative agenda, like improving education.

FundGATE 8- Now looking at the 1990 Clinton campaign for governor. Focusing on a "Get out the vote" effort among black voters in Arkansas.

The Sources of Whitewater

1) The primary sources in the Mainstream Media of the stories on "Whitewater" were the Washington Post and the New York Times. According to a NEXIS pull by Geraldo Rivera, the NY Times has published 2,391 stories on Whitewater since 1993 (starting in November, I believe). According to my download (which is incomplete), the Washington Post has published 171 stories during this time (14 in 1993, 62 in 1994, 30 in 1995, 43 in 1996, and 21 in 1997).

UPDATE: An October 1998 "Whitewater" pull of the Washington Post for 1994 shows 751 items, of which probably about 25 percent do not pertain to what we know as "Whitewater".

2) However, the number of stories appearing in the regional papers and the local papers for specific spans of time greatly exceed the Post-Times count. For example, in the San Jose (California) Mercury News alone from October 31 1993 to March 31, 1994, there were a total of 163 stories. Of these, 158 had been published in a 106-day span of time from December 16, 1993 to the end of March, about 1.5 stories a day.

3) It becomes even more interesting when we look at a "pull" of "Whitewater" and "Madison Guaranty" stories appearing in about twenty Knight-Ridder newspapers during part of this time, the 62 days from October 31,1993 to December 31, 1993. There were no less than 83 unique items, about 1.3 items a day.

The Dissemination of the Smears

1) On October 31, 1993, the original Susan Schmidt fabrication from the Washington Post appeared in the Akron Beacon Journal, the St.Paul (Minnesota) Pioneer Press, and the San Jose (California) Mercury News. On November 1, four additional Knight-Ridder newspapers picked up the story: the Philadelphia (Pennsylvania) Inquirer, the Witchita (Kansas) Eagle, The (South Carolina) State, and the Miami (Florida) Herald. On November 2, the first follow-on and Lest We Forget pieces appeared in the San Jose Mercury News, the Lexington Herald-Leader, the St Paul Pioneer Press, followed on November 3 by additional Lest We Forget pieces in the Philadelphia Inquirer, the San Jose Mercury News, and the Charlotte Observer.

2) A "pull" on "Madison Guaranty" for the twenty Knight Ridder newspapers in 1994 showed a total count of 1,195 items.

 

The National Dissemination of fabricated stories, lies, deceptions and leaks

Regional and Local Newspapers (pull on "Whitewater" -1994 - minus about 15 per cent for mis-pulls.)

Knight-Ridder Chain

Akron Beacon-Journal - 361 articles

Charlotte Observer - 460 articles

Detroit Free Press - 308 articles

Long Beach Press Telegram - 219 articles

Miami Herald - 344 articles

Philadelphia Inquirer - 338 articles

San Jose Mercury News - 574 articles

St Paul Pioneer Press - 488

 

Other Newspapers

Baltimore Sun - 576 articles

Boston Globe - 421 articles

Minneapolis Star-Tribune - 344 articles

 

 

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