Indictment drafted against Hillary Clinton 20 years ago in Whitewater scandal must be published, conservative group demands
- Judicial Watch wants release of never-filed indictment against former first lady sometime after her last grand jury testimony in 1996
- Conservative group filed 18 separate lawsuits against the Clintons during Bill Clinton's presidential administration
- Group sued the National Archives on the eve of Hillary Clinton's high-profile appearance before a Republican congressional committee
A conservative group that battled the Clintons in the 1990s over the Whitewater scandal has filed a new request to release a draft indictment of Hillary Clinton from that era, just as the former first lady is preparing to testify before a Republican congressional committee.
Judicial Watch, a Washington D.C.-based group formed in 1994 by conservative attorney Larry Klayman, filed a lawsuit against the National Archives on Tuesday to force the release of a draft indictment prepared against Clinton sometime in the late 1990s but never filed.
The lawsuit seeks the public release of a document prepared by a deputy of former Whitewater independent counsel Ken Starr sometime after Clinton's grand jury testimony in 1995 and 1996 about the Arkansas real estate deal.
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Former First Lady and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is the focus of a new lawsuit this week that seeks the public release of a draft indictment against her that was never filed in the late 1990s
Clinton testified twice during the 1990s about the controversy that dogged her husband's presidency
Judicial Watch founder Larry Klayman has filed dozens of lawsuits against the government since the group began in 1994. He sued his own mother in 1998, and left the group in 2003. He has been embroiled in a series of back-and-forth lawsuits with the group since then
The deputy, Hickman Ewing, is said to have doubted Clinton's testimony, according to Politico.
The draft indictment was against Clinton as well as Webster Hubbell, managing partner at the Arkansas law firm where Clinton worked. He was eventually indicted on tax and wire fraud charges tied to overbilling practices at the firm.
Whitewater became a catch-all phrase for a series of investigations into a failed real estate venture in Arkansas in the 1970s and 1980s that involved buying and selling land in the Ozark Mountains for vacation homes.
The former Arkansas first couple lost money in the venture and were never charged of any wrongdoing.
However, the controversy led to the appointment of an independent counsel probing Bill Clinton's presidency, Ken Starr, that eventually led to the Monica Lewinsky scandal and Clinton's impeachment by the House in December 1998.
Clinton was eventually essentially exonerated when the Senate acquitted him in February 1999.
Judicial Watch filed 18 lawsuits against the Clinton administration in the 1990s and has also pursued open record requests from the Obama administration related to the September 2012 terrorist attacks against the U.S. mission in Benghazi, Libya, that killed four Americans including Ambassador Christopher Stevens.
That 2012 attack is the focus of the House Select Committee on Benghazi, before which Clinton will appear on Thursday since she was secretary of state at the time.
In March, the House committee discovered Clinton's use of a private, home-based email server, which contributed to falling poll numbers for her presidential campaign in the months ever since.
President Bill Clinton, pictured here on his birthday in 1993, was eventually impeached by the House but acquitted by the Senate in an offshoot investigation of the Whitewater real estate saga in the 1990s
South Carolina Rep. Trey Gowdy, pictured here with longtime Clinton aide Cheryl Mills after her testimony before the House Select Committee on Benghazi in September, is chairman of the special House panel and will preside over Clinton's testimony on Thursday
Former Arkansas Supreme Court Chief Justice Webster Hubbell, a one-time managing partner in Clinton's Arkansas law firm, eventually plead guilty to charges related to overbilling
However, the committee itself has also taken a public relations pummeling, after House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy was forced to abandon his bid to replace retiring Speaker John Boehner this month in part because of a TV interview in which he suggested the committee should be credited with damaging Clinton politically.
At least one other Republican, Rep. Richard Hanna of New York, has also come forward to argue that the committee is politically motivated to target Clinton.
The latest Whitewater saga began when Judicial Watch filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the National Archives in March, The Archives responded to the group that it had located the requested documents, but denied its request to release them, citing Clinton's right to privacy.
The group appealed in May, but the Archives never answered, the lawsuit says.
Clinton's presidential campaign has dismissed the Judicial Watch lawsuit, referring to Benghazi Committee Chairman Trey Gowdy of South Carolina.
'Trey Gowdy's discredited investigation is forcing right-wing groups to resort to the ultimate of dead horses from the Ken Starr era to keep up their partisan attacks on Hillary Clinton,' Clinton campaign spokesman Brian Fallon told Politico.
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