April 23, 1998 | Read Time: 2 minutes
The Pittsburgh philanthropist and publisher Richard Mellon Scaife is the “shadowy figure” at the center of a brewing controversy involving independent counsel Kenneth Starr’s Whitewater investigation, according to Salon, an on-line magazine (http://www.salonmagazine.com).
David Hale, a key witness in Mr. Starr’s probe into potential improprieties by President Clinton, received regular cash payments during the time he was cooperating with Mr. Starr, the magazine said. The money came from the so-called Arkansas Project, a $2.4-million clandestine campaign intended to discredit President Clinton. Conservative foundations controlled by Mr. Scaife financed that project from 1993 to 1997, Salon said.
Two of the Scaife foundations transferred as much as $800,000 a year to a third charitable foundation, which owns the American Spectator magazine, Salon said. The American Spectator then transferred most of the money to Stephen S. Boynton, a Virginia lawyer and political activist with longstanding ties to Mr. Scaife, Salon said.
According to Salon, the revelations undermine the credibility of Mr. Hale, who has alleged that Mr. Clinton, when he was Governor of Arkansas, pressured him to make an illegal $300,000 loan to Susan McDougal. Mr. Hale’s testimony helped convict James Guy Tucker, then Governor of Arkansas, and James and Susan McDougal, the Clintons’ former partners in the Whitewater land deal.
Mr. Boynton told the magazine that, although he had met socially with Mr. Hale many times, the topic of the Clintons and Whitewater never came up.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation has recommended that the Justice Department look into the payments made to Mr. Hale.
Mr. Starr has found his own objectivity questioned in that role, in light of the fact that he has a job waiting, when he steps down as independent counsel, as dean of a new public-policy school at Pepperdine University. The school has received more than $1-million from Scaife funds.
