Whitewater Grand Jury Meets With Rose Firm Lawyer

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — Jerry Jones, a member of the Rose Law Firm, met Tuesday with a Whitewater grand jury investigating work the firm performed for the state in a 1980s electric utility case.

Ron Clark, a previous chief operating officer of the firm, accompanied Jones to the federal courthouse here. Neither immediately gave any details of the meeting.

The Rose firm handled a state utility case in the 1980s, when First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton was one of its partners. President Clinton was Arkansas governor at the time.

Clark said other Rose lawyers would testify before the panel this week, but did not say who, including whether he was on the list. He said he did not enter the grand jury room with Jones.

Public Service Commission Administrative Law Judge David Slaton spoke to the panel last month and said later that he testified that Mrs. Clinton did not do major work on the case, which involved how much Arkansans should pay for the construction of a power plant.

Slaton said that then-Rose attorneys Vincent Foster and Webster L. Hubbell also worked on PSC matters. Hubbell pleaded guilty in a separate fraud case and served nearly 1 1/2 years in prison. Foster committed suicide in July 1993.

Other current or former Rose attorneys have appeared before the panel, as has a former lawyer for the PSC.

Clark has been with the Rose firm since 1980. In addition to his duties as managing partner, he also has served as the firm’s spokesman on Whitewater-related matters.

While Mrs. Clinton was a partner, she also represented James B. McDougal’s Madison Guaranty Savings & Loan, which is at the center of independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr’s investigation.

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Meanwhile, law enforcement officials who requested anonymity said Tuesday that a Justice Department task force expects to seek indictments soon of two figures in the campaign finance affair for arranging contributions that disguised the identities of the real donors.

Two Democratic Party fund-raisers, Yah Lin “Charlie” Trie and Maria Hsia, have been linked in testimony at congressional hearings this year to schemes designed to launder contributions through straw donors. Neither has cooperated with investigators, but lawyers for both have defended their conduct as legal.

Hsia’s attorney, Nancy Luque, said: “I have no reason to believe an indictment is imminent and believe she will be vindicated.”

Using straw donors to conceal the real source of illegal contributions, such as donations that exceed legal limits or come from foreign donors, normally brings felony charges of conspiracy and false statements.

The law requires that donors’ names be reported to the Federal Election Commission.

The straw donors, or conduits, usually are not subjected to criminal prosecution if that is their only crime, but they remain liable for civil fines from the FEC.

Trie has gone to China. He has told interviewers he has no plans to return to the United States.