Investigating the president:
A chronology
Since the Clintons' Whitewater land deal in Arkansas was first questioned during the 1992 presidential race, it has mushroomed into an investigation of far more than real estate investments. Here's a look at how the investigation grew:
1992
- MARCH: The New York Times reports Arkansas Gov. and Democratic presidential candidate Bill Clinton and his wife Hillary were involved in complex real estate investments in the late 1970s with the owner of a failed savings and loan and his wife, Jim and Susan McDougal. Clinton denies any impropriety and says he lost money on the deal.
- NOVEMBER: Clinton wins White House, beating President Bush 43 percent to 38 percent.
- MAY: Clinton firing of White House travel office staff stirs row.
- JULY: White House lawyer Vince Foster, an Arkansas friend, is found dead. Police rule it a suicide.
- NOVEMBER: Justice Department starts investigating the McDougals, including their ties to the Clintons and other prominent Arkansans.
- JANUARY: Clinton calls for an independent counsel to investigate Whitewater. Attorney General Janet Reno recommends New York lawyer Robert Fiske, who is approved by a special three-judge panel.
- MARCH: Clinton ally Webster Hubbell quits as associate attorney general when he comes under investigation for fraudulent billing of clients at Rose Law Firm, where Hillary Clinton also was a partner.
- MAY: Former Arkansas state employee Paula Jones sues Clinton, alleging sex harassment. Clinton claims presidential immunity while in office.
- JUNE: Fiske concludes Foster committed suicide.
- JULY: House and Senate start Whitewater hearings.
- AUGUST: Three-judge panel replaces Fiske as independent counsel with Kenneth Starr.
- DECEMBER: Hubbell pleads guilty and agrees to cooperate with Starr in return for a reduced prison sentence.
- AUGUST: Starr charges the McDougals and Arkansas Gov. Jim Guy Tucker with bank fraud unrelated to Whitewater.
- JANUARY: Hillary Clinton testifies before grand jury on travel staff firing.
- MARCH: Starr formally adds travel staff firing to Whitewater investigation.
- MAY: A unanimous Supreme Court says no president including Clinton has constitutional immunity against a civil lawsuit, leaving it to the judge in the Paula Jones sex harassment case to decide how the case proceeds. A Little Rock federal jury convicts the McDougals and Tucker of improper business dealings.
- JUNE: When more than 700 FBI personnel files on Republicans are discovered in the White House, Starr's investigation is expanded to include them. Senate Whitewater committee report faults Mrs. Clinton on land deal, and Congress expands hearings to include FBI files. Susan McDougal is jailed on contempt charges for refusing to answer grand jury questions about the Clintons.
- AUGUST: As Clinton is re-nominated, press accounts begin reporting Democrats are raising campaign contributions from foreign sources. Although Starr won indictments, jury acquits Clinton political backers Herby Branscom and Robert Hill of financial misdealings in Clinton's 1990 Arkansas gubernatorial campaign.
- OCTOBER: The Los Angeles Times and Wall Street Journal report Vice President Al Gore attended a Democratic National Committee fund-raiser at a Buddhist temple. Gore says he thought it was a community outreach event. DNC admits a mistake and starts giving money back.
- NOVEMBER: Clinton is re-elected. The DNC fires fund-raiser John Huang and returns $750,000 in questionable donations. The White House acknowledges Huang brought contributors by for coffee, the first suggestion the White House held coffees and Lincoln Bedroom sleepovers for major donors. The FBI starts investigating Democratic donations, but Reno says she will not ask for an independent counsel to investigate DNC fund-raising.
- DECEMBER: Senate Republican leaders tap Sen. Fred Thompson, R-Tenn., to lead fund-raising hearings.
- FEBRUARY: Starr announces he'll quit to become Pepperdine University law dean, then agrees to stay on to see Whitewater probe through.
- APRIL: White House releases memos showing Clinton orchestrated DNC fund-raising in 1996 and was involved in planning as early as 1993. Justice Department campaign finance task force opens grand jury investigation.
- JULY: Starr concludes Foster committed suicide. Starr investigates whether Hubbell received job-hunting help, including consulting work for Indonesian banker James Riady, fired DNC fund-raiser Huang's one-time boss, in exchange for not testifying against the Clintons. Senate hearings start on fund-raising from foreign sources in the 1996 presidential race.
- DECEMBER: Reno declines an independent counsel investigation into whether Clinton and Gore illegally used federal property for political fund-raising in 1996.
- JAN. 12: Linda Tripp tells Starr that she taped former White House intern Monica Lewinsky talking about her sexual relationship with Clinton.
- JAN. 13: Starr equips Tripp with a hidden wire to tape Lewinsky during lunch at a suburban Virginia restaurant.
- JAN. 16: A three-judge panel approves Reno's request that Starr be allowed to expand his investigation to include whether Clinton encouraged Lewinsky to lie about their relationship in an affidavit she gave in the Paula Jones suit against Clinton.
- JAN. 17: Clinton spends six hours at his lawyer's office giving a deposition in the Jones lawsuit. Under oath, Clinton denies having sex with Lewinsky.
- JAN. 21: Story breaks that Starr is investigating Clinton's relationship with Lewinsky. Clinton denies an "improper relationship."
- JAN. 22: Presidential adviser Vernon Jordan denies he recommended Lewinsky for jobs to encourage her to lie in the Jones case.
- JAN. 26: Clinton gives impassioned denial, saying "Listen to me. ... I never had sexual relations with that woman--Miss Lewinsky."
- FEB. 3: White House records show Lewinsky visited the White House 37 times after she left her job there to work at the Pentagon.
- MARCH 3: Clinton claims executive privilege to keep aides Bruce Lindsey and Sidney Blumenthal from testifying before Starr's federal grand jury.
- APRIL 2: Judge in Arkansas throws out the Paula Jones lawsuit, ruling that Clinton's alleged proposition at a Little Rock hotel room failed to meet the definition of harassment.
- MAY 5: Judge denies Clinton's claim of executive privilege on conversations with aides.
- JULY 16: Starr subpoenas Clinton to appear before the grand jury, which leads to negotiations with the president's attorneys to arrange a way for him to testify.
- JULY 17: Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist refuses to shield Secret Service agents from testifying.
- JULY 27: Federal appeals court rules Lindsey must testify.
- JULY 28: Lewinsky and her mother receive full immunity in exchange for testifying before federal grand jury.
- JULY 29: Lewinsky reportedly hands over blue dress allegedly containing Clinton's genetic material to Starr for DNA tests. Clinton agrees to testify to the grand jury via closed-circuit television.
- AUG. 6: Lewinsky reportedly tells the grand jury she had sexual contact with Clinton, contradicting Clinton and her own sworn affidavit.
- AUG. 17: Clinton testifies for the federal grand jury for more than four hours via closed circuit TV. Later he gives a nationally televised speech admitting for the first time a relationship with Lewinsky that was "not appropriate." He denies that he sought to obstruct the investigation.
- AUG. 18: Hillary Rodham Clinton announces that she's committed to her marriage.
- AUG. 26: Reno orders 90-day probe into Vice President Al Gore's fund-raising tactics.
- SEPT. 4: Sen. Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn., a friend, denounces Clinton's behavior as "immoral." In Ireland, Clinton responds to complaints that he was insufficiently remorseful by saying publicly for the first time "I'm sorry about it."
- SEPT. 8: Reno orders 90-day probe of whether Clinton illegally evaded spending caps in his 1996 campaign by promoting himself in television ads paid for by the DNC.
