The real Hillary Clinton: To indict or to not indict

ON APRIL 27, 1998, deputy independent counsel Hickman Ewing met with his prosecutors to decide on whether to indict Hillary Clinton. Here's what happened as reported by Sue Schmidt and Michael Weisskopf in their book, "Truth at Any Cost:"

"[Ewing] paced the room for more than three hours, recalling facts from memory in his distinctive Memphis twang. He spoke passionately, laying out a case that the first lady had obstructed government investigators and made false statements about her legal work for McDougal's S & L, particularly the thrift's notorious multimillion-dollar Castle Grande real estate project. . .The biggest problem was the death a month earlier of Jim McDougal. . . Without him, prosecutors would have a hard time describing the S & L dealings they suspected Hillary Clinton had lied about."

CNN, MAR 18, 1999 - Deputy independent counsel Hickman Ewing testified at the Susan McDougal trial Thursday that he had written a "rough draft indictment" of first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton after he doubted her truthfulness in a deposition. Ewing, who questioned Mrs. Clinton in a deposition at the White House on April 22, 1995, said, "I had questions about whether what she was saying were accurate. We had no records. She was in conflict with a number of interviews."

Ewing said those interviews by investigators were primarily with other people in the Rose Law Firm. Ewing said he had questioned Mrs. Clinton about her representation of Jim McDougal's Madison Guarantee Savings & Loan when she was at the Rose Law firm in Little Rock. "I don't know if she was telling the truth. I did not circulate the draft. I showed it to one lawyer (in the independent counsel's office) who said he didn't want to see it," Ewing said, under questioning from McDougal attorney Mark Geragos. . .

Ewing also testified that in a later deposition with both the president and first lady on July 22, 1995, he had questions about the truthfulness of both Clintons. McDougal's attorney Mark Geragos asked Ewing: "Did you say the Clintons were liars?" "I don't know if I used the 'L-word' but I expressed internally that I was concerned," Ewing said.