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Whitewater: Bruce Lindsey, is named by the prosecution as an unindicted co-conspirator

Bruce Lindsey is the deputy White House counsel and a longtime friend and adviser to President Clinton. He was the treasurer for then Governor Clinton's 1990 reelection campaign. It is that association which interests prosecutors in the current Whitewater-related trial in Little Rock.

This case involves two owners of a small town Arkansas bank, Perry County Bank. Their names are Herby Branscum, Jr. and Robert Hill. And Mr. Branscum at least is an old friend and political supporter of the President. The basic charge is that they did various illegal activities to support then Gov. Clinton's reelection campaign in Arkansas in 1990, and the allegations are in particular that they withdrew more than $13,000, misapplied their own bank's funds to funnel them to the Clinton reelection campaign, and that they conspired to conceal from the Internal Revenue Service more than $50,000 in cash withdrawals by the Clinton Reelection Campaign.

the prosecution has claimed that Bruce Lindsey took some of the cash withdrawals. He was the treasurer of the 1990 Clinton campaign. The prosecution has said and he has acknowledged that in May and November 1990, he received large cash withdrawals totaling more than $50,000, received them in person in one case and arranged them in another case from the Perry County Bank for what they call get out the vote money. And the allegation against these defendants is that they conspired to conceal this from the IRS because any time you withdraw more than $10,000 in cash from any bank for any purpose, you're supposed to file a currency transaction report with the Internal Revenue Service. That was not done here. The claim against Mr. Hill and Mr. Branscum is that they conspired not to do it for an illegal purpose, and if Mr. Lindsey is named as an unindicted co-conspirator, the prosecution is essentially saying he was in on the conspiracy too.

Neil Ainley, who had been president of the bank, he's now the star witness against Branscum and Hill, he will probably say Bruce Lindsey told me not to report this to the Internal Revenue Service, the purpose of introducing such evidence at this trial would be to show that there was a broader conspiracy for purposes of trying to convict Mr. Hill and Mr. Branscum of being part of it.

Mr. Lindsey has admitted that he asked the bank to break it into four $7500 checks in one case instead of a single $30,000 check. He has said--and that has drawn the prosecution's suspicion. Why would you do that? You're trying to avoid the $10,000 limitation. This is called structuring transactions if you do it for the purpose of not reporting it. Mr. Lindsey has said that was not his purpose, that he had no reason to try and hide this from the IRS, that, in fact, he publicly reported this contribution in campaign filings later. He said his reason for the four $7500 amounts was to try and make sure that some bank clerk somewhere didn't tell the newspapers and they get a big story in the newspaper about $30,000 in cash being pulled out by the Clinton campaign for gosh knows what purpose.

The then governor in December 1990, just after he'd been reelected as governor, $7,000 in contributions from Mr. Hill, Mr. Branscum, and the prosecution's witness, Mr. Ainley, and at the same meeting, they discussed Mr. Branscum's desire for an appointment to a powerful patronage job on the State Highway Commission, which he subsequently got. And so the problem for the President in this case is partly the prosecution's claiming that his closest adviser, Bruce Lindsey, was part of a criminal conspiracy, if they so claim, and partly the depiction of what looks like a fairly seamy, "you give me the money, I give you the appointment" type of transaction in the governor's office.