Posted on 07/15/2003 8:37:04 AM PDT by Sub-Driver
Clintons Lose Whitewater Appeal By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 10:49 a.m. ET
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The federal government does not have to pay for the bulk of former president Bill Clinton and Hillary Rodham Clinton's legal fees arising out of the Whitewater independent counsel investigation, an appeals court ruled Tuesday.
The Clintons had sought reimbursement for more than $3.5 million in lawyer costs stemming from the long-running probe of the failed Arkansas land deal.
But a federal appeals panel issued a 14-page decision ruling the Clintons would have been investigated with or without the appointment of an independent counsel, and therefore should pay the overwhelming majority of those legal costs.
The federal government will pay $85,312.01 to the Clintons in legal fees for their lawyers' review and response to the counsel's final report, the judges ruled.
``We harbor no doubt that in the absence of the independent counsel statute the allegations surrounding the Clintons, Madison Guaranty, and Whitewater would have been similarly investigated and prosecuted by the Department of Justice,'' the three-judge panel wrote.
A spokeswoman for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton did not immediately return a call for comment. Sen. Clinton's most recent financial disclosure forms show the couple owed between $1.7 million and $6.5 million in outstanding legal bills.
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