Former US President Bill Clinton and his wife Hillary Clinton have asked the US government to reimburse them for several million dollars in legal fees incurred during an inconclusive probe of a financial scandal, the New York Times said on Saturday.
”The Clintons have applied for reimbursement of their legal fees incurred in connection with the independent counsel’s Whitewater investigation,” David Kendall, the Clintons’ personal lawyer, told the Times late on Friday.
The seven-year criminal inquiry into the Whitewater affair, which revolved around a failed real estate deal in Clinton’s home state of Arkansas, was wound up in March after concluding that it was impossible to prove wrongdoing, although it found that some of the Clintons’ statements had been inaccurate.
The Whitewater inquiry, which dogged Clinton’s presidency, was concluded by the special counsel Robert Ray, the successor to the independent counsel Kenneth Starr.
The Times said a three-judge panel had ordered the independent counsel to evaluate the Clintons’ application for lawyers’ fees, a process that began in June and is likely to last at least until September.
In a recent congressional financial disclosure form filed by Hillary Clinton, who is now a US Senator for the state of New York, the Clintons reported paying more than $1,3-million in legal fees for themselves and former staff members in 2001.
They placed their remaining legal debts at between $1,75-million and $6,5-million, according to the newspaper, which said the figures are imprecise because the disclosure forms use a broad range of figures.
The seven-year, $70-million Whitewater investigation
concluded with a final report last March that there was insufficient evidence to show criminal wrongdoing by the Clintons in the affair.
The report determined, however, that some of the statements given by both the then president and first lady during official investigations were ”factually inaccurate”.
In another affair which clouded Clinton’s presidency, his relationship with the young White House intern Monica Lewinsky, Ray reached a deal with the former president not to bring charges, provided Clinton not seek reimbursement of any legal fees related to his defence in the matter. – Sapa-AFP