E-Mail Hale speaks The media listen. It's a sad thing when a man doesn't get to be the star of his own trial. Maybe when all this is over, Gov. Jim Guy Tucker will be able to laugh about it. Tucker, Jim McDougal and Susan McDougal are the defendants, but it's the mention of President Bill Clinton that fires up the courtroom, especially the national media reps. David Hale, the prize witness for special prosecutor Kenneth Starr, has fingered Clinton a couple of times this week, sending reporters racing for the telephones.
Bigger names make bigger news.
Mr. and Mrs. Clinton were once business associates of the McDougals, who are charged alongside Tucker with fraud and conspiracy, offenses of which Hale has already been convicted. Hale's testimony has gone largely unchallenged so far, defense lawyers saying that his direct testimony was so well rehearsed there was little point in raising objections. They will attack him fiercely on cross-examination, and they've chewed up most of the prosecution witnesses so far, those who didn't chew themselves up first. Until then, it has been the prosecution's week, about the first good week the special prosecutors have had. The names of the political relatives who needed cleaning up weren't mentioned, Hale testified, but he doped out that they must be Clinton and Tucker.