Hillary Clinton Takes the Heat

WASHINGTON, D.C.: After spending nearly a year and more than $1 million on its ever-shifting investigation, the Senate Whitewater Committee is concluding by accusing Hillary Clinton of obstructing the Senate probe. Leaks of the committee's report, scheduled to be released Tuesday, infuriated the White House, which charged that the conclusions are factually insupportable and are politically driven in an election year. In a two-page affidavit responding to questions from the committee, Mrs. Clinton said Monday that she does not know how her law firm billing records, missing under subpoena for some 16 months, turned up last January in the White House family quarters. The committee's report accuses Hillary Clinton and other officials of keeping papers related to Whitewater and the firings of White House travel office employees out of the hands of Senate investigators, which thereby may have obstructed justice. TIME Washington correspondent J.F.O. McAllister says that even for the most avid Whitewater-watchers, there is little new in the Senate report: "As Whitewater has been called the cover-up without a crime, this is obviously a political exercise." The White House dismisses the charges as nothing more than a publicly-financed contribution to Bob Dole's election campaign. If that is true, maybe it's working: the latest TIME/CNN poll shows that the Dole campaign has trimmed Clinton's once-22 point lead down to single digits. -->