STUART TAYLOR, The American Lawyer: The prosecutor is saying in essence in court–and they haven’t said it yet by the way–but they apparently will–that we believe this man was part of the criminal conspiracy, along with the people who are on trial. We haven’t indicted him but the relevance of that for the purposes of the trial is that lets them get in more evidence about the unindicted co-conspirator’s or the alleged unindicted co-conspirator’s out-of-court statements than they otherwise could. It’s a way around the hearsay rule.

MS. WARNER: Explain that just a little more. What do you mean?

MR. TAYLOR: For example, if they want to–somebody, one of their witnesses, to talk about what Bruce Lindsey said to him, ordinarily that would be barred by the so-called hearsay rule. You can’t talk –you can’t testify in a trial about what somebody else said out of court. That rule has a lot of exceptions. One of the exceptions is if the person who you’re trying to quote, here Bruce Lindsey, is named by the prosecution as an unindicted co-conspirator, then you can talk about what he said out of court.

MS. WARNER: I see. Okay. Now explain this case. What’s this case about?

MR. TAYLOR: 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.

MS. WARNER: And now how would Bruce Lindsey or could Bruce Lindsey fit into this?

MR. TAYLOR: Umm, the prosecution has claimed that Bruce Lindsey took some of the–

MS. WARNER: He was the treasurer.

MR. TAYLOR: –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.

MS. WARNER: Now he said today, Bruce Lindsey did, out on the White House lawn that the reason they’re naming his an unindicted co-conspirator is that they want to bring in testimony by this guy Ainley who, Neil Ainley, who had been president of the bank. Now what is he expected–I gather he’s now the star witness against Branscum and Hill–what is he expected to say, or what does the prosecution say he’ll say?

MR. TAYLOR: The prosecution hasn’t said what he’ll say about Lindsey specifically, but there have been stories in the newspaper suggestion that he will probably say Bruce Lindsey told me not to report this to the Internal Revenue Service, or something close to that, and 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.

MS. WARNER: And I–and just to be clear here, what I gather they did was they broke this say $30,000 chunk of money into below $10,000 amounts so that it never had to be reported to the IRS, is that right?

MR. TAYLOR: Well, 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.

MS. WARNER: And finally, before we go, is the President at all a subject of this or involved? How is he involved in this case, if at all?

MR. TAYLOR: There’s no allegation in this case that the President did anything illegal. But there’s considerable potential for political embarrassment because in proving the case against–trying to prove their case against these defendants, the prosecution will apparently cite evidence that one of them, Mr. Hill, delivered to the President in December 1990 $7,000–

MS. WARNER: Then governor–then governor–

MR. TAYLOR: Yes, I’m sorry.

MS. WARNER: Just to be clear.

MR. TAYLOR: 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.

MS. WARNER: Well, Stuart, thanks.

MR. TAYLOR: Thank you.

MS. WARNER: Thank you very much.

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