Susan McDougal
Wednesday, Mar. 28, 4 p.m. ET
Talk to Whitewater figure Susan McDougal about the time she served in
prison for contempt of court;
her thoughts on Bill Clinton and former Independent Counsel Ken Starr's
operation; the press coverage
of her travails; her presidential pardon; her work on behalf of women
in prison; and what's in her future.
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Milton, FL: Where you ever in fear for your life from either of the Clinton's or their "associates"?
Susan McDougal: No. I was in fear of my freedom from Ken Starr, but that's about it.
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Sterling, VA: Based on your experience, would you conclude that Hillary Clinton was right about right-wing forces out to get President Clinton? The stop-at-nothing nature of the efforts against him, including ruining associates and friends such as yourself, would seem to support this.
Susan McDougal: I would agree that based just upon the things that happened to me alone, any reasonable person would have to conclude that there were a lot of people who hated Bill Clinton, and were willing to do anything to hurt him. I have always shied away from the world "conspiracy", because I don't think it takes that much for people to band together against someone they hate. But it took the person of Kenneth Starr to bring all of that together, and ruin lives and wreak devastation for so many years at such an enormous cost.
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St. Bonaventure NY: Clinton has been smeared with a host of strange
and wild charges.
Did Starr ever ask you about his connection to the Mena drug smuggling
operation, for one?
Susan McDougal: No. He never did. They concentrated on three aspects with me. The first was any connection with Whitewater where Clinton would have illegally gained money. When the found rather quickly that they could trace the money and Clinton hadn't benefitted, then they wanted me to smear him; if there was any sexual wrongdoing. The third thing was they came with a suggestion that perhaps I could implicate Hillary Clinton in wrongdoing, which would give me leverage to gain freedom.
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Comment from Susan McDougal: This was a long progression over a long time. When one thing wouldn't work, they'd suggest another way to harm the Clintons to get me leniency. This is what eventually made me hate them so much, because I could see they didn't believe any of the charges themselves.
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Comment from Susan McDougal: There's an incident that shows how hardcore they are. When I was in jail in Conway, Arkansas, the jail administrator noticed that my father was deaf. My dad was in Korea and had been in such intense bombing that it had affected his hearing. The jail administrator wrote to the Independent Counsel and the judge requesting that I be allowed to talk to my father in person rather than through a piece of glass. It was denied. It would have been a simple thing to do.
I've been asked many times if I was treated better than most inmates, or was it harder for me than for most. In medical situations, I was always treated more fairly, because the jailers didn't want me to get sick and have it reported to the press. However, in Twin Towers in Los Angeles, I was locked down in a glass cell for 23 hours a day. The cell was absolutely visible to everyone at all times. The toilet area, the bed area; it was one big room that could be viewed at all time by the guards, most of whom were male. The glass was so thick in that cell that if someone had come right up to the glass and shouted, you couldn't have heard them. It was, in the words of the administrators, the "Hannibal Lecter" cell. Through the glass you could look out and see the prisoners walking around, watching TV. Most of those people were accused of horrible crimes: murder, child murder, etc. The feeling of watching other people talk to one another, even go to church, and not be able to hear a thing, was so hard. I was in there for almost 3 months. In the morning, the other cell doors would open and the inmates would go out. But mine was closed. We wrote a letter asking why, and they said it was for my own "protection".
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Albuquerque, NM: Susan, Why did you choose to go to jail instead of testify?? Why were you protecting Bill Clinton? What's will you do now that all this Whitewater mess is finally behind you? Any desire to write a book? JIM HALE
Susan McDougal: It had been years before I was accused in Whitewater before I even spoke to Bill Clinton. I certainly would not have put myself through this, and certainly not my mother and father through this, to protect someone if I had knowledge they had done something illegal. I went to jail because the Independent Counsel had a story that they wanted me to corroborate. The story was not true. I would not have done that to ANYONE. To lie about someone else to gain leniency is not something that I thought I could live with. I would like very much to write a book about my experiences with women in jail. Immediately after my release from jail, I was offered TV movies, book deals. The only thing I can tell you about how I felt was that it was so personal and close to my heart that it felt almost a betrayal to think of selling a story and letting Hollywood agents do something with it. After 2 years and getting some distance from it all and some perspective, I do think I'd like to be able to write about what I saw during my two years in jail. I was in 7 jails in 5 states. Maybe a travel guide to American jails and prisons!
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Dallas, TX: Susan, I see you as a courageous women with unwavering convictions: someone who believes in doing the 'right thing' at all costs. Do you consider yourself a religious person? a person who believes in God and is dependent upon that God.
Susan McDougal: When I first went to jail I was so angry and so bitter. I was about as far as having any spiritual connection as a person can be. One of the reasons that I had lost any spiritual connection was that Kenneth Starr was talking so much about his "Christianity". He actually told a story to the press that he had gone jogging one day during my trial and stopped at a red light and sang a hymn. He also said that before he entered the courtroom each day, he looked to the heavens and prayed that God would give him strength to fight for justice. All the while, he is asking me to lie about the President of the United States, and threatening me and my family if I don't do that. I had decided that when I went to jail, I was going to read all the great books of the world, and keep myself separate from everyone else and quietly do my time. The jail that I went to didn't allow any books. They only allowed the King James version of the Bible. I remember that when I called Pat Harris (my lawyer) and told him that I couldn't have books, it was the only time that he cried during the whole thing. So I'm lying in my bunk looking at the ceiling; angry, bitter, alienated. Three or four women came to my bunk and asked me if I would read to them because they couldn't read. As I lay there I remember thinking that it would be almost hypocritical for me to sit on the floor with them and have a Bible study. But I got down from my bunk, sat on the concrete floor and read to them. It changed my life forever. That moment began my finding out who the women were in the jail with me. And it began a spiritual life for me that I never thought possible.
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Jamestown, PA: Were the Clintons involved in a real estate scam or not? simple truth
Susan McDougal: No. Is that simple enough? Even Kenneth Starr's report issued last year after $70 million had to admit that there was no wrongdoing in the Whitewater land development. I don't know how much more can be said about that. Both the Clintons and the McDougals lost money on Whitewater.
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Sarasota, Florida: Hi Susan, Congratulations on surviving your ordeal! Will you write a book? could you tell me what your future plans are? Could you leave an E-mail address for future questions? I admire your Stamina and am hoping for some tips on how to deal with the government when they do wrong. Thank You so much for reading this and even more for responding!A Susan McDougal Admirer. Robert Relyea
Susan McDougal: That's so sweet!
It's very hard to stand alone when a force as large as the United States government is against you. I had so much help. The first week after I was put in jail, I received almost 50,000 letters from people around the country who said that they believed that I didn't know anything, and that I was standing on principle to go to jail. Most people who are confronted with a case against them from the United States government have to make a deal, because they don't have the money to fight them and they are so afraid of jail. The only advice I can give is to follow your conscience, becase sometimes the easy way to go is not what you can live with in the long term. For instance: My ex-husband Jim McDougal made a deal with Kenneth Starr to lie against the Clintons for leniency. He got a much shorter prison term than I, but he died in jail. I often tell people to be careful of the deals they make, because Jim never got to the day where he could take back what he had done in order to save himself.
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Fairhope, Alabama: Why would you go to jail to protect someone who is so corrupt, It says more about who you are rather than the president of slieze and corruption. Jeanne
Susan McDougal: Again, I didn't go to jail to protect anyone. I went to jail because the IC was corrupt and sleazy, and were conducting a political investigation with taxpayers paying the bill. It's not how this country is supposed to work. I asked several times to be allowed to answer all their questions; instead, they wanted a proffer which would indict Bill Clinton.
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balto. md: Do the conservertives still hound such a brave and honest woman as yourself?
Susan McDougal: Only when I take questions when I take questions on talk shows or chats! I try to avoid all right-wing wackos as much as possible in my everyday life. The county where I live went for Gore. The town where I live has one two story building: the post office. I know almost everyone in town, and it's a very simple life. People here are very kind to me.
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Omaha, Nebraska: Have you had foreplay or sexual-relations with President Bill Clinton in the past?
Susan McDougal: The answer is no. An interesting part of the Whitewater investigation was when the Independent Counsel subpoenaed practically every woman of a certain age in Little Rock, Arkansas to the grand jury. When reporters asked the IC why he would do that, he said he was looking for "pillow talk". This always amazed me, because I had a picture in my mind of Bill Clinton and some poor woman lying with their heads on a pillow and Bill Clinton droning on about Whitewater acreage, price of lots, loan interest rates. Anyone who was reasonable would conclude that this was to embarrass and smear the President. That's the only reason they made that accusation of me.
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Dayton, Ohio: I read in an article (The New Yorker?) that your husband died in prison because prison officials would not give him medicine he needed and the reason they refused to give him the medicine was because he did not give a urine, which he was unable to do because he needed the medicine. Is this true? If so, did anyone ever charge wrongful death against the prison (or however it might be done)?
Susan McDougal: Yes, that is true. I was contacted by some attorneys who wanted to bring suit, but because we were divorced, I had no legal standing. The most terrible thing to me was that Jim made his deal with Kenneth Starr, and the deal was he would testify against the Clintons for a reduced sentence, and that he would be placed in a MEDICAL prison. There were telephone calls that Jim was making to the OIC begging them to put him in a prison hospital when he died. They didn't need him anymore, because they then had Monica Lewinsky. They didn't live up to their end of the bargain.
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Monroe, La: Were you subjected to any physical abuse from fellow prisoners? Does alot of that go on or does the media hype that up also? I really admire you and respect you for standing up for what you thought was right.
Susan McDougal: No, I never was. I can't answer about how the men's jails and prisons are, but for the women I can tell you that most women freely admit their wrongdoing. They take responsibility for whatever crimes they've committed, and also for the crimes committed against them. The Justice Department says that 80% of all women in jail have been raped or been victims of incest before committing their first crime. These young women have been so brutalized by the time they're arrested and are so full of self-hatred that most of the damage that they do isn't to other people, but to themselves. Most of them are drug and alcohol abusers, and when they get sober in jail they're so full of regret for what they've done to their children and their families that they spend most of their time trying to figure out how everything went wrong. It is not the way television portrays it.
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Comment from Susan McDougal: Jail is a very sad place, full of poor women. I like to say I never saw a rich person in jail. These women haven't been part of society ever in their lives, and are used to being brutalized, so the brutality of jail isn't anything different for them.
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cincinnati ohio: Are you and Bill Clinton on speaking terms, i.e., are you friends?
Susan McDougal: I greatly admire President Clinton. I am sorry for the fact that Whitewater bedeviled him even before his first day in office until the very end of his term. I'm sure there are days when he looks to the heavens and says "If only I hadn't met Susan McDougal". But I must tell you that I'm grateful for his years as president, because the country has benefitted greatly.
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Comment from Susan McDougal: I haven't personally spoken to him since 1985. But I'd like to thank him for my pardon. It was a great thing he did, and not an easy thing.
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Potomac, Maryland: Now that you are pardoned, in your mind, do you honestly feel you did nothing illegal? How do you live with the fact that you are pardoned along with fugitive Rich and others? Do you deserve this more than other others who have equal or even more meritorious cases?
Susan McDougal: I'm unaware of the facts of anyone's case other than my own. I was innocent and wrongly convicted, and I felt I deserved the pardon. I was very glad that Mark Rich kept me underneath the radar, because I got very little comment. All the furor went to the Mark Rich pardon.
I didn't ask for the pardon. It takes almost $40,000 to pay a lawyer to do a pardon application for you, and I didn't have the money. I knew it was within the power of the President to pardon me, and I was grateful that he did. Forever people will look upon it as a quid-pro-quo, which can only harm his legacy. So it was a brave thing for him to do.
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Columbus ohio: I read about the story about you in magazines and it appeared that their agenda was more less revenge than justice .............and Ken Starr came at you with with a vengence....what is your true feeling about republicans and Ken Starr??
Susan McDougal: I was really filled with a lot of hatred, and at the time I went to jail I believe it was the safest place for me. I remember being asked by a reporter how I felt about Kenneth Starr, and I replied with a line from the Untouchables: "I want his house burned down. I want him dead. I want his children dead." At the time, I think that was reflective of the amount of hatred I had for him. Just his hypocrisy alone could make me rant for days. But I must tell you that since my two years in jail, I have really come to see that there are worst things that happen to people all the time, and a lot of that hatred came from self-pity. After meeting the women I met in jail, all of that was replaced with a desire to be a better person. I wouldn't change a day of the time I spent in jail. I often see other people who were involved in the Whitewater investigation, people who made deals with Starr to testify against someone for leniency. They're still so angry and so bitter. I tell them they should have gone to jail.
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Little Rock, AR: How can I help you to throw the Hutchinson brothers out of office?
Susan McDougal: Hahahaha! Let's just do it! How can we do it? We have to find a candidate strong enough to run against them, and I'll be the first person to help carry their signs. I'll see you there!
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Comment from Susan McDougal: Couldn't Bush just promote them into the Administration and give Arkansas a break?
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Richland, WA: Any thoughts about taking legal action against Ken Starr for wrongly imprisoning you?
Susan McDougal: Believe me, any action I could take against him would give me great pleasure. However, to prove that someone has wrongfully charged you, you have to prove intent, which is hard to prove in the law. although during conversations it became clear to me that Kenneth Starr knew I was innocent, it would be hard to prove in a court of law.
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Paris, Tx: What plans do you have for the future now that you were pardoned?
Susan McDougal: The only thing I'm doing now is going around the country talking about the women I met while I was in jail. The most important thing for people to know is that we are jailing the mentally ill for long periods of time, and they're being brutalized in America's jail, because they're unable to follow orders. They're kept locked down contiuously. When allowed out I've seen them pepper sprayed, I've seen them beaten, I've seen the deputies go in with rubber gloves and hoses and wash down cells covered in feces and urine, because these people are mentally ill and unable to care for themselves. After days of being locked down, one woman tied a sheet around her neck and jumped from the second story. The mentally ill are held so long in lockdown that they just get sicker and sicker, and there's very little medical help given to them (if any at all). In my talks around the country, I ask everyone to go to their local jail and see what is going on. I don't ask for money, I don't have a group to support, because if you go to your local jail and ask the sheriff if the women are being fed so they don't go hungry; are they given fresh water (or is it water out of the back of the toilet); does every woman have a place to sleep; basic human rights that should happen in every jail in America; then things will change. Because those sheriffs have to be elected locally.
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Atlanta, GA: Will you pose naked for Penthouse like Paula did? Because I want to see you nekid.
Susan McDougal: HAHAHAHAHAHA! No you don't!!!!
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De Pere WI: A few of Ken Starr's deputies are on a committee to select judicial appointments for President Bush. What type of judges do you expect them to select?
Susan McDougal: Even more egregious: Ted Olson has been appointed the new Solicitor General (the job Ken Starr once occupied). For those who don't know, he's the man who represented David Hale, who first made the accusation concerning Bill Clinton and Whitewater. Without David Hale, there would have been no Independent Counsel. It is almost humorous to me when the Republicans talk of political payoffs when Ted Olson is the new SG, after doing the groundwork on Whitewater.
It worries me that ANY of the deputies I met during Whitewater could continue doing work for our government.
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Comment from USATODAY.com Host: We're out of time. Thanks to Susan McDougal
for being so generous with her time, and to everyone who showed up.