David Hale (Whitewater)

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For other persons of the same name, see David Hale (disambiguation).

David Hale is a former Arkansas municipal judge, a former Arkansas banker, a self proclaimed Bill Clinton political supporter, though he never made substantial contributions to any of his campaigns. He alleged the charges that resulted in the Whitewater scandal trials. He worked with Jim McDougal on $3 million in loans from a lending company he ran. He plead guilty and went to jail for conspiring to defraud the Small Business Administration in looting the funds from a dummy business he established. He was sentenced to two years and four months in prison for fraud unrelated to the Whitewater deal. As part of his guilty plea in looting money from an insurance company, he provided the allegations for the Whitewater scandal, and testimony for its investigators. He testified in the trial of Jim and Susan McDougal in 1989 when the Madison Guaranty Savings and Loan originally failed, and never mentioned Clinton in a detailed account of the $300,000 loan at that time. It was not until Hale came under Indictment on other charges that he alleged any crime by Clinton. There is substantial evidence that Hale brought these charges for profit, and to reduce his own sentence.

Hale testified in U.S. District Court that Gov. Bill Clinton pressured him to make a fraudulent $300,000 loan and that he not be named in the loan. On June 23, 1994 Eugene Fitzhugh pleaded guilty to trying to bribe David Hale.