Whitewater controversy Independent Counsel, Robert Ray, released a report in September 2000, that stated "This office determined that the evidence was insufficient to prove to a jury beyond a reasonable doubt that either President or Mrs. Clinton knowingly participated in any criminal conduct." Nevertheless, Ray criticized the White House saying that delays in the production of evidence and "unmeritorious litigation" by the president's lawyers severely impeded the investigation's progress, leading to a total cost of nearly $60 million. Ray's report effectively closed the Whitewater investigation. Bill and Hillary Clinton never visited the actual Whitewater property. In May 1985, Jim McDougal sold the
David Hale (Whitewater) pleaded guilty to trying to bribe Hale. David Hale (Whitewater) David Hale is a former Arkansas municipal judge and former Arkansas banker. 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 pleaded guilty and went to jail for conspiring to defraud the Small Business Administration in looting the funds from a dummy business that he had 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