Christopher Ruddy
Tuesday, Jan. 2, 2001

His name is David Hale, and he's set to enter the Arkansas state jail system.

David Hale is a former Little Rock judge, who charged publicly that Bill Clinton pressured him into making a fraudulent, federally backed $300,000 SBA loan to Susan McDougal.

Independent Counsel Ken Starr, however, refused to consider bringing charges against the president unless Hale's claims were supported by another witness.

Hale is now back in the news and he needs your help.

I am urging NewsMax.com readers and all decent Americans to ask the good governor of Arkansas, Mike Huckabee, to intervene and pardon Judge Hale.

Time is of the essence.

In less than a week David Hale could be sent to a local Arkansas jail.

Even though he has been sentenced to only 21 days, Judge Hale could be forced to wait for as long as a year until room is found for him at a state prison clinic.

David Hale has been in ill health for years and I fear even a brief stint in prison could be life-threatening.

Let me clarify that David Hale is not trying to get off the hook for past wrongdoing.

David Hale has already served 18 months of a 28-month federal prison sentence for his role in Whitewater.

Though Hale willingly cooperated with federal prosecutors, first special counsel Robert Fiske and then independent counsel Ken Starr, he was slapped with the harshest sentence of anyone involved in the Whitewater scandal.

That wasn't good enough for the Clinton-backed Arkansas Democratic machine, which then went after Hale on petty state charges.

Prosecutors have told me that it is unheard of for state prosecutors to go after a cooperating federal witness. But Arkansas officials did just that.

Arkansas state prisons don't have the type of medical facilities federal prisons have, so Hale's situation is dire.

Because the state prison system may not have a hospital bed for Judge Hale, he could well be thrown into a county jail cell to wait until there is room for him at the state prison clinic.

"You can stay there in the county jail for six months or a year," Hale told NewsMax.com.

"There are no beds available at the state prison Diagnostic Clinic, so I could stay in a Pulaski county jail cell for from six months to a year until there is a bed available."

Hale, who has had two heart attacks, open heart surgery, and wears a pacemaker, is deeply concerned about his health should he be incarcerated in a local jail cell.

"As far as my health is concerned, this is dangerous to me," he said.

Hale says he may be ordered to jail in the next week.

Hale’s state conviction was recently upheld by the Arkansas Supreme Court on a minor legal technicality.

One of independent counsel Kenneth Starr’s key witnesses in the federal Whitewater trial of former Gov. Jim Guy Tucker, businessman Jim McDougal and McDougal's ex-wife, Susan, Hale must spend 21 days in a state prison clinic because his lawyers failed to make a timely motion, the Arkansas court ruled in a 6-1 decision.

Of course, the Arkansas supreme court is dominated by Clinton friends.

It was Hale's testimony that led to the convictions of the Arkansas trio on fraud and conspiracy charges.

Obviously, Hale is not liked and has many enemies in Arkansas. There was a reason Hale, when serving as a Whitewater witness, was under 24-hour-a-day FBI guard.

Though both James McDougal and Hale agreed to cooperate with prosecutors, both got the harshest sentences imposed for the Whitewater affair.

Consider that their sentences were harsher even than that given to Webster Hubbell, who double-crossed Ken Starr after receiving a sentencing deal and then refusing to live up to its terms.

At the sentencing of Webster Hubbell, Starr admitted that the former associate attorney general had reneged on his plea agreement and had never fully cooperated with prosecutors.

Hubbell ultimately served 12 months of an 18-month sentence in jail for mail and tax fraud charges dating back to when he and Hillary Clinton were partners at Little Rock's Rose Law Firm.

Hale, however, was sentenced to 28 months and ordered to make restitution of $2.04 million and fined $10,000. Hale went to prison in June 1996 and served 18 months.

On April 14, 1997, James B. McDougal was sentenced to prison for Whitewater crimes.

Like Hale, McDougal suffered from life-threatening illness.

On March 8, 1998, McDougal died at the Federal Medical Center, Fort Worth, Texas, of allegedly natural causes. Federal officials, without explanation, withheld McDougal's life-sustaining medication.

With McDougal in mind, I am worried that Judge Hale may not survive a stint in the Arkansas prison system.

Hung Out to Dry

Like other key witnesses who helped Starr, including Linda Tripp, Judge Hale was left out to dry.

After Hale had served in federal prison, a local Arkansas state prosecutor named Mark Stodola decided to prosecute Hale for making false or misleading statements to state insurance regulators.

When Stodola first made noises about prosecuting Hale, Starr issued a statement declaring it "highly unusual, if not unprecedented, for a state prosecutor to initiate separate criminal charges against an individual cooperating in an important federal investigation during the course of that person's cooperation."

Talk is cheap, however.

Hale was left to fight the state charges alone. In 1999, he was convicted of the state charges.

He appealed the conviction on the grounds that prosecutors had improperly questioned him about his role in the Whitewater matter.

He claimed that federal prosecutors had granted him immunity from future prosecutions in exchange for his cooperation with the Whitewater investigation.

Hale said that in using information from his federal case, the Arkansas prosecutors acted wrongly.

Without judging the merits of Hale’s claim, the court held that he or his lawyers had failed to object to the questioning in a timely matter and had waited too long to raise the point.

I believe David Hale is truly an American hero. Part of the Democratic good-old-boy system in Arkansas, he could have easily kept his mouth shut and not told the truth about the Clintons.

Had he done so, he would have gotten a light sentence, would never have been placed in harm's way.

Today Hale is penniless, robbed of good health and his life as he knew it.

He understood the risk but decided he should do the right thing and cooperate.

Ultimately, prosecutors like Starr deserted him.

But you can help him. You can say thank you by helping him today.

The current governor of Arkansas is a man of integrity and decency, and I believe he will consider your emergency appeal on the behalf of David Hale.

I strongly encourage you to call, write, fax, and e-mail Gov. Huckabee. Tell him you read of David Hale's plight on NewsMax.com and ask that he grant a pardon to David Hale.

To contact Gov. Mike Huckabee:

By phone: 501-682-2345

By fax: 501-682-1382

By mail: Governor's office, State Capitol, Little Rock, AR 72201

By email: CLICK HERE

You can use NewsMax.com's easy PriorityGram to send a letter to Gov. Huckabee. His name and address are conveniently listed under Hot Issues on recipient page. Click Here to enter PriorityGram page.

Error processing SSI file