Aide Warned Clinton on Hubbell, Sources Say

Two of President Clinton’s closest confidants understood the seriousness of accusations against Webster Hubbell before he resigned his top Justice Department post, and one warned the Clintons that Hubbell had to go, the New York Times reported.

The story in today’s editions, based on documents and interviews, questions assertions by the president and first lady that they did not know Hubbell was facing possible criminal charges when their associates started lining up work to help him financially in the spring of 1994.

Clinton has dismissed suggestions that his aides and friends helped Hubbell find work to keep him from telling investigators what he knew of the Clintons’ personal and financial affairs. Such actions could be construed as obstruction of justice.

“At the time that it was done, no one had any idea about whether any--what the nature of the allegations were against Mr. Hubbell or whether they were true,” Clinton said on April 3. “Everybody thought there was some sort of billing dispute with his law firm. And that’s all anybody knew about it. So no, I do not think they did anything improper.”

The paper cited previously unreported testimony in which James B. Blair, an Arkansas lawyer and longtime friend of both Bill and Hillary Rodham Clinton, said he went to the Clintons in early March 1994 to warn them that Hubbell “needed to resign as quickly as possible.”

The paper said Blair told Robert J. Guiffra Jr., one of the lawyers on the Senate Whitewater committee staff, that he had discussed Hubbell’s situation with four lawyers from the Rose Law Firm.

It also reported that David E. Kendall, the Clintons’ personal lawyer, received similar information about Hubbell in March 1994 and also was involved in the decision to persuade Hubbell to resign.

The paper said the White House declined on Sunday to answer questions about Hubbell, but released a statement saying: “ . . . Webster Hubbell [had] told the president and the first lady he had done nothing wrong and that his billing dispute with the Rose Law Firm would be resolved. They believed him.”