Last year, a Senate Subcommittee began hearings on the Arkansas real estate/savings and loan debacle known as Whitewater.

The committee chairman, Sen. Alfonse D’Amato (R-NY) soon distinguished himself as the chief shovel in what appeared to be an obvious mudslinging contest.

However with the recent convictions of Arkansas Gov. Jim Guy Tucker, Jim McDougal, and his ex-wife Susan McDougal (all Clinton family confidantes), President Bill Clinton is finding himself in the midst of a legitimate political firestorm.

It is clear that the President was not charged with any wrongdoing. However, this doesn’t mean he is totally absolved. There are many realities in this case that require close scrutiny.

Fact: close business associates of the First Family were involved in the Whitewater deal.

Fact: the President was subpoenaed to testify on video during the trial.

Fact: three of these associates were federally convicted on numerous charges, including conspiracy and fraud.

Fact: Gov. Tucker, who was forced to resign after the trial, was a close personal friend of the President.

Fact: two more Clinton supporters, Herby Branscum and Robert Hill, will go on trial later this month for tax evasion and for funneling bank funds into Clinton’s 1990 gubernatorial campaign.

Fact: Newsweek reported that Hillary Clinton’s fingerprints were found on documents recovered by investigators earlier this year involving Whitewater and her law firm that had been subpoenaed in 1995.

The President is not charged with any crimes, nor is he implicated in any of the verdicts handed down in Little Rock earlier this month.

It does however, raise serious questions about his true role in the Whitewater land deal and Jim McDougal’s Madison thrift.

The political spin doctors at the White House went to work immediately after the Little Rock verdicts. The President’s staff maintains his lack of participation in the failed land deal.

What does the White House consider as a lack of participation?

Jim McDougal received many favorable regulatory decisions from a Clinton-run state government. Mrs. Clinton and her Rose law firm represented Madison Savings and Loan in front of state regulators on at least one occasion.

The President, according to Senate testimony, was largely responsible for procuring a loan for the deal, approved by a bank lobbyist as an apparent political favor.

The Clintons may not have been directly responsible for the Whitewater scandal, but they indirectly played a role in it.

That indirect role seems all the more seedy, especially when one considers that political favors may have been involved in initiating the land deal.

The Clintons also have not been honest about their dealings with their close associates.

When asked about her dealings with the McDougals, Hillary Clinton maintained that her role in the entire scandal was minuscule.

However, federally-obtained records would state otherwise. Not only do these records indicate she was active in assisting the McDougals, but the files were found in White House files, not at the Rose law firm in Little Rock as they should.

Add to this the charge that the First Lady’s fingerprints were possibly found on files that federal investigators did not receive until a year after they were subpoenaed, and you could state a case for tampering with federal evidence.

Should the President be found guilty simply because he was an associate of convicted felons?

Some, especially a number of Democrats, think so. In a televised interview, Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT) said that the President’s associates did not bring into question his character, since “most” people have close friends and associates who have such checkered pasts.

What Sen. Dodd seems to forget is that a former President was forced to resign after being indirectly responsible (i.e. associating with convicted felons) for Watergate.

These same Democrats who are trying to expose Whitewater as a political witch hunt were the ones calling for President Nixon’s impeachment in 1974.

Secondly, his claim that most Americans associate with such shady characters is not only ludicrous but insulting as well.

With the Whitewater scandal entering a new phase, President Clinton will be forced to answer an increasing number of questions on his activities.

He will also have to testify again in the Branscum-Hill federal trial.

During this trial, the President will have to answer questions about whether these two men skimmed funds from their bank into the President’s 1990 bid for another term as governor in Arkansas.

The testimony in this trial could be even more damaging for the Clintons than the McDougal/Tucker trial.

Though the President and Mrs. Clinton have not been charged with any wrongdoing in the financial disaster that is Whitewater, their character is being brought into question once again.

Couple this with the Paula Jones sexual harassment suit, the suicide of Vincent Foster, the White House Travel Office scandal, and the ongoing Senate investigation of Whitewater, it is apparent that the President’s character is suspect.

Hopefully, the voters will see through the whitewash of Whitewater and vote accordingly in November.

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Robert Zeis is a senior in finance from Des Moines.