#ROGER CLINTON ARREST TRIAL#

#ROGER CLINTON ARREST TRIAL#

The testimony came from Sam Anderson, who was convicted at the trial of cocaine distribution charges. District Court in Hot Springs, Ark., that state police had named Lasater as a prospective target in a cocaine sting. In February, 1985, three months before Clinton lobbied the lawmakers, a boyhood friend of Clinton’s half-brother, Roger, testified in U.S. There was no discussion by the governor or his staff with the Pardon and Paroles Board.”Īddressing the pardon issue Monday, Clinton said: “I thought about it, because I thought, you know, somebody may someday try to make something out of this, but I thought I literally shouldn’t treat him any different one way or the other than I would treat anybody else.” Sunday night, the Clinton campaign characterized Lasater’s pardon as conditional and said: “A conditional pardon is routinely signed by the governor if there has been no dissent on the state parole board in making its recommendation. Clinton’s state pardon restored certain of Lasater’s rights as a citizen of Arkansas, but it had no bearing on his federal rights. He served six months in prison, four months in a halfway house and two months under house arrest. received the contract.”īut the Clinton campaign on Monday released a statement from Clinton’s former chief of staff, Betsey Wright, asserting that Clinton “never lobbied anybody concerning the award recipient of a ($30.2 million) state bond contract.”Ĭlinton granted Lasater a state pardon in November, 1990, after Lasater’s sentence had been completed. (Butch) Locke, said in a sworn statement to FBI agents: “Because Lasater & Co. The FBI documents, obtained by The Times from files developed during the Lasater drug investigation, quote one of Lasater’s partners, a retired Democratic state senator, crediting Lasater’s political support for Clinton for winning the bond contract. “I said, ‘I don’t know-it costs so much.’ ”ĭuring the meeting, George says, “I went over it with him-and he really sold me on it.” “He talked to me,” George recalls, “and said, ‘Lloyd, why aren’t you going along?’ One of the legislators, Lloyd George of Ola, Ark., told The Times that Clinton summoned him to the governor’s office. A big concern, the legislators say, was that they did not want the state to go into debt. After Clinton’s lobbying efforts in the spring of 1985, three key Democrats in the Arkansas Legislature dropped their opposition to the bond contract. The bonds, worth $30.2 million, paid for modernization of the Arkansas state police communications system. I just thought there weren’t enough people who had a chance to do the business, and so we broadened the opportunities.

“He did state business, but so did a lot of other bond firms (that) never did it before I got elected.

Roger clinton arrest