Hillary Clinton conspiracy theory resurfaces after Trump indictment

"Hillary Clinton was to be indicted over the Whitewater scandal four days before documents related to the case were destroyed in the Oklahoma City Bombing," says a March 29, 2023 tweet.

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Screenshot of a tweet taken April 10, 2023

The claim gained traction on Twitter and Instagram before and after former US president Donald Trump's indictment in a hush-money case. On April 4, Trump pleaded not guilty to 34 felony criminal charges -- the first against a former president -- stemming from a 2016 payment to porn actress Stormy Daniels.

The posts are the latest to compare Trump's legal situation to that of former US president Bill Clinton, a Democrat. Conspiracy theories connecting the Clinton administration to the Oklahoma City bombing have circulated online for decades.

Experts told AFP the terrorist attack is unrelated to the Whitewater land deal, which ensnared the Clintons in a political controversy that spanned much of the 1990s.

"The exhaustive FBI investigation showed that the bombing by white nationalist terrorists Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols was aimed at attacking the Clinton administration and the US government generally -- and not defending Hillary Clinton," said Atiba Ellis, a law professor at Case Western Reserve University.

He added that "multiple investigations around the Clinton scandal continued to about 2000," making it "nonsensical that the key indictment would have come out in 1995."

What is Whitewater?

The "Whitewater scandal" mentioned in the posts refers to the aftermath of a real estate deal inked when Bill Clinton was attorney general of Arkansas.

In 1978, the Clintons borrowed $203,000 with friends Jim and Susan McDougal to buy 230 acres of land along the White River. Together, they formed Whitewater Development Corp with the intention of developing lots for vacation homes, but the project failed due to the poor location and surging interest rates.

In 1982, Jim McDougal purchased a small bank in Arkansas and named it Madison Guaranty. Federal regulators questioned the business's lending practices, and the bank collapsed in 1989 after a series of bad loans, according to a Washington Post timeline.

In 1995, a grand jury in Arkansas -- not Oklahoma -- indicted then-governor Jim Tucker along with McDougal and his wife Susan on loan fraud charges but did not charge the Clintons.

Special prosecutor Kenneth Starr, who took over the Whitewater investigation and later expanded the probe into a broader area that led to Bill Clinton's impeachment, brought no charges related to the real estate deal against the Clintons.

Starr said during congressional hearings in November 1998 that he had drafted an impeachment referral stemming from the Whitewater deal but eventually decided against this.

Starr also questioned Hillary Clinton but brought no charges against her.

"Hillary Clinton was subpoenaed by independent counsel Kenneth Starr to testify in front of a grand jury about whether or not the White House had deliberately withheld billing records from her time working for the Rose Law Firm in Arkansas," said Anne Mattina, professor of political communication at Stonehill College in Easton, Massachusetts, who has researched first ladies.

"Originally, the records had been reported as missing but were located at the White House and turned over to the investigation. Hillary Clinton testified before the grand jury in January of 1996. She was never indicted," Mattina said.

Oklahoma City bombing

On April 19, 1995, a bomb ripped through the Alfred P Murrah Federal Building in downtown Oklahoma City, killing 168 people.

The attack -- the deadliest act of domestic terrorism in American history -- was orchestrated by Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols. An FBI investigation found McVeigh was motivated by his dislike for the federal government and its handling of the Ruby Ridge and Waco sieges.

The FBI says on its website that while "the bombing was quickly solved," the investigation "turned out to be one of the most exhaustive in FBI history."

"No stone was left unturned to make sure every clue was found and all the culprits identified," the agency says.

FBI records found no co-conspirators in the case.

An Oklahoma state report released after the bombing lists government agencies that were housed in the Murrah Federal Building but does not mention the Department of Justice.

"Theorists have speculated that documents related to Whitewater or Waco were kept in the Oklahoma City federal building and destroyed in the blast; the government has denied this," the Washington Post reported in July 1995.

Karrin Vasby Anderson, a political communication specialist at Colorado State University, said the conspiracy theories were initially "directed primarily at President Bill Clinton, with elements of the far right speculating that he orchestrated the bombing as part of a Whitewater cover-up or to create an opportunity to 'come across as a strong leader amid the ensuing chaos.'"

Hillary Clinton became the subject of such theories after becoming the Democratic nominee in the 2016 presidential race, she said.

AFP has debunked other false claims about Clinton here and here.