Jim Guy Tucker, ex-arcansas-Governor caught in Whitewater, dies at 81

Jim Guy Tucker, a former governor of Arkansas, who was caught in the long -standing investigation, which unsuccessfully targeted his predecessor as governor, Bill Clinton, died Thursday in Little Rock, ARK. He was 81.

His death, in a hospital, was caused by complications of ulcerative colitis, said his daughter Anna Ashton.

The Whitewater investigation, which investigated allegedly false land agreements in northwestern Arkansas, was led by a Republican special prosecutor and devoured much of the Clinton Presidency. But it was only that netting secondary players on smaller fees.

Mr. Tucker was one of them. He had been among the most promising figures in Arkansa’s policy and a rival to Mr. Clinton in Arkansas’ Democratic Party. But he was forced to resign as governor in July 1996 after serving less than two years of his period.

Two months earlier, he had been convicted by a federal court in Little Rock. He had been prosecuted by Independent Council, a team led by Kenneth W. Starr, for receiving a fraudulent loan from a small business development company, Capital Management Services, in the mid -1980s.

In August 1996, Judge George Howard Jr. From the Federal District Court in Little Rock him to four years trial – Mr. Tucker Avoid prison Due to testimony to a serious health – and ordered him to pay $ 294,000 in refund to the small business administration. At that time, Mr. Tucker already completed the Governor’s Mansion; He would never get started again.

But his conviction-as the Whitewater itself, as the journalist and commentator Lars-Erik Nelson called “A travesty of a scandal examination, a cargo cultural version of Watergate,” in the New York Review of Books in 1998-was later questioned.

The loan – for $ 150,000, according to Historian Jeannie M. Whayne of the University of Arkansas – should never have gone to Mr. Tucker’s Water and Sewer Services Company. Other Sources say nearly $ 3 million was lent to Mr. Tucker and his co -defendant, James B. and Susan McDougal, who were also convicted in May 1996.

Capital Management Services “To provide loans to companies where at least half of the owners were ‘disadvantaged’ somehow,” veteran Arkansa’s journalist Ernie Dumas described, who Dean of Arkansas Political Press Corps by Encyclopedia of Arkansas wrote in an unpublished manuscript.

But David Hale, the banker, who ran capital management services and was the most important witness for Mr. Starr’s prosecution team, “never continued any of his borrowers that and few, if any of them would have qualified,” Dumas wrote. “Tucker and McDougals learned about the special term for disadvantaged people during the trial.”

Arkansas Governor’s conviction nevertheless represented a kind of high watermark for Mr. Starr’s persecution of Mr. Clinton. Mr. Tucker was the highest ranked official convicted during the investigation, and his conviction was assumed to be a promising sign of Mr. Starr’s efforts. It turned not to be.

Before his conviction, Mr. Tucker pursued the kind of moderate-conservative agenda that southern Democrats in this era were obliged to follow when the last of them came to the Governor’s office. Thirty years later, these states are almost exclusively in the hands of Republicans.

He cut the expenses of some state agencies, like Arkansas Parks and Tourism Department, and gave the savings to public schools. In 1994, he pushed through bills aimed at young criminal offenders, a particular concern about the state’s conservative voters. However, he was unable to persuade voters to approve a $ 3.5 billion highway binding construction proposal.

Earlier in his political career, Mr. Tucker earned two-year-old election periods such as Arkansa’s Attorney General, from 1973 to 1977. In 1976 he was elected to the US Representative House to succeed with the powerful chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee. , Wilbur D. Mills, who had been forced to retire in a scandal involving Stripper Fanne Fox. He earned a period in Congress and became close to President Jimmy Carter.

James Guy Tucker Jr. was born on June 13, 1943 in Oklahoma City, one of three children of James Guy Tucker Sr., who ran the local social security office, and Willie Maude (White) Tucker. The family moved back to Arkansas, where his father had been a state auditor when he was a child and he went to public colleges in Little Rock.

He graduated from Harvard University with a degree in the government in 1964 and enrolled in Marine Corps. He was soon discharged for health reasons, but he went to Vietnam anyway – to work as a freelance correspondent, mostly for Arkansa’s Press.

He received a legal degree from the University of Arkansas in 1968 and was associated with Rose Law Firm in Little Rock, later even caught in the Whitewater investigation as an employer of Hillary Clinton.

As Mr. Tucker raised the state’s democratic politics, ”wrote David Maraniss in his 1995 biography of Mr. Clinton, “First in his class. “

During his time outside the office, Mr. Tucker law and developed a successful cable -TV business and expanded it from Arkansas to other parts of the United States.

He was elected Lieutenant Governor in 1990. When Mr. Clinton, as governor, began his presidential campaign next year, he was forced to renounce power, reluctantly, to his old rival. After Mr. Clinton was elected in 1992 and retired as Governor, followed Mr. Tucks him. He was chosen for a full period in 1994, only to resign two years later.

In late 1996, he received a liver transplant which he credited to save his life. Two years later, Mr. Starr after him again, and Mr. Tucker pleaded guilty to tax fraud “to avoid going to jail,” Dumas wrote.

“The Ministry of Justice and the IRS eventually acknowledged that Starr had accused Tucker of violating a section of the federal bankruptcy code that did not even exist at the time of a cable TV transaction in the 1980s,” Dumas added. “The government eventually concluded that it may owe Tucker Money, but couldn’t distinguish how much. It sent him and his wife a $ 1.44 check, which he framed and put on his wall. “

In addition to her daughter Anna, Mr. Tucker of his wife, Betty Allen (Alworth) Tucker; Another daughter, Sarah Allen Tucker; A Stesøn, Lance Alworth Jr.; A Step daughter, Kelly Driscoll; A sister, Carol Tucker Foreman; nine grandchildren; And an great -grandson.

Mr. Tucker once remembered, in An interviewPressed Mr. Starr’s prosecutors had brought him in an attempt to reach Mr. Clinton:

“What they wanted me to do was remember a conversation that I heard between Bill Clinton and David Hale that I simply never heard. There was no such thing. But they tried to make sure they could get Bill Clinton. That’s what these prosecutions were about, and I wasn’t helpful to them because he didn’t do anything they wanted me to testify. “

Steve Barnes contributed with reporting from Little Rock.