The Arkansas Project is the general name of a series of investigations (mostly funded by billionaire Richard Mellon Scaife) that were designed to damage and end the presidency of Bill Clinton.[1] Scaife gave $1.8 million "to unearth damaging information about President Clinton."[2] Some reports and investigations connected to this project focused on questions about the suicide of Vincent Foster, the Clintons' investment in Whitewater, and Troopergate.
Like many political magazines of differing ideologies, in the 1980s and 1990s the conservative American Spectator received donations from like-minded benefactors who supported its mission. One of the Spectator's larger donors over the years was Richard Mellon Scaife, a businessman who directed a number of foundations funded with his family's wealth, through which he could support his causes. At first, donations from Scaife to the Spectator were unrestricted, but later, Scaife wanted to direct some of the spending for stories investigating the Clintons.
According to R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr., editor in chief of the Spectator, the idea for investigating the Clintons was born on a fishing trip on the Chesapeake Bay in the fall of 1993. David Brock, who reported many of the Clinton scandals, described himself as a Republican "hitman" who "soon became a lead figure in the drive to" get Clinton. Writing for the American Spectator, he brought the stories of alleged sexual misbehavior by Bill and Hillary Clinton into the public notice in late 1993.[3] The Pacific Research Institute funded further attempts to discredit the Clintons. The "Arkansas Project" name that later became famous was conceived as a joke; the actual name within the Spectator and between the Spectator and Scaife foundations was the "Editorial Improvement Project."
The Washington Post noted David Brock was "summoned" to a meeting with Rex Armistead in Miami, Florida at an airport hotel.[citation needed] Armistead laid out an elaborate "Vince Foster murder scenario", Brock said – a scenario that he found implausible."[4][5] David Brock, then of the American Spectator (and previously of the Heritage Foundation), explained Armistead was paid $350,000 to work with Arkansas Project reporters by the American Spectator.[6] Brock further noted Armistead was a "leader of white resistance to the civil rights movement" as he was working as a police officer.[7] Both Brock and Armistead were reporters who were funded by Scaife to investigate issues ranging from drug smuggling to Foster to discredit Clinton with the Arkansas Project.[8]
Another project investigator was Parker Dozhier who was a bait shop owner.[1] Moreover, "some people who know Dozhier say he is a hard-line right-winger obsessed with destroying Clinton."[2]
Ted Olson, who would later represent George W. Bush in Bush v Gore and be named U.S. Solicitor General, was a Board Member of the American Spectator Educational Foundation, and is alleged to have known about or played some role in the Arkansas Project.[citation needed] His firm Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher provided $14,000 worth of legal services,[citation needed] and he himself wrote or co-authored several articles that were paid for with Project funds.[citation needed] During his confirmation hearing, majority Republicans blocked Senator Leahy's call for further committee inquiries on the subject. [3]
The investigations funded by Scaife money mostly concentrated on the Whitewater investments, which extended to a conspiracy theory surrounding the death of Vince Foster, a Clinton aide with connections to Whitewater. Christopher W. Ruddy (a freelance reporter for the Scaife-owned Pittsburgh Tribune-Review) published a series of articles claiming Clinton was behind Foster's suicide.[9] Although Clinton was never found to have broken the law by Ken Starr, Ruddy published his book The Strange Death of Vincent Foster regardless. His conspiracy theories about Foster have even been dismissed by some more outspoken conservatives like Ann Coulter.[10] The Spectator stopped receiving Scaife funding when "it ran a scathing review of a book by journalist Christopher Ruddy, a Scaife favorite who has worked for the Pittsburgh newspaper owned by the billionaire."[11]
In late November 1997 after Corry's review was published, Reed Irvine of Accuracy in Media (who has received about $2 million from Scaife since 1977[4]) "reported in his newsletter that Scaife had called Tyrrell to say he was cutting him off."[5] In fact, "Tyrrell confirmed in an interview that the call occurred but said he couldn't remember details of the conversation that ended all support from the man who had been his principal benefactor for nearly 30 years."[6]
In 1999, Joseph Farah's Western Journalism Center "placed some 50 ads reprinting Ruddy's Tribune-Review stories in the Washington Times, then repackaged the articles as a packet titled 'The Ruddy Investigation,' which sold for $12."[12] Shortly thereafter, the Western Journalism Center "circulated a video featuring Ruddy's claims, 'Unanswered-The Death of Vincent Foster,' that was produced by ultra-conservative James Davidson, chairman of the National Taxpayers Union (NTU) and co-editor of the Strategic Investment newsletter."[12] (NTU's research arm received funds from Scaife.)
In the late 1990s, Ruddy and Farah turned their focus to the internet with help from Scaife. Ruddy founded NewsMax and Farah started WorldNetDaily to further promote conservative causes in the media. Eventually, Scaife became an investor and the third-largest stockholder of NewsMax.[13] Both featured and still feature stories about conspiracies surrounding the Clintons, liberals, gays and Democrats.
Writer David Brock also went after the Clintons. Brock was the first journalist who published the sexual allegations by Paula Jones, which conflicted with later claims.[14] The Troopergate investigation later led Jones to sue Clinton, successfully obtaining an out-of-court settlement in the hundreds of thousands. Brock continued his conspiracy theorizing until a 1997 Esquire article titled "I Was a Conservative Hit Man" in which he recanted some of his claims. In 1998 he went further and personally apologized to Clinton. Brock was let go from the Spectator and published his 2002 book Blinded by the Right: The Conscience of an Ex-Conservative."[14]
Ted Olson's involvement with the Arkansas Project was a problem during his confirmation hearing for Solicitor general, but majority Republicans blocked committee inquiries.
