SUSAN MCDOUGAL ON TRIAL
				The Clinton Scandal Nov. 23, 1998 (Embezzlement Acquittal) Nov. 24 1998 Update March 8, 1999 (Jury Selection - Federal Trial) March 10 Update March 11 Update Discuss the Case March 16 Update March 18 Update March 22 Update March 23 Update March 24 Update March 25 Update March 30 Update April 1 Update April 2 Update April 5 Update (Morning) April 5 Update (Afternoon) April 7 Update (Morning)

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (Court TV) — Three years after the questions were first put to her, former Clinton business partner Susan McDougal has finally answered them.

But her audience wasn't the grand jury hearing evidence on the Whitewater scandal, as Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr intended. Instead, she addressed a jury at her own trial, her third in three years.

McDougal has been charged with criminal contempt and obstruction of justice for refusing to cooperate with Starr's investigators when they tried to question her before grand juries in 1996 and 1998.

McDougal steadfastly declined to answer any questions then, saying she didn't trust Starr and his prosecutors and felt that they would twist her answers to suit their own goal of creating a case against President Clinton.

But on Tuesday, nervously testifying in her own defense, McDougal said that President Clinton had provided truthful testimony in her 1996 trial for fraud, of which she was convicted. She also said she never discussed with him the fraudulent $300,000 loan made in his name. One witness, David Hale, testified that Clinton pressured him to grant the loan.

The jury at McDougal's trial is only responsible for determining her guilt or innocence of the two charges facing her. However, lawyers on both sides used the trial to revive issues stemming from the Whitewater land deal and investigation themselves.

Prosecutors showed Hillary Clinton's videotaped grand jury testimony about the failed real estate scheme, reintroducing the issue just as the first lady contemplates a run for the Senate. The defense, meanwhile, has used the trial to attack Starr's tactics in the Whitewater investigation.

In addition to McDougal herself, the defense called communications professor Steven Smith to the stand. Smith, who pleaded guilty in 1995 to a conspiracy charge in the Whitewater scandal, testified that he felt the Starr prosecutors were only interested in information that supported their version of events.

He said one prosecutor, Amy St. Eve, gave him a script containing inaccurate information to read before the grand jury. He and St. Eve revised the script before he read it. Another defense witness, Richard Holiman, said he believed prosecutors subpoenaed McDougal's brothers to intimidate her into cooperating with their inquiry.

Court TV's Catherine Heins and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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