Editing Whitewater controversy (section)

===Subpoena of the president and his wife===
[[Image:RoseLawFirmRearCloseup.jpg|thumb|upright=0.8|Hillary Rodham Clinton worked on the third floor of [[Rose Law Firm]].<ref>{{cite book | last=Maraniss | first=David | author-link=David Maraniss | title=First in His Class: A Biography of Bill Clinton | url=https://archive.org/details/firstinhisclassb00mara | url-access=registration | publisher=[[Simon & Schuster]] | year=1995 | isbn=0-671-87109-9}} p. 430.</ref> Her billing records from the mid-1980s would become the subject of intrigue during the Whitewater controversy.]]
As a result of the exposé in ''The New York Times'', the Justice Department opened an investigation into the failed Whitewater deal. Media pressure continued to build, and on April 22, 1994, Hillary Clinton gave an unusual [[press conference]] under a portrait of [[Abraham Lincoln]] in the [[State Dining Room]] of the White House, to address questions on both Whitewater and the [[Hillary Rodham cattle futures controversy|cattle futures controversy]]; it was broadcast live on several networks. In it, she claimed that the Clintons had a passive role in the Whitewater venture and had committed no wrongdoing, but admitted that her explanations had been vague. She said that she no longer opposed appointing a special prosecutor to investigate the matter. Afterwards, she won media praise for the manner in which she conducted herself during the press conference;<ref name="nyt042394"/> ''[[Time Magazine|Time]]'' called her "open, candid, but above all unflappable...the real message was her attitude and her poise. The confiding tone and relaxed [[body language]]...immediately drew approving reviews".<ref name="time0494">Michael Duffy, [https://web.archive.org/web/20070930181338/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1101940502-164301,00.html "Open and Unflappable"], ''[[Time magazine]]'', April 1994. Accessed July 16, 2007.</ref> By that time there was growing backlash from Democrats and other members of the political left against the press' investigations of Whitewater. ''The New York Times'' was criticized by [[Gene Lyons]] of ''[[Harper's Magazine]]'', who felt its reporters were exaggerating the significance and possible impropriety of what they were uncovering.<ref name="harpers1094">[[Gene Lyons]], [https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/arkansas/whitewater/lyonsarticle.html "Fool for Scandal: How the 'Times' got Whitewater wrong"], ''[[Harper's Magazine]]'', October 1994. Accessed August 27, 2007.</ref>

At Clinton's request, [[United States Attorney General|Attorney General]] [[Janet Reno]] appointed a [[special prosecutor]], [[Robert B. Fiske]], to investigate the legality of the Whitewater transactions in 1994. Two allegations surfaced: 1) that Clinton had exerted pressure on an Arkansas businessman, David Hale, to make a loan that would benefit himself and the owners of [[Madison Guaranty]]; 2) that an Arkansas bank had concealed transactions involving Clinton's gubernatorial campaign in 1990. In May 1994, Fiske issued a grand jury [[subpoena]] to the President and his wife for all documents relating to Madison Guaranty, with a deadline of 30 days. They were reported as missing by the Clintons. Almost two years later, the subpoenaed billing records of the Rose Law Firm were discovered in the Clintons' private residence in the White House, with fingerprints of Hillary Clinton, among others.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1996/06/05/us/hillary-clinton-s-fingerprints-among-those-found-on-papers.html|title=Hillary Clinton's Fingerprints Among Those Found on Papers|last=Lewis|first=Neil. A.|date=June 5, 1996|website=The New York Times}}</ref>