{{update|date=March 2016}} ''' Laura Jean Lewis''' (born c. 1954<ref name = "latimes" />) is a former senior investigator for the Resolution Trust Corporation. She is credited with initiating the Whitewater investigation against President Bill Clinton.
Lewis is a native of Houston, Texas; her father was a major general in the U.S. Army. She has a degree in political science from Sam Houston State College.<ref name = "latimes" />
Lewis joined the Resolution Trust Corporation office in Kansas City, Missouri as a senior criminal investigator in 1991. Among other assignments she was investigating the failure of Madison Guaranty Savings and Loan, a Little Rock savings and loan company owned by James McDougal, who had been the Clintons' partner in Whitewater, a failed land development project in the Ozark Mountains of northern Arkansas.<ref name = latimes /> When the connection between the Clintons and McDougal became a news story, she refocused on the Madison Guaranty case.<ref>{{cite book|last=Williams|first=Robert|title=Political Scandals in the USA|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=drwDdakx57cC&q=%22L.+Jean+Lewis%22&pg=PA65|year=1998|publisher=Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers|isbn=1-57958-039-4|page=65}}</ref> On September 2, 1992, just prior to the 1992 presidential election, she submitted a criminal referral to the FBI naming Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton as witnesses in the Madison Guaranty case. U.S. Attorney Charles A. Banks and the FBI determined that the referral lacked merit, but she continued to pursue it. Between 1992 and 1994 she issued several additional referrals against the Clintons and repeatedly called the U.S. Attorney's Office in Little Rock and the Justice Department about the case.
Lewis later appeared before the Senate Whitewater Committee. Before the hearings it was claimed that her testimony could prove to be "more troublesome for Bill Clinton than Paula Jones";<ref name = "latimes" /> however, her testimony did not provide any sensational or new information, and she eventually fainted under cross examination and had to be helped from the hearing room.<ref>{{cite news|url=http://observer.com/2007/03/an-awful-legacy-of-bush-41/ |title=An Awful Legacy of Bush 41 |publisher=New York Observer, via Wayback Machine |date=March 19, 2007 |first=Jason |last=Conason |accessdate=2013-05-22 |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20120603115410/http://observer.com/2007/03/an-awful-legacy-of-bush-41/ |archivedate=June 3, 2012 }}</ref><ref>https://www.c-span.org/video/?68642-1/whitewater-investigation-part-3 at 1:39:15</ref>
She was later suspected of illegally recording a conversation with a senior government attorney during the investigation.<ref name="latimes">{{cite news|url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1994-06-21-ls-6825-story.html|title=Mystery Woman of Whitewater : Politics: Laura Jean Lewis may very well be the star witness in this summer's congressional hearings. So who is she?|last=Risen|first=James|date=June 21, 1994|work=Los Angeles Times|access-date=16 December 2013}}</ref> She was herself investigated for various wrongdoings, including misuse and mishandling of classified material, secretly recording conversations with her colleagues, and use of government equipment for personal gain. She later admitted to using her office to market T-shirts and mugs lettered "B.I.T.C.H." (Bubba/Bill, I'm Taking Charge, Hillary).<ref name="nytimes">James Carville, ''...And the Horse He Rode in On'', Chapter 1, [https://www.nytimes.com/books/first/c/carville-horse.html], [https://www.amazon.com/Horse-He-Rode-Kenneth/dp/0684857340/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1366993378&sr=1-1&keywords=.+.+.+And+the+Horse+He+Rode+in+On+carville], {{ISBN|0684857340}}, Published October 27, 1998</ref>
Lewis was appointed in 2003 as chief of staff of the Pentagon Inspector General's Office in the United States government.<ref name="appointment">''Bush Hires Controversial Whitewater Figure as Pentagon's Inspector General'',[http://www.historycommons.org/entity.jsp?entity=l__jean_lewis_1], History Commons, ref. Newsweek, September 14, 2003; Graydon Carter, What We've Lost, pp 71, August 2004, {{ISBN|0374288925}}; and New York Observer, March 18, 2007</ref> On February 26, 2004, she again attracted attention when her office was supposed to look into Halliburton contracts.<ref>{{cite news | url=http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0226-02.htm | title=Halliburton Contracts Require Greater Scrutiny, Groups Demand | publisher=Inter Press Service | date=February 26, 2004 | first=Emad | last=Mekay | accessdate=2006-03-16 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060321152145/http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0226-02.htm | archive-date=March 21, 2006 | url-status=dead }}</ref>
==References== {{reflist}} ==External links== {{sister project links}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lewis, L. Jean}} Category:United States Department of Defense officials Category:Women government officials Category:Living people Category:People from Houston Category:Whitewater controversy Category:Year of birth missing (living people)