THE US President, Mr Clinton, said last night that his wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton, should take the stand if necessary, to answer charges stemming from their Whitewater land investment and a White House staff firing scandal.
"She has said that she will do whatever is necessary to answer all the appropriate questions, and I think that she should do that," said Mr Clinton in his first formal press conference of the year.
The president was asked whether the first lady should testify in hearings on the Clintons' failed 1970s Whitewater land deal, and on the restaffing of the White House travel office known as "Travelgate".
But the president also called for an end to the extended probes by a Republican led congressional committee which have cost taxpayers some $40 million.
"No discrepancies have been established," he said. "The Republicans. . spent another four million of the taxpayers' money to say what we said all along that there is no basis even for a civil action against us."
Mrs Clinton's position appeared to become more difficult last week when the White House suddenly released documents subpoenaed two years ago.
One document shows that she, did more legal work for Madison Guaranty Savings and Loan at the time of its failure than she had acknowledged.
A CBS poll said yesterday that those with a favourable opinion of Mrs Clinton fell in the past week from 59 to 47 per cent.
The central question in Whitewater is whether money from Madison was used to finance one of Mr Clinton's election campaigns for Arkansas governor, and to finance the Whitewater real estate venture.
The second important new document was a 1993 memorandum in which a Clinton aide wrote that Mrs Clinton ordered him against his will to fire the travel office employees. This was "Travelgate", the 1993 firings of the presidential travel office, in which Mrs Clinton was accused of restaffing the agency with friends and associates.
Mr Clinton also said at the press conference that he and his wife could be close to bankruptcy because of his mounting legal bills from the Whitewater affair and a sexual harassment suit.
"I've never added it all up, but that's probably right," Mr Clinton said when asked about reports in Money magazine that he was nearing bankruptcy. The magazine had reported that the Clintons had spent more than $2 million a year in legal bills.
The president is fighting a sexual harassment suit filed in May 1994 by Ms Paula Jones, a former Arkansas state employee.
Mr Clinton said he was more concerned about his associates who had been burdened with legal fees in the whitewater inquiry though they had been cleared of wrongdoing.