Arkansas Project

The Arkansas Project was a series of investigative press reports, funded primarily by conservative businessman Richard Mellon Scaife, that focused on criticism of then-President Bill Clinton and his administration. Scaife spent nearly $2 million on the project.

The investigations included the investigation of the 1970s' real estate investment that Bill and Hillary Clinton had made in a development known as Whitewater, re-opening of allegations that then Governor Bill Clinton had sexually harassed an Arkansas state employee, and a reexamination of the death of White House aide Vincent Foster which multiple official investigations had found to be a suicide.

In the 1980s and 1990s, the politically conservative American Spectator magazine received donations from conservative benefactors. The Arkansas project began shortly after Richard Mellon Scaife, one of the largest donors to the magazine, directed that his donations be used for stories aimed at investigating potentially scandalous material regarding the Clintons. According to R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr., editor-in-chief of the Spectator, the idea for the Arkansas Project was hatched on a fishing trip on the Chesapeake Bay in the fall of 1993. The "Arkansas Project" name that later became famous was conceived as a joke; the actual name used within the Spectator and the Scaife foundation was the "Editorial Improvement Project."

Project reporter/investigators were hired, including David Brock, who later (after reversing his political stance) described himself as a Republican "hitman", and Rex Armistead, a former police officer who was reportedly paid $350,000 for his efforts. Also assisting the project was Parker Dozhier, a bait shop owner who was reportedly obsessed with bringing down Bill Clinton. They were tasked with investigating the Clintons and uncovering stories tying the Clintons to murders and drug smuggling as well as adultery.

According to Brock, Armistead and Brock met at an airport hotel in Miami, Florida, in late 1993. There, Armistead laid out an elaborate "Vince Foster murder scenario", a scenario that Brock later claimed was implausible." Regardless, by the end of 1993, Brock was writing stories for the Spectator that made him "a lead figure in the drive to" expose Clinton.

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