Arkansas Development Finance Authority

The Arkansas Development Finance Authority (ADFA) charter was drafted by Webster Hubbell, passed by the Arkansas state legislature at Gov. Bill Clinton's urging and signed into law by Gov. Clinton in 1985. The ADFA has no regulator and no legislative oversight. The governor appointed the board members and reviewed every bond issued. There was no limit on the value of bonds that could be issued.

Seth Ward, Webbster Hubbell's father-in-law and owner of Park-On-Meter (POM), an Arkansas manufacturer of parking meters, recieved the first loan from ADFA for $2.85 million. The money was intended to expand Ward's parking meter manufacturing into gun manufacturing for the CIA for use in Central America with untraceable serial numbers; however, the CIA did not make this request - someone in Gov. Clinton's Arkansas political machine blabbed openly about the covert supply chain operating out of Mena, Arkansas with Gov. Clinton's consent to aid the Nicaraguan Contras and their need for untraceable weapons due to the Boland Amendment.

The ADFA primarily served two masters: the Stephens, Inc., investment bank that received 78 percent of ADFA's underwriting fees and sales of housing and industrial bonds (Clinton had appointed two Stephens associates to the ADFA board) (10); and Clinton crony Dan Lasater, whose municipal bond issues firm underwrote $664 million in Arkansas state bonds in just two yeaes. In just two years Lasater & Co. underwote $664 million in Arkansas bonds.

Lasater was a party animal renowned for cocaine soirees at his Arkansas mansion, who claimed to have paid off drug debts of the President's brother Roger. Even after a police investigation of Lasater in 1985 for drugs, Clinton approved a $30.2 million bond issue for him to overhaul the state police radio system. In 1986 Lasater was sentenced to 30 months in prison for the distribution of cocaine (Roger Clinton was an unindicted co-conspirator) and was pardoned for it by Clinton. He remained connected to the White House through Patsy Thomasson, manager of Lasater and Company while Lasater was in jail.