(FORTUNE Magazine) – Of all the people who drowned in Whitewater, only Jim Guy Tucker is still fighting. "I feel terribly abused and wronged," the former Arkansas governor says. "I spent 14 years in public office, and no one ever made a suggestion that I was anything but a good and faithful public servant."

Tucker has filed a blizzard of appeals and motions, all the way up to the Supreme Court, arguing everything from juror bias to Ken Starr's alleged ties to anti-Clinton conspirators. His obsession with clearing his name led FORTUNE to closely review the record. Our conclusion: Tucker is a master at arguing technicalities, but he clearly committed fraud. In one case, he got Dwight Harlan, his future cable deputy in Indonesia, to serve as the figurehead president of a company so that Tucker could get an SBA-backed loan. (Tucker had already exceeded the borrowing limit.) The second case, in which Tucker pled guilty in 1998 to conspiracy to commit tax fraud, is more complex. It features a series of corporate gyrations in four states, two shell companies, another figurehead president and dubious SBA loan, a rescinded merger, a bankruptcy filing in Texas, false documents, and the transformation of Tucker from a purchaser of assets into a creditor through a recreated note. In the end, it netted Tucker and a partner several million dollars.

Tucker maintains that his maneuvers "had nothing to do with taxes" and everything to do with protecting himself from a man named Michael Starks, who was claiming a stake in the project. But Starks tells FORTUNE that his 8% interest was never a big issue and that he reached a settlement on the same day in 1987 that Tucker and his team quietly filed for bankruptcy. Tucker's tax lawyer, John Haley, defiantly says, "I'd do the same thing again," when asked about the shell game. But Haley disputes Tucker on one key point: He confirms that tax savings were a consideration in the bankruptcy filing. "It was lying, cheating, and stealing," says Tom Dawson, a former Starr deputy. "One thing you've got to understand about Tucker, based on the evidence in this case, is that he loves money more than anything else." A smoking gun: Prior to the bankruptcy, Tucker jotted down figures for the tax "penalties plus interest" he might face.

A judge ordered Tucker to pay $1 million in restitution in 1999, but the fine is now hung up in court, with both sides arguing tax law technicalities so arcane that even the civil and criminal divisions of the IRS have been at odds. Tucker claims he owes nothing and could even wind up with a refund. Snaps Dawson: "We must be the smartest prosecutors on the face of the earth if we convicted a guy for tax fraud when he didn't owe any taxes."

Bob Jacobs, a highly respected tax lawyer at Milbank Tweed Hadley & McCloy, reviewed the record for FORTUNE and concluded that there was clear fraud that should result in Tucker's owing taxes. "I can't imagine these smart lawyers doing such stupid things," says Jacobs about Tucker and his associates. "It's too cute by much too much. And they left quite a trail. I've been practicing for 40 years, and I've never seen anything like this. I think that these guys just believe they are above it all."

Riady also has trouble admitting he did anything wrong, even though his Lippo Group helped funnel hundreds of illegal contributions to Democratic politicians and groups. During Riady's March sentencing, at which he pled guilty to reimbursing most of those contributions, Riady told the judge that "mistakes have been made." Asked if he understood that what he did was illegal, Riady said he was "not familiar with the details of those rules and regulations" but that he had a "general sense that if you contributed, it should be out of your own money." Yet in a recent interview with the FBI, Riady said that by August 1992 he knew that reimbursing was illegal.

Even more difficult to swallow was Riady's assertion that his net worth was a mere $20 million--less than the value of Tucker's tiny stake in AcrossAsia--leading one prosecutor to state that the $8.6 million fine was 45% of his fortune.

One of Riady's most controversial acts was to hire former Justice Department official Webster Hubbell on the same day Riady met with Clinton in the Oval Office in 1994 and wire him a $100,000 retainer. Riady says he "felt sorry" for Hubbell, who later went to prison for fraud. But the feds have long suspected that Hubbell did little or no work for Riady and that the payment was hush money to keep Hubbell quiet about wrongdoing by the Clintons.

Those same suspicions have arisen about Tucker's relationship with Riady. But Starr's ex-deputy Hickman Ewing, who debriefed Tucker at 15 meetings, concludes, "There was no testimony to be bought." In fact, he says, Tucker provided pages from a diary he kept while serving as lieutenant governor under Clinton. The passages, Hickman says, are "very, very uncomplimentary--it's like, this guy didn't have any business being President.... He [Tucker] didn't think that much of either the President or the First Lady."

The feeling may have been mutual: In the waning days of his Administration, Clinton denied Tucker's application for a pardon. Riady seems to have his own bad feelings. "Knowing important people," he says of Clinton, "like with money, is both a blessing and a curse."