So many of the friends of Bill and Hillary Clinton are in trouble that to stay in the power loop is becoming America's greatest acrobatic act.

The burly Mr Livingstone, 37, is the latest victim, pushed out of the inner sanctum after three years of strolling the corridors of the White House as head of security, picked by Mrs Clinton.

He came to Washington as a "Mr Fixit". He was a campaign "gofer" or advance man for Geraldine Ferraro during her vice-presidential run, he worked for Gary Hart and, with phones dangling from his belt, was Albert Gore's mover and shaker on the 1992 campaign.

His appearance hid the fact that he had been a bouncer in Pittsburgh and a public relations man for a casino in Atlantic City. No one doubted his "insider" status.

When Vincent Foster apparently shot himself in July 1993, he identified the body. Two Secret Service agents say that the next morning they saw him walking down the steps of the West Wing of the White House with a briefcase and a box of documents they suspect had been taken from the dead man's office.

Now implicated in the collection of FBI background files on Republicans - he kept them in a vault next to his desk, close to a photo-copying machine - he was last night on a paid leave-of- absence.

David Hale is in jail in Texas, serving 28 months for fraud, following his plea bargain with Mr Starr

Hubbell, who has said "I don't know" when asked if his friend Vincent Foster had given Whitewater files to Mrs Clinton, is now in prison at Cumberland, Maryland, serving 21 months for fraud and tax evasion after making a deal with Whitewater prosecutor Kenneth Starr.

David Hale is in jail in Texas, serving 28 months for fraud, following his plea bargain with Mr Starr. Short and pudgy, Hale, a devout Baptist, was noted in Arkansas for joining with the cartoonist Al Capp in creating the Dog Patch USA theme park in the Ozark Mountains featuring hillbillies and Li'l Abner. Mr Clinton thought so highly of him that he made him a municipal judge. Hale says that he met Mr Clinton in a trailer about an illegal loan. Mr Clinton allegedly insisted: "My name cannot show up on this."

The case is expected to provide a warts-and-all look at the brazenness of politics in the South

On trial at the moment for using bank funds to make illegal contributions to Mr Clinton's 1990 gubernatorial campaign is Herby "Boss Hog" Branscum, the wily, small-town, political boss and archetype of the Clinton's down-home cronies.

The case is expected to provide a warts-and-all look at the brazenness of politics in the South. Bruce Lindsey, a Clinton inner-circle Arkansan, is to come under some stiff cross-examination in the case, as is the President himself.

Targeted for possible perjury to the Senate Whitewater Committee is Mrs Clinton's chief-of-staff, Maggie Williams, along with Susan Thomases, a high-flying lawyer and the First Lady's closest friend for years. They are accused of helping Mrs Clinton to cover up the spiriting of Whitewater documents into her quarters at the White House. The rumour is that Mrs Clinton has begun to distance herself from Mrs Thomases.