Linda Medlar

Who is Linda Medlar?

Linda Medlar-Jones was a principal figure in a high profile political sex scandal that triggered an exhaustive 2 ½ year, multi-million dollar investigation by the U.S. Office of the Independent Counsel during the first term of U.S. President Bill Clinton. The principal target of the investigation was her former lover, Housing and Urban Development secretary Henry Gabriel Cisneros of San Antonio, Texas.

The illicit relationship between Medlar and Cisneros, who were both married at the time, began in 1987 while he was Mayor of San Antonio, and she was a volunteer Mayoral campaign staffer. Medlar, who according to court documents had a long history of mental illness, secretly recorded many of her telephone conversations with Cisneros. These recordings she later sold to Rupert Murdock’s Fox Network television program Inside Edition for the sum $15,000. In 1994, Medlar entered a lawsuit for $250,000 against Cisneros, accusing him of fraud, breach of contract, and failure to support her. This lawsuit was settled the following year for $49,000.

Court records reveal that Medlar had received a total of $250,000 from Cisneros between 1988 and 1992, prior to his cabinet appointment.