 From 1982 to 1991, Clifford served as chairman of First American Bankshares, which grew to become the largest bank in Washington, D.C.The bank was nominally owned by a group of Arab investors, but in order to assuage fears from the Federal Reserve, Clifford had assembled a board of distinguished American citizens to exercise day-to-day control.In 1991, Robert M. Morgenthau, the District Attorney for New York County (coterminous with the borough of Manhattan), disclosed that his office had found evidence that BCCI secretly owned First American.