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Oust Clinton From the Legal Profession

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Peter Angelos In Foul Territory

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Fourth Amendment Sneak Attack

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5/23/00 11:55 a.m.
Oust Clinton From The Legal Profession
The long and winding road to disbarment.

By Mark R. Levin, president, Landmark Legal Foundation

he Disciplinary Committee of the Arkansas Supreme Court has recommended that Bill Clinton be disbarred. The Clintonoids have already been dispatched, far and wide, to argue that the recommendation is a miscarriage of justice. The only miscarriage of justice is that this recommendation has taken so long to secure.

Let's set the record straight:

1. On September 2, 1998, Landmark Legal Foundation filed a petition with Federal District Judge Susan Webber Wright asking her to hold Bill Clinton in contempt of court for obstructing her judicial proceedings during his deposition in the Paula Jones sexual-harassment lawsuit. Landmark argued that the Court had the power to act, under U.S. Supreme Court and appellate court precedent, because Clinton's deposition occurred in front of the judge, and his intentional false testimony, provided under oath, was therefore an offense against the Court itself.

2. On April 12, 1999, Judge Wright held Clinton in contempt. As Landmark had pointed out, and the judge concluded: "[T]he President's deposition testimony regarding whether he had ever been alone with Ms. Lewinsky was intentionally false, and his statements regarding whether he had ever engaged in sexual relations with Ms. Lewinsky likewise were intentionally false, notwithstanding tortured definitions and interpretations of the term 'sexual relations.'" Judge Wright also wrote: "It is difficult to construe the President's sworn statements in this civil lawsuit concerning his relationship with Ms. Lewinsky as anything other than a willful refusal to obey this Court's discovery Orders."

3. Clinton had a right to challenge the Court's contempt order, but he chose not to. He said he was too busy being president to defend himself. The truth is that Clinton didn't want a public hearing into Judge Wright's findings because that would have required him to repeat his lies under oath yet again. (Clinton didn't challenge the over $90,000 in penalties leveled against him, either.)

4. Judge Wright referred the matter of Clinton's misconduct to the Arkansas Disciplinary Committee. Several months earlier, the Southeastern Legal Foundation filed an ethics complaint against Clinton asserting that his testimony in the Jones case violated Rule 8.4 of the Arkansas Rules of Professional Conduct. That rule states: "It is professional misconduct for a lawyer to engage in conduct involving dishonesty, fraud, deceit or misrepresentation." Southeastern was forced to ask the Arkansas Supreme Court to issue a writ of mandamus directing the Disciplinary Committee to act on the ethics complaints, which it did.

5. On May 22, 2000, the Disciplinary Committee, citing Rule 8.4., recommended that Clinton be disbarred. It seems that after eight of the 14 members of the Committee with ties to Clinton finally recused themselves, the Committee was able to come to the inescapable conclusion that Clinton's assault on the judiciary should cost him his law license.

Bill Clinton has been impeached, held in contempt of court, and may lose his law license. And, with any luck, the prosecutors investigating Clinton's crimes will muster the courage to indict him at some point. This is a fitting legacy for the most corrupt president in American history. Perhaps the Clinton Presidential Library should be equipped with bars in the windows, and an exercise yard, as a tribute to this man.

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