6/26/00 10:05 a.m.
Al Gore's Groundhog Day
The law never stops being the law.

By Ann Coulter, legal columnist for Human Events & a syndicated columnist with Universal Press Syndicate

he Clinton/Gore administration has been to the Law what a virus is to the body. When you have the flu, every cell in your body spontaneously and independently colludes to eject the hostile organism. You develop a fever to incinerate the virus, you cough, you sneeze, you sleep, you sweat. There's no masking the symptoms with medicine, it only makes you feel a little better for a little while. Until the virus is gone, you just have to wait for your body's many and various methods of self-preservation to do their job.

Similarly, no matter how much Nyquil Janet Reno and Geraldo Rivera pour down the throats of the legal system in America, the Rule of Law can't help rebelling and spitting Clinton and Gore out.

To take a few striking examples, recall that the entire Supreme Court boycotted President Clinton's first State of the Union Address after he was acquitted by the Senate in his impeachment trial. That is an amazing fact. Not one single Supreme Court Justice showed up. Not the Justices he appointed. Not one. Never before has the entire Supreme Court refused to show up for a president's scheduled State of the Union address.

At the moment, the only guy facing criminal prosecution out of the Lewinsky scandal is, appropriately enough, the criminal — one William Jefferson Clinton. The president also faces disbarment — a proceeding recommended by the federal judge who presided over his deposition in the Jones case, finding that Clinton had given "intentionally false" testimony about "material" facts. (If anyone notices that President Clinton is the honorary president of the Boy Scouts, he'll probably be disbarred from that too.)

Meanwhile, the less charismatic criminal working out of the White House can't seem to shake an investigation into his own criminal acts. From the Clinton-appointed Director of the FBI, Louis Freeh, to the two career prosecutors chosen by Janet Reno herself — the White House's own consigliere — lawyers want Gore prosecuted. First Charles LaBella and now Robert J. Conrad have recommended appointment of a special prosecutor to investigate Gore's fundraising violations.

It's been a disaster for all their careers, but the thing is, the law is their career, so they can't help themselves. Lawyers look at the law, look at the facts, and apply the law to the facts. (Except defense lawyers and Janet Reno, who lie about the law, lie about the facts, and would lie about the weather if you asked.)

Vice President Gore broke the law. He committed criminal campaign- fundraising violations by holding a fundraiser at a Buddhist Temple, making fundraising calls from his office, and then lying to investigators about both. There is no way around these facts, which is why no matter how many "career professionals" the Attorney General tries to drag in for cover, lawyers are going to keep recommending prosecution. They can't help it — it's like sneezing.

In the end, Gore may never trade in his earth tones for prison blues, but the legal system can't stop itself from trying to apprehend him. The White House's consigliere is just dragging out his misery. Thanks to Janet Reno's dutiful ministrations, Al Gore cannot escape his own True Crime Stories meets Groundhog Day.