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HenchPAC NewsArkansas Committee Sues Clinton!
6/30/00LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) -- A committee of the Arkansas Supreme Court sued President Clinton on Friday, seeking to strip him of his law license in an unprecedented disciplinary action against a sitting president.
The court's Committee on Professional Conduct voted May 19 to sue Clinton over ''serious misconduct'' in the Paula Jones sexual harassment case. The panel said that, in a sworn deposition, Clinton gave misleading answers about his relationship with White House intern Monica Lewinsky.
Friday's brief filing in Pulaski County Circuit Court asked a judge to find that Clinton ''has conducted himself in a manner that violates the model rules of professional conduct as adopted by the Arkansas Supreme Court.''
Clinton has 30 days to respond to the lawsuit.
The conduct committee accused Clinton of ''serious misconduct and defines the term as involving dishonesty, deceit, fraud and misrepresentation.'' It said it based its lawsuit on complaints filed by a federal judge and by an Atlanta law firm, the Southeastern Legal Foundation.
The five-page lawsuit also said the president's conduct ''damages the legal profession and demonstrates a lack of overall fitness to hold a license to practice law.'' It was accompanied by dozens of pages of exhibits, including a partial transcript of Clinton's deposition in the Jones case.
Clinton has said the Arkansas committee was responding too harshly and that his lawyers would fight but he would not get involved personally in the case.
The lawsuit was filed in Pulaski County Circuit Court, which handles most cases involving state government. Marie-Bernarde Miller, a lawyer and former nun who this year successfully argued to remove a sitting judge from office, was selected to handle the state's case.
Regardless of the outcome in the local court, it is expected that the case will ultimately end up before the state Supreme Court.
This is the first time an effort has been made to strip a sitting president of his law license. New York pulled Richard Nixon's license to practice law, but that came after he resigned the presidency Aug. 9, 1974, during the Watergate scandal.
Clinton was impeached by the House and acquitted at a Senate trial, and he also has been fined for contempt of court.
The Southeastern Legal Foundation, a conservative law group, and U.S. District Judge Susan Webber Wright referred Clinton to the discipline committee, saying he lied under oath about the Lewinsky affair when asked about it by Jones' lawyers.
Jones, a former Arkansas state worker, sued Clinton in 1994, claiming he made a crude pass at her in a Little Rock hotel room three years earlier. Jones lawyers drew Lewinsky into the case in an attempt to show a pattern of sexual misconduct by Clinton, a trail later picked up by Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr that led to Clinton's impeachment.
In January 1998, Clinton said in his sworn deposition: ''I have never had sexual relations with Monica Lewinsky.''
On Aug. 17, 1998, he told a federal grand jury that he had had an inappropriate relationship with her but said the conduct he engaged in with Lewinsky did not meet the definition of sex that was given at the start of the deposition. Wright found Clinton in contempt and fined him $90,000.
Jones settled the case out of court for $850,000 while appealing Wright's ruling dismissing her lawsuit. Clinton did not have to admit any wrongdoing.
When the professional conduct committee met May 19, eight of the panel's 14 regular and auxiliary members recused themselves -- five citing ties to Clinton or the Democratic Party -- and the remaining six members said Clinton should no longer carry an Arkansas law license.
Clinton said his lawyers had told him that if he were to be treated like other lawyers, there would be ''no way in the world'' that he could lose his license.
Clinton, a licensed lawyer since Sept. 7, 1973, was attorney general of Arkansas from 1977-79 and once taught at the University of Arkansas law school. He has not practiced law since the early 1980s, between his first and second terms as Arkansas governor.
HENCH adds: It's just a matter of time now, with TWO legal actions attempting to remove his license at the same time. My guess, Clinton silenty turns his license in this weekend, and on Wednesday, after the holiday, it'll be "old news."
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