Arkansas disciplinary panel recommends Clinton disbarment

May 23, 2000
Web posted at: 8:28 a.m. EDT (1228 GMT)

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- President Bill Clinton's right to practice law in the state of Arkansas should be revoked because of "serious misconduct" in the Paula Jones sexual harassment case, a committee of the Arkansas Supreme Court recommended Monday.

Clinton, however, told NBC Nightly News that the committee was responding too harshly to testimony that he has labeled as "legally accurate."

The state Supreme Court released the decision late Monday afternoon, although the panel made the decision Friday.

The Southeastern Legal Foundation and U.S. District Judge Susan Webber Wright referred the Clinton case to the court's committee on professional conduct, saying the president lied under oath in the Jones case by denying he had a sexual relationship with former White House intern Monica Lewinsky.

The president's private counsel, David Kendall, issued a terse response to the panel's ruling late Monday afternoon.

"This recommendation is wrong, and clearly contradicted by the president," Kendall said. "We will dispute it in a court of law."

Clinton said on NBC Nightly News: "The only reason I agreed even to an appeal of this is, my lawyers looked at all the precedents and they said, 'There's no way in the world if they just treat you like everybody else has been treated, that this is even close to that kind of case.'

"We're going to give the judge a chance to do what we believe is right, and I think that's the right thing to do," said Clinton, who will not personally defend himself because it would interfere with his duties as president.

Clinton gave a sworn deposition in the Jones case in January 1998. That deposition, coupled with the public revelation of the Lewinsky affair just days later, ignited a fierce firestorm that culminated in the president's impeachment by the House of Representatives in late 1998, and his subsequent acquittal in a Senate trial early in 1999.

A majority of the panelists who met Friday to consider two complaints against the president found that he should be disciplined, the Supreme Court said.

"This action is being taken against (the president) as a result of the formal complaints ... and the findings by a majority of the committee that certain of the attorney's conduct, as demonstrated in the complaint, constituted serious misconduct," the committee said in the document released by the state Supreme Court.

The document was signed by James Neal, the committee's executive director, whose retirement from the panel also was disclosed Monday.

The Lewinsky matter was brought up in the Jones case by Paula Jones' lawyers, who had sought to illustrate a pattern of alleged sexual misdeeds committed by the president.

Clinton insisted that he did not lie when he was deposed in the Jones case, arguing that his relationship with the one-time White House intern did not meet the standards of a sexual relationship as defined at the beginning of the Jones deposition.

"I have never had sexual relations with Monica Lewinsky," Clinton said in the deposition, though he admitted in federal grand jury testimony later in 1998 that he had engaged in inappropriate physical activity with Lewinsky.

Jones had accused Clinton of exposing himself to her in a Little Rock hotel room in 1991, a year prior to his ascension to the presidency. Her suit was dismissed in 1998 by Wright, who said Clinton's alleged behavior, while it might have been "boorish," would not have met the legal standard of sexual harassment.

Wright cited Clinton for civil contempt last year and fined him $90,000 for giving "intentionally false" testimony.

The foundation also has suggested that Clinton be disbarred for lying and for obstructing justice. Wright has not publicly suggested a penalty.

"This is a confirmation that the legal system will police its own, regardless of the position held by the attorney in question," said Matt Glavin, president of the foundation. "Remember, this is the first time in American history that a sitting president faced disciplinary proceedings."

Under the rules of the committee, the disbarment recommendation now goes to a Pulaski County Circuit Court judge in Little Rock for consideration. Should the judge rule in favor of disbarment, the president's case may be appealed to the state's Supreme Court.

The committee's recommendation followed a minor controversy late last week, when eight of the body's 14 members recused themselves from the proceedings, citing close ties to Clinton.

Still, the committee, whose members regularly meet in groups of seven, pressed on. Of the six who heard Clinton's case, five were said to be lawyers, while the sixth was a retired schoolteacher. Some observers speculated after the recommendation was issued that the president's lawyers would attack the recommendation as flawed, arguing that those who remained on the panel may have been hostile to the president.

Clinton had sought something no harsher than a letter of reprimand, the foundation said last week, citing Clinton's still-unreleased response to its original filing seeking disbarment.

Clinton has been a lawyer for more than 25 years and taught at the University of Arkansas law school. He has not practiced actively since the early 1980s, in the two years that lapsed between his first and second terms as Arkansas governor.

CNN's John King and The Associated Press contributed to this report