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Who is behind the Clinton disbarment effort?
WASHINGTON (CNN) - To supporters, the Southeastern Legal Foundation is a defender of truth, justice and the constitutional way for all Americans, regardless of their political persuasion. Critics say the 24-year-old Atlanta legal group is a "right-wing" entity that manipulates the constitutional principles to reflect its political agenda, which includes targeting President Clinton.
Whatever the viewpoint, one thing is clear: The Southeastern Legal Foundation thrives on controversy and is frequently identified as occupying a firmly conservative position on national issues. The latest issue for which the conservative group has gained fame -- or infamy -- is the disbarment recommendation against President Clinton issued Monday by a panel of the Arkansas Supreme Court. A lawsuit the group filed in September 1998 on behalf of a Georgia State University law professor partly led to Monday's recommendation. The court panel recommended that Clinton be disbarred -- banned from practicing law in his native state -- for lying about the Monica Lewinsky matter. Clinton's attorney, David Kendall, said he would fight the recommendation in court. If Clinton loses at the trial court level, he can appeal to the state supreme court. Public policy agendaThe motivating force behind the group is purely constitutional, according to foundation President Matthew Glavin, a 47-year-old former public policy professional who took over the group five years ago. He vehemently denies any accusations of a political agenda. "Our contribution (to society) is to defend the integrity and the founding principles of the United States Constitution," Glavin said in a telephone interview Tuesday. The role of government is to protect and guarantee rights, not to exercise those rights." The group's Web site elaborates on that point: "Southeastern Legal Foundation is a public interest law firm which advocates limited government, individual economic freedom, and the free enterprise system. We look for cases in which our involvement can make a difference, not just to the parties involved, but also on the policies or issues that are in dispute." Glavin said his group filed the disbarment lawsuit because Clinton's false testimony is a violation of legal ethics, because the "most prominent attorney in the United States has been lying under oath." Vehement criticism
In 1998, TIME magazine linked the group to the "vast right-wing conspiracy" that First Lady Hilary Rodham Clinton alleged was out to get her husband. Last year, Atlanta Mayor Bill Campbell compared the group to the Ku Klux Klan and called it a "right-wing attack dog." The group is suing the city over an affirmative action program. Campbell's office did not return telephone calls from CNN.com on Tuesday. University of Arkansas law professor John DiPippa, who has emerged as a leading critic of the recommendation to disbar the president, said he is suspicious of the Southeastern Legal Foundation. Noting that the group receives funding from Clinton basher Richard Scaife, a Pennsylvania billionaire who is said to fund causes designed to topple the president, DiPippa said, "I think any of the Scaife-funded operations have one goal and that is to bring down the president." Kendall, Clinton's attorney, has publicly lambasted the group for receiving money from Scaife. He also accused the group of maintaining ties to independent counsel Kenneth Starr, whose Whitewater investigation included the Paula Jones and Monica Lewinsky probes, leading to Clinton's impeachment in the House and subsequent acquittal in the Senate. Funding sources and historyGlavin acknowledged that his group receives funding from Scaife, but refused to say how much of the foundation's $2 million budget for last year came from the reclusive billionaire. He added that he has never met Scaife. He also denied that Starr has close ties to the group, saying Starr gave one speech to the organization this year. Glavin said much of the organization's funding has come from some 118,000 contributors from across the United States, a growing share from California. The group has three full-time staff attorneys and taps into a network of some 160 lawyers across the U.S., primarily in the eastern portion of the country, he said. The group, founded by a clutch of business people and public officials in 1976, undertook a number of property rights cases in the early years. Most of the cases involved the government taking private property without adequately compensating the owners, Glavin said. As its fame has grown, the group has filed lawsuits seeking to overturn or limit affirmative action, against excessive taxation, against the use of sampling while conducting the census, and against environmental policies designed to curb human access, according to Glavin. Glavin said the legal victory he is most proud of was the U.S. Supreme Court's order barring the Clinton administration from using statistical sampling during the 2000 Census. Known as an aggressive fund-raiser, Glavin founded and ran the Georgia Public Policy Foundation before taking over the Southeastern Legal Foundation in 1995. The group's board of directors decides which cases it will take on and where. He earned a broadcasting degree from Columbia College in Sonora, California, and opened a marketing and communications firm in Vermont. He also had his own radio and television talk shows in Vermont. A conservative ACLU?Glavin has boasted that his group is a "conservative alternative" to the American Civil Liberties Union. But the ACLU believes itself to be a conservative organization because it believes in defending the Constitution at all costs, whether a particular fight is politically popular or not, according to Debbie Seagrave, executive director of the Georgia ACLU. "I don't know what their agenda is. They're not just an organization we think very much about," she said, adding she has read news accounts portraying the Southeastern Legal Foundation as a politically motivated group. "We're not trying to follow a political agenda. We're trying to protect the Bill of Rights," she said. After a pause, she added, "I'm sure they would say that, too." RELATED STORIES: Seven remove themselves from decision on Clinton disbarment RELATED SITES: Arkansas Bar Association | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Interview with Matthew Glavin of the Southeastern Legal Foundation on CNN Early Edition.
Senior White House Correspondent John King investigates what the recommendation on disbarment could mean for President Clinton.
