🚀 go-pugleaf

This man is scum.  He is going to order your sons and daughters to their deaths in an undeclared, illegal war that cannot be won AGAINST A SOVERIGN COUNTRY THAT ATTACKED NO AMERICAN OR NATO COUNTRY.
Write your rep's and tell them NO GROUND TROOPS!


Contempt Ruling Could Have Big Cost for Clinton 
Updated 4.12 p.m. ET (2012 GMT) April 14, 1999 
By Steve Holland  WASHINGTON � President Clinton's contempt of court 
ruling raised the possibility Tuesday that he could be charged hundreds 
of thousands of dollars more in legal fees and be disbarred from 
practicing law in his home state.

J. Scott Applewhite/APClinton has always insisted that his answers in 
the Jones deposition were 'legally accurate' even though admittedly they 
were misleading 

U.S. District Judge Susan Webber Wright of Little Rock, Arkansas, found 
Clinton in contempt Monday for giving "false, misleading and evasive 
answers" in his Jan. 17, 1998, sworn testimony in the Paula Jones sexual 
harassment lawsuit against him.

White House officials were leaving it up to Clinton's lawyer Robert 
Bennett to comment on the ruling. Bennett has declined comment beyond 
saying that he is reviewing the ruling. Clinton has 30 days to request a 
hearing or file a motion to appeal.

There has been no official announcement of his decision, but the 
Washington Post reported in Wednesday editions that the president did 
not plan to challenge the order.

It quoted sources familiar with the advice Clinton has received from 
attorneys and advisers, but said the president had not yet been 
presented with a final recommendation.

Lanny Davis, former White House special counsel, said he was 
recommending Clinton not appeal the order.

"This is a non-story that the books are closed on and the country has 
moved on and so should he," Davis said. He said Wright could have made 
her point without citing Clinton for contempt, calling it "extremely 
irregular" that she did so.

Wright ruled that Clinton must pay any reasonable expenses, including 
attorney's fees, caused by his "willful failure" to tell the truth in 
the Jones testimony.

Mike Wintroath/APClinton has already paid Jones and her lawyers $850,000 
to settle her lawsuit 

She also referred the matter to the Arkansas Supreme Court's Committee 
on Professional Conduct for review, meaning Clinton could be barred from 
practicing law in Arkansas after he leaves office.

Clinton's denial under oath in the Jones case that he had a sexual 
relationship with former White House intern Monica Lewinsky triggered a 
year-long ordeal in which he was impeached by the U.S. House of 
Representatives and finally acquitted by the Senate in February of 
perjury and obstruction of justice charges.

Clinton has always insisted that his answers in the Jones deposition 
were "legally accurate" even though admittedly they were misleading.

Asked if Clinton still felt he told the truth, White House spokesman Joe 
Lockhart said: "I don't believe the president has changed his view."

John Whitehead, who was one of Jones' attorneys, said he did not yet 
know the total legal fees and expenses that he and a team of six or 
seven other lawyers incurred during the deposition process and the 
events that occurred afterward.

"We'll have our billable hours. So you're looking at mucho, mucho, mucho 
hours. You're looking into the hundreds of thousands in legal fees," 
Whitehead said.

Plus, he said, the lawyers' legal expenses would total tens of thousands 
of dollars.

"We're going to hit him for what's fair," he said.

Wright herself has ordered Clinton to pay the $1,202 it cost for her to 
travel to Washington from Little Rock in January 1998 for the Jones 
deposition.

What constitutes reasonable attorneys' fees was likely to be a dominant 
topic in Bennett's deliberations over whether to appeal the ruling.

Stephen Saltzburg, law professor at George Washington University in 
Washington, said Clinton should let the contempt order stand and not 
appeal. He doubted whether the court would approve huge legal fees and 
expenses against Clinton.

"I think it would be a bad mistake to appeal it because it just invites 
the court to say something more bad about it," Saltzburg said. "I think 
he would be better off letting this go."

Clinton has already paid Jones and her lawyers $850,000 to settle her 
lawsuit. He has run up about $9 million in legal bills defending himself 
against various legal entanglements over the past six years. About $3 
million of that has been paid, leaving him with outstanding legal debt 
of at least $6 million.

Clinton, in a CBS interview on March 31, said he did not regard the 
historic impeachment vote against him in the House as a "badge of 
shame."

Now he faces the ignominy of being the first president ever cited for 
contempt.

Saltzburg said it could have been worse, that Wright could have charged 
Clinton with criminal contempt, which carries possible criminal 
penalties.

"Her opinion is not that harsh an opinion in most respects. It could 
have been a lot worse," he said.