A First In U.S. History -- Sitting President Faces Legal Discipline Proceedings

ATLANTA/LITTLE ROCK: The Southeastern Legal Foundation today acknowledged notification that the Arkansas Supreme Court Committee on Professional Conduct is serving U.S. President and Arkansas attorney Bill Clinton with a formal legal ethics complaint based on allegations raised by SLF attorney L. Lynn Hogue in 1998. This marks the first time in U.S. history when a sitting president is made the subject of formal professional ethics violations. According to Arkansas rules, the President will have thirty (30) days from receipt of the formal complaint to respond.

The Committee issued its formal complaint to the President in response to an order from the Arkansas Supreme Court to proceed with SLF’s complaint “forthwith” two weeks ago. SLF attorneys filed a mandamus action requesting that the Court compel Committee action on its complaint, which was filed in September 1998. The SLF complaint, and the contempt citation issued against President Clinton in April 1999 by U.S. District Court Judge Susan Webber Wright and forwarded to the Committee at that time, contemplate examples of lying under oath and obstructing justice following Clinton’s appearance in the Paula Jones lawsuit.

“This we know -- the most public of Arkansas attorneys lied under oath and obstructed justice, undermining both the necessary public confidence on which the rule of law depends and the necessary professional integrity which safeguards the profession of law,” said Matthew J. Glavin, SLF President. “When a lawyer violates his professional oath, lies before a court of law and obstructs justice, that lawyer must be held accountable, and now that process can begin.”

SLF Legal Advisory Board Chairman and constitutional law professor L. Lynn Hogue, who, as a licensed Arkansas attorney, filed the initial complaint, repeated the concerns he raised with the Washington press corps in December last year. “As a law professor, I train minds in the practice of American jurisprudence. A fundamental part of that training is to instill an absolutely necessary respect for the lawyer’s role as an officer of the court. Our system of laws depends on that fidelity. Breaking that fidelity requires disciplinary action.”

Southeastern Legal Foundation is an Atlanta-based public interest law firm founded in 1976. In 1999, SLF won a U.S. Supreme Court decision challenging the Clinton administration Census 2000 plan to use statistical sampling for congressional apportionment, and successfully represented retired FBI agent and author Gary Aldrich against Clinton administration efforts to prevent publication of his bestseller, Unlimited Access: An FBI Agent Inside the Clinton White House.

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