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Arkansas Supreme Court files suit to disbar Clinton

June 30, 2000
Web posted at: 6:40 p.m. EDT (2240 GMT)

From staff and wire reports

ALSO • Full Text: Letter recommending Clinton's disbarment (FindLaw)

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WASHINGTON -- A committee of the Arkansas Supreme Court sued U.S. President Bill Clinton Friday, seeking to disbar him.

The state Supreme Court's standards committee has recommended President Clinton's Arkansas law license be withdrawn in the wake of accusations he gave misleading testimony under oath in the Paula Jones case.

That deposition, made January 17, 1998, became the basis of an independent counsel investigation and of the president's impeachment.

Clinton's attorneys said they plan to fight the disbarment.

A courier delivered to the clerk of the Pulaski County Circuit Court Friday afternoon the paperwork necessary to pursue the lawsuit.

The court's computer will assign one of the seven circuit judges to hear the case.

Assuming the judge does not withdraw because of a conflict, the judge next week would be expected to schedule a hearing.

"The conduct of Mr. Clinton ... was motivated by a desire to protect himself from the embarrassment of his own conduct," the court's Committee on Professional Conduct said in the five-page lawsuit.

The committee had voted May 19 to sue Clinton over his conduct in the Paula Jones sexual harassment case and said that Clinton, in a sworn deposition, gave misleading answers about his relationship with White House intern Monica Lewinsky.

In language much stronger than that used in May, the committee's lawsuit asked Circuit Judge John Ward to find that the president "has conducted himself in a manner that violates the model rules of professional conduct as adopted by the Arkansas Supreme Court."

In the brief, 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.

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 law license, but that came after he resigned the presidency August 9, 1974, during the Watergate scandal.

Correspondent Bob Franken and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Arkansas Bar Association
Arkansas Supreme Court
White House Web site
Southeastern Legal Foundation

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