Dick Morris: Clinton's Lawyer is a Liar, Too.
New York Post
January 26, 1999 Dick Morris
CLINTON'S LAWYER IS A LIAR, TOO
By DICK MORRIS
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EVEN as the impeachment trial grinds to a close and the
president prepares to show his remorse by dancing on its
grave, the White House has introduced us to yet another
liar in this long, tawdry process - Charles Ruff,
President Clinton's lawyer. Throughout the proceedings,
defense lawyers Ruff and Cheryl Mills have shown about
the same regard for the truth as their famous client.
Charles Ruff was originally slated to be Clinton's
attorney general - until it was revealed that, for years,
he had not paid the federal nanny tax for his household
help. Clinton quickly dumped him, but years later brought
him in as counsel to the president, a position which did
not require Senate confirmation and conveniently avoided
any airing of his deliberate and embarrassing tax
evasion.
Cheryl Mills was the subject of a congressional referral
to the Justice Department which accused her of perjury
and obstruction of justice in congressional proceedings.
Sound familiar? She can truly feel Clinton's pain; she's
been there, done that.
Some of Ruff's lies are laughs - like his earnest
contentions that the DNA test had nothing to do with the
president's belated decision to come clean about his
relationship with Monica Lewinsky. Particularly humorous
was his straight-faced statement that Clinton paid
$850,000 to Paula Jones not because he was guilty but
because he didn't have the time to deal with a case that
had already been dismissed.
In Ruff's shamelessly duplicitous argument before
Congress, he deliberately lied about Betty Currie's
status in the Paula Jones case. House Manager Asa
Hutchison skillfully exposed that lie. Ruff also claimed
that he did not know whether the president had actually
ever had any conversations with me about the poll which I
conducted for him about the Monica Lewinsky matter on
Jan. 21, 1998.
Unfortunately for Ruff, the president's own sworn written
testimony - prepared by the same Charles Ruff - admits
the conversations and exposes that lie. But like his
client, Ruff remembers only what is convenient. During
Ruff's presentation, he claimed that the president had no
illicit intentions in his ''coaching'' of Betty
Currie because, as he put it, ''Betty Currie was never an
actual or prospective witness ... In the entire history
of the Jones case, Ms. Currie's name had not appeared on
any witness list; nor was there any reason to suspect
that she would play any role in the Jones case ... In the
days following the deposition, the Jones lawyers never
listed her, never added her to any witness list.''
Therefore, according to Ruff, the president would have
had no motivation to coach Betty because she was of no
interest to the Jones lawyers. He was simply refreshing
his recollections. (Leave aside for the moment that he
was apparently refreshing his recollection by making
statements to Betty that he knew - and she knew - were
untrue.)
Asa Hutchison caught Ruff's blatant lie and powerfully
proved it to the Senate. He held up a copy of the
subpoena that was actually issued for Betty Currie only a
few days after the president's fateful deposition. Ruff
knew all about that subpoena, but he lied about it
anyway.
Then, Hutchison held up the actual witness list, showing
Betty Currie's name, which the Jones lawyers had
submitted to the Court and to the president's lawyers on
Jan. 23, 1998.
Ruff knew all about that witness list, but he
deliberately lied about that, too. When Ruff was caught,
he apologized to the Senate for his ''misleading
statement.'' In WhiteHousespeak, that means ''I lied to
you and got caught.''
Ruff's co-counsel Cheryl Mills claimed that Betty
Currie's testimony about retrieving the president's gifts
to Lewinsky was consistent. That depends on what the word
''consistent'' means. Hutchison demonstrated that Betty
Currie was actually inconsistent.
Only four weeks after she had actually retrieved the
gifts from Monica on Dec. 28, 1997, Currie told the FBI
that she had picked them up about three months earlier,
distancing that event from the Jones subpoena for those
gifts in December. Later, she moved it back even further,
claiming that it was in the fall of 1997. Finally, Currie
admitted that it was sometime in December, 1997. In this
White House, that is what passes for consistency. When
Ruff was asked about the poll that I conducted for the
president, and our telephone call discussing it, he
claimed that he had ''no idea whether the conversation
ever occurred or not.'' Once again, Ruff lied. When the
president responded to the eighty-one questions from the
House Managers, he admitted that the poll was taken and
that he discussed it with me in telephone calls. Not only
did Ruff know all about the president's sworn answers, he
was the one who prepared them and certified that they
were true and accurate. Ruff also supervised the
provision of White House documents to Kenneth Starr -
including records of telephone calls from the president
to me during the relevant time period. Ruff knew about
that, too, but he lied, anyway.
If his own client admitted, under oath, that the
conversation between the president and me did, indeed,
take place and that I did, indeed, conduct a poll, why
would Ruff try to suggest otherwise? While one cannot
blame Ruff for being skeptical of the veracity of his own
client's assertions, we can assume that any admission
adverse to the president's interests would likely be
true.
Ruff tried to wish away the poll because he wanted to
avoid calling attention to the undeniable fact that the
president himself was masterminding and coordinating the
White House cover-up of the Lewinsky matter. Most of all,
Ruff knew about that.
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