So does my 3 yr old! LOL
Hey I hate to get off topic but I LOVE this article. He got busted! YEAH!!!!
Monday April 12, 8:48 pm Eastern Time
Judge cites Clinton for contempt in Jones suit
(Adds fresh quotes, reaction)
By Steve Barnes
LITTLE ROCK, Ark., April 12 (Reuters) - President Bill Clinton was cited for contempt of court on Monday by a federal judge who said he gave false testimony in Paula Jones' sexual harassment lawsuit.
U.S. District Judge Susan Webber Wright said in a strongly worded order that ''the record demonstrates by clear and convincing evidence that the president responded to plaintiffs' questions by giving false, misleading and evasive answers that were designed to obstruct the judicial process.''
White House officials declined immediate comment and referred calls to Robert Bennett, Clinton's personal attorney, who said in a one-line statement he would have ''no comment until I have had the opportunity of reviewing this matter fully.''
Wright ordered Clinton to pay both Jones' legal fees caused by his ''willful refusal'' to obey discovery orders and the court's expenses in traveling to Washington to hear his Jan. 17, 1998 deposition.
She also said she was referring the case to the Arkansas Supreme Court committee on professional conduct for possible sanctions against Clinton's license to practice law in the state.
''The court takes no pleasure whatsoever in holding this nation's president in contempt of court,'' Wright said. ''(But) there is simply no escaping the fact that the president deliberately violated this court's discovery orders and thereby undermined the integrity of the judicial system.''
In his deposition, Clinton used legalese to deny having an affair with former White House intern Monica Lewinsky. But later he recanted and admitted they had an ''improper relationship.''
The Lewinsky affair led to Clinton's impeachment by the U.S. House of Representatives for lying under oath and obstructing justice, but he was acquitted by the U.S. Senate.
After his admission of the affair, an angry Wright said she would review his conduct for possible contempt, which led to Monday's order.
''The president's deposition testimony regarding whether he had ever been alone with Ms. Lewinsky was intentionally false and his statements regarding whether he had ever engaged in sexual relations with Ms. Lewinsky likewise were intentionally false, notwithstanding tortured definitions and interpretations of the term sexual relations,'' Wright said in the order.
She gave Clinton 30 days to appeal the decision or request a hearing. But she warned that she would open a hearing to ''testimony, if necessary, from witnesses on all matters concerning the president's conduct in this lawsuit.''
In her lawsuit, Jones charged that Clinton, then governor of Arkansas, asked her for oral sex during a meeting in a Little Rock hotel.
Wright dismissed the suit in April 1998 for lack of evidence. Jones appealed, but the case was dropped last year when Clinton settled with her for $850,000.
Wright's order Monday came hours after Clinton friend Susan McDougal was acquitted in the same Little Rock courthouse of charges she obstructed justice by refusing to cooperate with independent counsel Kenneth Starr. The jury failed to reach a verdict on two other charges of contempt of court.
McDougal and late ex-husband James McDougal invested along with Clinton and wife Hillary Rodham Clinton in the failed 1970s Whitewater real estate venture that led to Starr's four-year-long investigation of Clinton. During the investigation, Starr branched out into the Lewinsky affair, in part because of information from the Jones lawsuit.
Republican National Committee Chairman Jim Nicholson called Wright's decision ''a long overdue victory for the rule of law''.
''No one, not even the president of the United States is above the law. Perjury should not be ignored or condoned in America's courts,'' he said in a statement. |
