Charles Ruff. Charles Frederick Carson Ruff (August 1, 1939 – November 19, 2000) was a prominent American lawyer based in Washington, D.C., and was best known as the White House Counsel who defended President Bill Clinton during his impeachment trial in 1999.
The impeachment trial of Bill Clinton, the 42nd president of the United States, began in the U.S. Senate on January 7, 1999, and concluded with his acquittal on February 9. After an inquiry between October and December 1998, President Clinton was impeached by the U.S. House of Representatives on December 19, 1998; the articles of impeachment charged him with perjury …
· NICOLE K. SELIGMAN. Seligman, 41, is the least-known member of Clinton’s private defense lawyers, a quiet presence at the side of her Williams & Connolly law partner, David E. Kendall. But she is one of few in Clinton’s inner circle. JOHN CONYERS. Michigan Democrats Conyers, 69, was elected to the House in 1964.
· AP Photo/Charles Dharapak. Craig left a prestigious job in Washington to be Clinton's designated "quarterback" during his impeachment proceedings, The Washington Post reported at the time. After ...
Charles Frederick Carson Ruff (August 1, 1939 – November 19, 2000) was a prominent American lawyer based in Washington, D.C., and was best known as the White House Counsel who defended President Bill Clinton during his impeachment trial in 1999.
Bernard William Nussbaum (March 23, 1937 – March 13, 2022) was an American attorney, best known for having served as White House Counsel under President Bill Clinton.
Steven Mark McFaddenm. 2001Stephen Jonesm. 1991–1999Paula Jones/Spouse
Charles Frederick Carson Ruff (August 1, 1939 – November 19, 2000) was a prominent American lawyer based in Washington, D.C., and was best known as the White House Counsel who defended President Bill Clinton during his impeachment trial in 1999.
In February 1997, Ruff left the Corporation Counsel's Office to become White House Counsel to President Clinton, the president's fifth. In this role, became best known for skillfully defending Clinton during his 1999 impeachment trial in the Senate, which ended in the president's acquittal.
His nomination was stalled in the Senate for several months by Robert Dole of Kansas. In 1979, Ruff re-joined the Justice Department as acting deputy attorney general; in this role, Ruff was involved in the prosecution of members of Congress implicated in the Abscam scandal.
From 1989 and 1990, Ruff served a term as president of the District of Columbia Bar. In 1991, Ruff was part of the legal team representing Anita Hill during the Clarence Thomas Supreme Court nomination; Ruff arranged for Hill to take a polygraph test.
Ruff was chief of the Organized Crime and Labor Management Section of the Criminal Division from 1970 to 1972; in that position, Ruff oversaw the successful prosecution of W.A. "Tony" Boyle, the former head of the United Mine Workers, for illegal campaign contributions.
Presiding officer. Robe worn by Chief Justice William Rehnquist during the impeachment trial. The Chief Justice of the United States is cited in Article I, Section 3, Clause 6 of the United States Constitution as the presiding officer in an impeachment trial of the President.
On January 25, Senator Robert Byrd (a Democrat) moved for dismissals of both articles of impeachment. This motion would only require a majority vote to pass. That day, senators heard arguments from the managers against dismissal, and from the president's defense team in support of dismissal, before then deliberating behind closed-doors.
Exceprts of the videotaped depositions were played by the House impeachment managers to the Senate on February 6. These included excerpts of Lewinsky discussing such topics as her affidavit in the Paula Jones case, the hiding of small gifts Clinton had given her, and his involvement in procurement of a job for Lewinsky. The showing of video on large screens was seen as a large departure in the use of electronics by the Senate, which has often disallowed electronics to be utilized.
On January 28, the Senate voted against motions to dismiss the charges against Clinton and to suppress videotaped depositions of the witnesses from public release, with Democratic Senator Russ Feingold again voting with Republicans against both motions.
The resolution allotted the House impeachment managers and the president's defense team, each, 24 hours, spread out over several days, to present their cases.
Thirteen House Republicans from the House Judiciary Committee served as "managers", the equivalent of prosecutors. They were designated to be the House impeachment managers the say day that the two articles of impeachment were approved (December 19, 1998). They were named by a House resolution which was approved by a vote of 228–190.
In April 1999, about two months after being acquitted by the Senate, Clinton was cited by federal District Judge Susan Webber Wright for civil contempt of court for his "willful failure" to obey her orders to testify truthfully in the Paula Jones sexual harassment lawsuit. For this, Clinton was assessed a $90,000 fine and the matter was referred to the Arkansas Supreme Court to see if disciplinary action would be appropriate.
Ruff handled the opening on Tuesday. On Wednesday, special White House counsel Craig will discuss the allegation that the president committed perjury before independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr’s grand jury last August. Deputy White House counsel Mills will rebut obstruction of justice charges related to the hiding of presidential gifts in the Paula Jones case and the alleged witness tampering of his secretary Betty Currie. And Kendall, the private attorney who has represented Clinton through most of the 4½-year Starr investigation starting with Whitewater, will handle the remaining obstruction allegations. Former Arkansas Senator Bumpers will then deliver closing remarks on Thursday.
THOMAS BARRETT. Wisconsin Democrat Barrett, 45, was the newest member of the Judiciary Committee during the impeachment hearings. He was named by Democratic leaders on Sept. 11, the same day the independent counsel’s explosive report became public.
Craig accused House prosecutors of "legal mumbo-jumbo" by converting innocent statements into alleged perjury and of bringing perjury allegations that were "frequently trivial, almost always technical, often immaterial and always insubstantial."
Though he focused in lawyerly fashion on details of the House case and grand jury transcripts, Craig also warned of political consequences if the Senate votes to oust Clinton from office.
Craig said prosecutors have made much of the fact that Clinton said the affair began in January 1996 and Lewinsky said in November 1995. The suggestion has been made, said Craig, that Clinton wanted to cover up Lewinsky's age when the affair began.
White House Deputy Counsel Mills followed Craig, arguing against the House's obstruction-of-justice charges. Mills maintained that Clinton did not ask his secretary, Betty Currie, to retrieve presidential gifts from Lewinsky after they had been subpoenaed in December 1997 by lawyers for Jones.
Mills also took on the House prosecutors' assertion that failing to convict and remove Clinton would hurt the case of civil rights, since Jones' case alleged a violation of her civil rights.
Rep. James Rogan (R-California) said the defense's statements were "riddled with inaccuracies and half-truths." And Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-Wisconsin) said it was frustrating not to have an opportunity for rebuttal.
The House article of impeachment alleges perjury generally, "but it does not allege a single perjurious statement specifically," Craig said.
Hyde was the Congressman who chaired the House Judiciary Committee and led Clinton's impeachment trial. Just a few months before that trial, Salon published a withering article called " This Hypocrite Broke Up My Family ," which revealed Hyde had in fact had an extramarital affair.
Kenneth W. Starr was appointed in 1994 as independent counsel to investigate Whitewater, which never resulted in criminal charges against the Clintons. However, about four years later he dug into more salacious parts of Clinton's past when Pentagon employee Linda Tripp told him about her friend Monica Lewinsky's affair with the president.
Craig was embroiled in controversy over whether to close the Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba before he resigned from his White House post. He had drafted executive orders to ban torture and ordered the prison to be closed, The New York Times reported after his resignation.
But she couldn't stay away from the Clintons for long. Hillary Clinton picked Mills as general counsel for her 2008 presidential run and then appointed her as chief of staff when she was Secretary of State. Politico noted last year that Mills will probably play a key role in a Hillary Clinton presidential run for president in 2016.
News emerged this week that Edward Snowden had obtained legal counsel from Plato Cacheris, who worked on high-profile espionage cases and also represented Monica Lewinsky. This news got us wondering about what Cacheris and other major stars of the 1998-1999 Bill Clinton impeachment have been up to since the biggest presidential scandal ...
Lewinsky's lawyer Cacheris made the news recently when it became known that Edward Snowden had obtained his counsel last summer to try to reach a plea deal that would let him come back to the U.S. Since representing America's most famous intern, he has worked on high-profile espionage and whistleblower cases.
Bennett has worked on a number of other politically scandalous legal cases since Monicagate, including the case against New York Times reporter Judith Miller over the leaking of a CIA operative's name. Mills also represented former World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz in a huge scandal that led to his resignation from the bank.
Before the impeachment trials, Bill Clinton (Clive Owen) had a typical political career for a presidential hopeful. He studied at Georgetown University, University College, Oxford, and Yale Law School, where he earned his Juris Doctor degree and met his wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton (Edie Falco). After law school, Clinton earned a seat as state attorney general in Arkansas, where he would go on to be governor for two nonconsecutive terms (1979-1981 and 1983-1992). He was elected as the President of the United States in 1992, taking the position back for the Democratic Party from Republican incumbent, George H.W Bush. Despite the scandal, he served two terms as president, until he was succeeded by Republican George W. Bush in 2001. Here's the rest of the story behind the scandal.
On December 11, 1998, the House Judiciary Committee brought Clinton forward on articles of impeachment; grand jury perjury, obstruction of justice, and perjury regarding the Paula Jones case. On December 12, they voted to add abuse of power to bring the total to four articles of impeachment. On December 19, after a delay caused by bombings in Iraq, Clinton was impeached by the House of Representatives for grand jury perjury and obstruction of justice, with the other two articles being rejected. The Senate trial began on January 7, 1999, and the weeks that followed would be filled with presentations of the facts, debates on Clinton's capability to lead the country, and hours of video witness testimony — 30 video testimonies came from Monica Lewinsky alone. Deliberations stretched until February 12, when the Senate announced they'd voted to acquit President Clinton on both charges, allowing him to stay in office.
By 1998, Starr released a U.S federal government report titled the Starr Report, which detailed his findings on President Clinton. The Starr Report listed 11 possible reasons for Clinton's impeachment, including perjury, witness tampering, and obstruction of justice, as well as outlining the Clinton-Lewinsky affair.
The United States House of Representatives voted to open a broad impeachment inquiry on President Clinton on October 8, 1998, with a vote of 258-176. Because Starr had just finished an extensive investigation, the House Judiciary Committee decided to forego any more serious investigations and hearings ahead of the impeachment. Though Clinton was urged by many to resign ahead of impeachment, he refused, while then-First Lady Hillary Clinton stood beside him and his supporters called out the hypocrisy of those attempting to impeach him for adultery during a time when multiple Republican Congress members had their own adulteries uncovered.
Though Lewinsky (Beanie Feldstein) left the White House for the Pentagon in 1996, the affair continued until May 1997. A close confidante of Lewinsky's, Linda Tripp (Sarah Paulson), began to record their conversations after Lewinsky mentioned her affair to Tripp. Tripp also claimed to have witnessed Kathleen Wiley, a White House volunteer aide, leaving the Oval Office looking disheveled and with smeared lipstick. After Tripp turned over her tapes, Lewinsky was pulled as a witness in the Paula Jones trial. At Clinton's urging, Lewsinky denied the allegations; in a 1998 deposition, Clinton also denied it, famously saying, " I did not have sexual relations with that woman. "
Emily Clute is a features writer based out of New York. When a lifetime of fandom met a journalism degree, a ScreenRant writer was born. Emily is an avid fan of Marvel, anime, and horror (especially Stephen King), and is always willing to discuss Star Wars and Lord of the Rings. She is also a cosplayer who has attended conventions of all kinds for almost ten years. She can be found on Twitter @ejclute.
Bill Clinton's impeachment trial is one of the most infamous political scandals in U.S. history. This is the true story behind the real-life case.
Professor Amar said Professor Black regarded the Constitution not as something to be read literally or loosely, but as a whole, a carefully organized expression of democracy at the heart of law and politics. ''He saw the architecture in the document,'' Mr. Amar said. ''Many of the people who do constitutional law now do it differently, and I hope better, because of Charles.''
In a career that arched across the last half of the 20th century, Professor Black taught generations of law students, first at Columbia from 1947 to 1956, then at Yale for 30 years, and then at Columbia from 1986 until his health began to fail two years ago.
As his bibliography and his reputation as a constitutional scholar grew over the years, Professor Black was often sought out by reporters for opinions on civil rights, the death penalty, impeachment and other national issues. He also wrote extensively for legal and academic journals, and occasionally for The New York Times and other publications.
Board of Education, his stature as an authority on civil rights issues and his love for jazz and Louis Armstrong led Ken Burns, the documentary filmmaker, to feature him in an episode of last year's documentary ''Jazz,'' and in the opening chapter of a companion book, ''Jazz : A History of America's Music.''
Professor Black -- who taught his students that being a good lawyer in an era of increasing specialization required that they broaden their horizons through interests outside the law -- was something of a renaissance man himself. He published three volumes of poetry; he painted landscapes in oil; and he played the trumpet and what he called a cowboy harmonica.
The United States Supreme Court outlawed capital punishment in 1972, in part because states were arbitrarily imposing it. Dozens of states had passed new laws to revive the practice, and the book contended that the new statutes were as bad as the old ones.
Charles Lund Black Jr. was born on Sept. 22, 1915, in Austin, one of three children of Charles L. Black Sr., a prominent lawyer, and Alzada Bowman Black. The boy stood out early. After graduating at 16 from Austin High School in 1931, he entered the University of Texas, focusing on Greek classics as if he had been born in another age.
In 1994, Jones filed a lawsuit against Clinton, during his time as governor of Arkansas, for sexual harassment.
Bill Clinton ’s estimated net worth is $80million according to Go Banking Rates.