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Presidential impeachment vs. Lawyer's disbarment

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	President Clinton and daughter Chelsea Clinton wave toward the White House upon arrival from their trip to Africa Tuesday afternoon, Aug. 28, 2000, in Washington. Clinton had met with Egyptian President Mubarak in Cairo on his way home from an Africa trip that included failure to reach an accord to end the civil war in Burundi. (AP Photo/Dennis Cook)

August 31, 2000 

LITTLE ROCK, Arkansas, USA--- President Bill Clinton said he should not be disbarred over his testimony in the Paula Jones sexual harassment case, telling a state judge that losing his law license is too harsh a penalty.

In a five-page response Tuesday to a complaint filed by the Arkansas Supreme Court Committee on Professional Conduct, the president said that he would not receive such a stiff sanction if his case was handled like similar cases.

"On the basis of the relevant facts, the governing law and the applicable decisions of the Arkansas courts ..., a sanction of disbarment would be excessively harsh, impermissibly punitive and unprecedented in the circumstances of this case," Clinton's lawyers wrote.

Pulaski County Circuit Judge Leon Johnson said he expected to receive Clinton's filing Tuesday but otherwise would not discuss the case, including when it might be scheduled for a hearing or trial.

The state conduct committee says the president lied about his relationship with former White House intern Monica Lewinsky when asked about it, under oath, in January 1998. Jones' lawyers asked the president about Lewinsky while a federal judge presided over his deposition.

In a lawsuit filed against Clinton June 30, the conduct committee's prosecutor accused the president of lying to spare himself embarrassment. In the response filed Tuesday, Clinton's lawyers acknowledged that the president was attempting to save face.

Clinton "took actions motivated in part by a desire to protect himself and others from embarrassment," the lawyers wrote.

President Clinton tees off of the tenth tee at Army Navy Country Club in Arlington, Va., Tuesday, Aug. 29, 2000. Clinton returned from his Africa trip earlier in the day and will depart for Colombia early Wednesday morning. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

Marie-Bernarde Miller, the prosecutor, would not comment on Clinton's filing. She had asked that the matter be cleared up before the end of the year when Johnson leaves office, but would not say if Tuesday's filing would help her meet that timetable.

U.S. District Judge Susan Webber Wright found Clinton in contempt last year and fined him more than dlrs 90,000, saying he intentionally gave misleading testimony about Lewinsky.

Clinton's lawyers also acknowledged that the president didn't fight the contempt citation, but said he did not do so because the needs of the country came first.

Jones filed suit in May 1994, alleging Clinton made a crude sexual advance toward her three years earlier in a Little Rock hotel room. Jones had hoped to use evidence of the Lewinsky affair as part of an attempt to show a pattern of predatory behavior.

Wright, however, said the Lewinsky material was not essential to Jones' case, and later dismissed Jones' lawsuit.

Clinton's lawyers said Tuesday that the testimony at the center of the disbarment lawsuit was so minor that stripping the president of his law license would be too severe of a penalty.