During his remarks, Clinton noted that Hillary Rodham Clinton formerly served as President of LSC. In his book The First Lady, NLPC President Peter Flaherty documents LSC’s massively illegal “survival campaign” during Hillary’s Presidency which saved the agency from Reagan-era budget cutters.
Clinton’s appearance before the ABA, was controversial. Even the liberal Washington Post editorialized on August 11, “Of all the lawyers in the United States, the ABA decided to hear from Bill Clinton. It picked a lawyer who had only recently gotten himself in considerable trouble by lying in a civil deposition in the presence of a federal judge and then lying again before a federal grand jury investigating his previous behavior. It picked a lawyer who was held in contempt of court and fined by a judge whose case he had corrupted and who was then referred to the state bar for possible disciplinary action. Even as he spoke... this lawyer faced possible disbarment for his lies.”
NLPC Chairman Ken Boehm reacted, “This invitation to Clinton demonstrates once again that the ABA puts its left-wing agenda ahead of any commitment to legal professionalism. This organization purports to support the rule of law? It is a further outrage that the ABA is one of the most powerful lobbies on Capitol Hill in favor of continued funding for LSC. The speech was only appropriate in the sense that a corrupt President asked for support for a scandal-ridden government agency before a philosophically bankrupt special interest group.”
EW