Hillary's Lawyer Calls Attack on Gennifer
Flowers 'Political Speech'
NewsMax 2/24/02 Carl Limbacher
Clinton family scandal lawyer David Kendall told a federal appeals court
last week that statements by political operatives allegedly acted at the direction
of Hillary Clinton in an attack on the credibility of her husband's ex-lover
Gennifer Flowers constituted "political speech" and were therefore
not defamatory.
In the first Clinton legal proceeding ever televised in full, Kendall told
the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, "This is political
speech. All these people are political figures or public figures."
In 1999 the Washington, D.C.-based public interest law firm Judicial Watch sued Clinton campaign operatives James Carville and George Stephanopoulos based on their repeated claims that Flowers had "doctored" tape recordings of conversations she had with Bill Clinton to prove a sexual relationship.
Hillary Clinton was added as a defendant later that year after published reports revealed that she had hired a private detective whom Flowers believed was responsible for several break-ins at her Little Rock, Arkansas apartment.
In the appeals court hearing, Kendall sought to put as much distance as possible between the former first lady and the actions of those who allegedly acted on her orders.
"In terms of Mrs. Clinton, what I'm saying is that as a technical matter of pleading she is not adequately alleged to have published, republished, ratified or done anything with respect to these various statements except through a conspiracy," he told the court.
While Kendall argued that Judicial Watch had abandoned earlier claims that Mrs. Clinton was part of a conspiracy to defame Flowers, Judicial Watch Chairman Larry Klayman said that wasn't true, telling the court:
"One of the people who did the analysis, Anthony Pellicano, was a private investigator hired by Mrs. Clinton herself. And he's the one who did the analysis of the tapes."
Pellicano's findings that Flowers' tapes might have been tampered with were widely reported by CNN and other media outlets in 1992. (The California-based private eye later turned up in the midst of the Monica Lewinsky scandal, where he produced a former boyfriend who claimed Lewinsky once told her, " I'm going to the Washington to get my presidential kneepads.")
Flowers subsequently submitted her tapes to Truth Verification Labs, which certified them as 100 percent authentic. In October 2000 Flowers told NewsMax.com that the office of independent counsel Robert Ray had requested her original recordings. At the time Ray was considering indicting President Clinton on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice.
Two months earlier a Las Vegas, Nev., U.S. District Court Judge Philip Pro had tossed Flowers' original lawsuit out of court, ruling that the statute of limitations on the case had run. Judge Pro also cited a jurisdictional problem, arguing that the alleged defamation by Stephanopolous and Carville had not taken place in Nevada, where Flowers then lived.
Last week's hearing, broadcast Saturday by C-Span, was based on Judicial Watch's arguments that Flowers had been unduly denied her day in court and that the Clintons' campaign to discredit her had hurt Flowers' career as an entertainer, leaving her "destitute and penniless."
"This was an orchestrated campaign to create this ability to say that the tapes were doctored," Klayman told the court. "These are all questions of fact that need to be developed in discovery."
HENCH adds: "In terms of Mrs. Clinton, what I'm saying is that as a technical matter of pleading she is not adequately alleged to have published, republished, ratified or done anything with respect to these various statements except through a conspiracy," he told the court."
Whoa! That sounds juicy, but too complicated. Let's break out the de-spin-erator to find out what Kendall REALLY means:
"Forgetabout the other crooks in these crimes, Hillary only ran the show, so she didn't DO any of this, she simply ordered (ah conspired to order, yeah that's it!,) the slander, break-ins and harrasement." he told the court."
WOW! The de-spin-erator does it again! Now we know the truth, and hopefully
soon the jury in the re-trial will too.
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