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4.2.12
WC: 191694

By far the greatest legal blunder of the 20th Century was committed by President Clinton’s lawyer in the Paula Jones case, Robert Bennett. Bennett allowed his client to be questioned under oath in a deposition about the details of his sex life and to deny that he had sexual relations with Monica Lewinsky. This sworn denial became the basis for an impeachment investigation and opened the way for the President to have to testify in front of a grand jury. The Paula Jones case should have been settled immediately after the President’s reelection in 1996. If Paula Jones’ lawyers refused to settle the case, Bennett could have advised the President simply to default – that is to pay the money and refuse to contest the charges. Bennett never even told Clinton about this option.

The second greatest blunder, believe it or not, was also committed by Bennett. After walking his client into the perjury trap, Bennett himself helped to spring it. Not content to let the President answer the opposing lawyers’ questions, Bennett did the unthinkable: he asked the President to affirm, under oath, the truth of Monica Lewinsky’s affidavit without having asked Lewinsky what she meant when she said she had not engaged in sexual relations with Clinton. Then, Bennett mischaracterized the affidavit by saying that the affidavit indicated that “there is absolutely no sex of any kind in any manner, shape or form.” Finally, in a “cover your ass” letter to the court, Bennett implicitly blamed his client for misleading the court, instead of forthrightly acknowledging his own failure to find out what Lewinsky meant by sexual relations. These blunders give Bennett almost unique bragging rights as the only lawyer in American history who has helped his client get impeached.

At the very beginning of the Lewinsky matter, I had received a call from someone close to the White House giving me the phone number where Monica was staying and urging me to call her. I

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