Bill & Hill Stiffing Their Lawyers
Back to the Clinton Criminal Page
NewsMax.com
Monday, May 13, 2002
Once again it's becoming clear that it doesn't pay to get mixed up with the Clintons - now it's their lawyers who are getting their just rewards for defending the pair.
According to today's New York Daily News, documents obtained by the paper and other sources show that despite the huge sums they've earned since leaving the trashed and looted White House, the Clintons have failed to pay huge bills from two of their most celebrated and loyal legal defenders, Robert Bennett and David Kendall.
Their reason for stiffing their lawyers, according to a former aide, is they don't want to pay and don't think they should have to.
Try that on your house or car payments and see what happens.
The unpaid bills represent legal work done in connection with the Whitewater, Paula Jones and Monica Lewinski cases, and Bill Clinton's impeachment battle.
Clinton is in hock to Robert Bennett, his Paula Jones attorney, for $1 million, and Bennett's firm, writes Timothy Burger, "hasn't seen a nickel in nearly a year."
Moreover, Burger revealed, the Clintons are also "believed to be in seven-figure hock to David Kendall." Both lawyers refused comment, Burger reports.
Burger recalled that last year, Clinton aides confirmed that the Clintons still owed $3.9 million in legal fees. "Since the Clintons left the White House in January 2001, their legal defense fund has paid $254,000 to Kendall's firm, Williams & Connolly, and $86,000 to Skadden Arps, Bennett's firm," he wrote
That legal defense fund is now empty, the News reported, adding that the Clintons may have paid some of Kendall's bills out of their own pockets, although a Clinton "loyalist" denied this. And a former aide told the News: "They would prefer not to [pay] and don't think they should have to."
Aides to Sen. Clinton and her husband refused to tell the News if the Clintons have paid anything at all out of their own bulging pockets.
The couple can't plead poverty as an excuse for ducking their legal bills. They can well afford to pay far more than what they owe their lawyers.
The News points out that their personal wealth includes a staggering "$18 million in book advances and $10 million to $15 million that the ex-President has raked in for speeches."
In addition to all that largesse, they pick up $302,000 a year from the taxpayers. Poor Robert Bennett. First he has to go before a judge and admit he presented false statements to the court because his client - the president of the United States, no less - had misled him and he'd been foolish enough to believe him.
And now it appears he can't collect what is his due for climbing down into the sewer to represent the nation's most notorious liar.
Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics:
Clinton Scandals
Sen. Hillary ClintonA product that might interest you:
She Will Run! Hillary Clinton's Plans for the Presidency