Clinton Likely to Accept Contempt Order

WASHINGTON — President Clinton’s legal advisors “have no inclination” to challenge a federal judge’s order finding him in contempt of court for lying under oath about his affair with Monica S. Lewinsky, a source close to his legal team said Tuesday.

It also is unlikely that Clinton’s lawyers would seek a full hearing on the order issued Monday in Little Rock, Ark., by U.S. District Judge Susan Webber Wright, said the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

“It doesn’t make sense for the president or the country to reopen old wounds that are just beginning to heal,” said the advisor, referring to the yearlong legal and political drama that culminated just two months ago with Clinton’s acquittal in a Senate impeachment trial.

Wright’s civil order stemmed from “misleading statements” Clinton made in his legal deposition in the Paula Corbin Jones sexual harassment case against him.

The legal advisor to the president also indicated another reason for accepting the contempt citation: Clinton’s legal team considers it a relatively light penalty.

“It’s only a monetary sanction,” the advisor said, adding that although no one at the White House was happy about the contempt citation, it was “one of the lesser things” the judge could have done.

Wright’s order directs Clinton to compensate Jones and her attorneys, as well as the judge and her clerk, for expenses related to his “willful failure to obey this court.”

She could have fined him for violating court rules.

However, Wright also referred the contempt matter to the Arkansas Supreme Court’s Committee on Professional Conduct.

After reviewing the conduct of Clinton, who is a licensed attorney in the state, the committee could suspend or revoke his law license.

The order also marked the first time that a U.S. president had been officially cited for contempt of court.

But it was the judge’s strong language that hurt most, the legal advisor said.

“The sharpest blow came in her rebuke of the president’s conduct, and there’s no way we could eliminate that,” the source said.

Wright said in her order that Clinton’s “false, misleading and evasive answers” about his relationship with Lewinsky had “undermined the integrity of the judicial system.”

A contempt citation was necessary, she added, to dissuade others from “emulating the president of the United States by willfully violating . . . orders of this and other courts.”

The judge gave Clinton 30 days to challenge her ruling. If Clinton were to appeal the order, the judge said, she would convene full-blown hearings with witness testimony and the presentation of evidence. Ultimately, she noted, that process “might require referral of the matter” to a criminal prosecutor.

Independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr, for example, could decide to pursue criminal prosecution of Clinton before or after he leaves the White House.

Although leaning toward accepting the judge’s ruling, Clinton’s legal advisors apparently are leaving the door open for an appeal.

If the total of attorney and court costs Clinton is ordered to pay were “monumental,” his attorneys might change their minds, the source said.

The contempt order arose from statements Clinton made in his January 1998 sworn legal deposition in the Jones case.