For the record, Bill Clinton was forced to admit wrongdoing, signing an "Agreed Order of Discipline" on his last day in office as president. It stipulated that he "knowingly gave evasive and misleading answers" about his relationship with Monica Lewinisky, violating Arkansas legal ethics. He agreed to accept suspension of his law license for five years and to pay a fine of $25,000 (see illustration). Earlier the Arkansas judge found him in contempt for the same testimony, and he paid more than $90,000, not to mention the $850,000 settlement in the Paula Jones suit. . . .

Then too, the independent counsel investigation obtained 14 convictions of and pleas from Clinton Arkansas associates, including the McDougals, Mr. Hubbell and governor Jim Guy Tucker. And while the Senate conducted only a pro forma trial, the House did vote out the second bill of impeachment against a president in American history.

While this largely concerns Mr. Clinton's private affairs, from the first "heads up" on the Whitewater-related criminal referral, he abused the powers of his office to impede justice and attack his critics. The 14 convictions vindicate Jean Lewis, the Resolution Trust investigator who made the referral. She was soon suspended from the case, her motives attacked and her computer disks invaded by government investigators.

The Clinton Administration unleashed the Justice Department on some frivolous charges against The American Spectator. Journalistic defenders were curiously unmoved that the publication was left near death by an official probe of how it spent its money investigating the president of the United States. The Spectator staff has recently launched a well-received Web site, AmericanProwler.com, and editor R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr. is trying to raise money for a new or revived magazine.

And of course, Mr. Clinton launched a legal and political offensive against the independent counsel. After citing a series of presidential statements Counsel Robert Ray's final report starts, "President Clinton's sustained attack, during the last year of his Administration, on independent counsel investigations as 'bogus' ignores the seriousness of the matters this Office has prosecuted." . . .

This assault on rule of law is President Clinton's most unfortunate legacy.

Mr. Bartley is editor of The Wall Street Journal. His column appears Mondays in the Journal and on OpinionJournal.com.

Excerpt from Opinion Journal Apri 8, 2002 at Opinion Journal--Full Article Here

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