Miami Herald

Published Saturday, July 21, 2001

Rodham cleared of ethics charges

Lawyer didn't violate rules by charging for pardon requests, Florida Bar says

BY JAY WEAVER jweaver@herald.com

The Florida Bar has cleared Hugh Rodham of violating ethics rules as a lawyer when he successfully lobbied his brother-in-law, former President Bill Clinton, for clemency on behalf of two politically connected felons.

The two cases, for which the Fort Lauderdale attorney was paid $400,000, caused such embarrassment for the former president and his wife, New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, that they demanded Rodham return the money to his clients.

The Clintons said they had been unaware of his financial arrangement. Rodham, of Coral Gables, gave back the money.

``What he did was not unethical for a lawyer to have done, because what he did was not the practice of law,'' Rodham's attorney, Andrew Berman, said Friday. He added that Rodham did not want to comment.

The Florida Bar opened its probe Feb. 22 after reading media reports about Rodham's role in the pardons. Last month, the Bar's grievance committee in Broward County looked into whether Rodham's fees were improper and whether his conduct was dishonest. It concluded there was insufficient evidence to file a formal complaint against Rodham, 50, with the Florida Supreme Court.

The committee's finding spared Rodham from a court hearing that could have led to disciplinary action, from a reprimand to a suspension, by the high court.

``It cannot be said that . . . accepting a contingency fee for assistance in a clemency proceeding is improper per se,'' attorney Barry Rigby, chief branch disciplinary counsel, wrote in a July 16 letter to various people who complained to the Bar about Rodham's conduct.

The committee, consisting of four lawyers and two nonlawyers, reasoned that Rodham did not violate the Bar's ethics rules because the ``clemency process is not a judicial proceeding'' and because his case did not involve a ``compelling public interest.''

They noted that Rodham's two clients -- convicted drug trafficker Carlos Vignali and convicted vitamin businessman Glenn Braswell, who has a home in Coconut Grove -- did not complain to the Bar about paying the fees.

Rodham collected $200,000 from each of them after former President Clinton pardoned them.

Coral Gables attorney Jack Thompson, who is among the 45 people who filed complaints with the Bar about Rodham's conduct, said he was ``bitterly disappointed'' in the grievance committee's decision to close the investigation.

``Once again the Florida Bar dropped the ball,'' said Thompson, a vocal conservative who once ran for Miami-Dade state attorney against Janet Reno, who served as Clinton's attorney general.

``Clearly, Hugh Rodham was not doing legal work here,'' Thompson said. ``He was selling access to the president of the United States. That's what strikes most people from a common-sense standpoint.

``These pardons were supposed to be decided on the merits, not on access to the president. It engulfed Bill Clinton for the last two days of his administration and about three months into his retirement. Of course, it affected the public interest.''

Rodham's attorney said Thompson and the other complainants' motives were political.

``There is no question that the people who filed these complaints have been vocal in their criticism of the former president and his family,'' Berman said. ``They were going after the next best thing.''

Rodham's lobbying on behalf of Vignali and Braswell coincided with reports about the former president's pardon of Marc Rich, a fugitive financier whose ex-wife is a major Democratic fundraiser.

The U.S. attorney's office in Manhattan is investigating Rich's pardon as well as others among the 177 pardons and commutations issued by Clinton.

The Bar, in Rigby's letter, indicated that it attempted to obtain information from the U.S. attorney in Manhattan as well as from the U.S. Department of Justice about Rodham -- but was turned down.

``If Mr. Rodham ultimately is found to have violated any laws with regard to these pardons,'' Rigby wrote, ``the Florida Bar will open a new file and seek discipline based on those findings.''

-- Anonymous, July 21, 2001

Answers

Well, what can you say? I guess the law can be anything you want it to be according to whose ox is getting gored, or might be, in the future.

-- Anonymous, July 21, 2001