Death of American Virtue - Ken Gormley [147]
Davis was ready to go it alone, preparing for this Supreme Court appearance as he would any important personal injury case. Yet certain influential Republicans were worried. Only a select group of attorneys appeared in the highest court of the United States—this was no occasion for someone to get his training wheels. Davis was pitted against Bob Bennett, a veteran of high-profile cases, and Acting Solicitor General Walter Dellinger. One of the premier constitutional lawyers in the country, Dellinger had filed an amicus brief in support of the president.
Robert Bork and Theodore Olson, two of the most respected appellate lawyers in the United States, therefore volunteered to help. Bork, former solicitor general and attorney general under President Nixon, had become an icon within the conservative movement when Democrats blocked President Reagan’s effort to appoint him to the Supreme Court because of his unabashedly conservative philosophy. The bearded Bork, now associated with a Washington think tank, was a major legal figure in America.
Ted Olson, former assistant attorney general in the Reagan administration, had been the plaintiff in Morrison v. Olson, the 1988 landmark case that sought to topple the independent counsel law when it was used to investigate President Reagan and Vice President George H. W. Bush during the Iran-Contra affair. Olson had failed in that mission. Now, with the shoe on the other foot, and with Democrats occupying the White House, he had slipped in—beneath the radar—to do his part. He had represented David Hale to keep him out of congressional Whitewater hearings that could further undermine Hale’s credibility as a witness against Bill Clinton. Olson had also quietly stoked the Paula Jones case, serving on the board of American Spectator, which had launched David Brock’s article. Olson and Ken Starr were close friends. Bork was a mentor to both Starr and Olson. When it came to the constitutional issue presented in the Jones case, all three men were of one mind.
During mock arguments at the Army-Navy Club in Washington, Bork and Olson tried to prep Gil Davis, readying him for his appearance in the imposing Supreme Court chambers. Davis found this expert tutoring only mildly useful. His personal goal was to get one simple point across, before the justices jumped down his throat. He wanted to say: “The president has confused the office of the presidency with the person of the president.” The office of the president was entitled to the utmost respect. But the person of the president, he wanted to emphasize, had “no privileges or immunity beyond that of every other citizen of this country.” If he got that much out of his mouth, Davis believed, he could walk out of the argument with an even chance of winning.
In the meantime, the elves were supplying glittering briefs to the Virginia lawyers, so that their submissions in the Supreme Court would be pristine. As Davis would admit, he could snap his fingers and receive letter-perfect draft briefs “quickly, almost overnight.” The Paula Jones operation, with scant funding, had moved into the major leagues.
Acting Solicitor General Walter Dellinger, as he prepared for his own argument in Clinton v. Jones, was getting nervous. Dellinger had clerked for Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black and taught at Duke School of Law, where Ken Starr was among his notable students. In later years, he had occupied prestigious posts in the Justice Department, becoming one of the leading Supreme Court lawyers