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Review Into Clinton-Judge Complaints
By Pete Yost
Associated Press Writer
Wednesday, Feb. 9, 2000; 4:38 p.m. EST

WASHINGTON –– Prompted by new information from a congressman, a judicial
body that oversees judges' conduct reopened a review Wednesday into why the
chief federal judge in Washington directed criminal cases of presidential
friends to appointees of President Clinton.

The Judicial Council ordered appeals court judge Stephen Williams to look
into the circumstances surrounding the assignment of five campaign
fund-raising prosecutions and the tax evasion case against long-time Clinton
confidant Webster Hubbell.

In each of the six cases, Chief District Judge Norma Holloway Johnson
bypassed the computer system that randomly assigns cases. Instead, Johnson
sent the prosecutions to Clinton appointees. The Associated Press first
brought the special assignments to light in a story last summer regarding the
Hubbell case and the fund-raising prosecution of presidential friend Charlie
Trie.

In a two-paragraph order, the Judicial Council noted that a Jan. 10 letter by
House judiciary subcommittee chairman Howard Coble, R-N.C., focuses on
additional fund-raising cases.

In one of them, Johnson assigned a Clinton judge the guilty plea of prominent
Miami businessman Howard Glicken, a former fund-raiser for Vice President Al
Gore.

The chief judge has never said why she bypassed the random assignment system
in Glicken's case.

Court records show presidential friend Vernon Jordan intervened in the case,
asking the sentencing judge to be lenient. Glicken was given community
service work and probation.

The district court last week killed a rule that enabled Johnson to designate
which judges got the cases. The rule allows the chief judge to bypass the
random assignment system for "protracted" cases.

In a letter to a newspaper last summer, Johnson said she made the special
assignments to "move the docket as expeditiously as possible" and that
politics was "never a factor."

The now-revived complaint was brought by Judicial Watch, a conservative
group. Williams labeled the complaint "frivolous" in a November opinion.

"All we requested was an investigation and this is an important step in that
direction," Tom Fitton of Judicial Watch said Wednesday.

Williams, a Reagan appointee, had said the court rule that enabled Johnson to
bypass the random assignment system "makes possible both actual and perceived
abuses."

U.S. District Judge Paul Friedman, who received some of the campaign
fund-raising cases from Johnson, spearheaded an internal courthouse review of
the long-standing rule – a review that began last April, before the issue
became public. He recommended the rule be abolished.

The Judicial Conference, the national policymaking body of the federal
judiciary, also rescinded its long-standing position supporting special
assignments.

© Copyright 2000 The Associated Press




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