LITTLE ROCK, Ark. – The five-year suspension of Bill Clinton's Arkansas law license in connection with the Monica Lewinsky affair ends this week, but an aide declined to say whether the ex-president is seeking reinstatement.
Instead, spokesman Jay Carson on Tuesday emphasized Clinton's commitment to helping AIDS patients around the world, fighting childhood obesity in this country and aiding tsunami and hurricane victims — work that doesn't require a law license.
The Arkansas Supreme Court's Committee on Professional Conduct, citing court policy, also would not say whether Clinton is seeking reinstatement.
Clinton agreed to the suspension on his last full day as president, Jan. 19, 2001. The agreement came on the condition that Whitewater prosecutors not pursue criminal charges against him after he lied under oath about his relationship with Lewinsky, a White House intern.
Clinton accepted the penalty, imposed by the professional conduct committee, under a deal with Special Prosecutor Robert Ray, a successor to Kenneth W. Starr. The committee also imposed a $25,000 fine, which Clinton paid.
The former president does not have a license to practice law in New York, where he now lives, but has earned a considerable amount in speaking fees and from his bestselling memoir published in 2004.
According to financial disclosure reports filed last year by his wife, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., the Clintons reported having $5 million to $25 million in a joint bank account.
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