U.S. District Judge Susan Webber Wright of Little Rock dismissed Paula Jones's sexual harassment lawsuit against President Clinton on April 1, 1998. April Fool's Day.
She was a student in an admiralty law course Clinton taught at the University of Arkansas in the early 1970s.
Like most of the state and federal judges in Little Rock, Wright traveled in some of the same legal circles as the Clintons, particularly Hillary Rodham Clinton. She was appointed to the federal bench in 1990 by President George Bush.
Bill Clinton, as governor, appointed Wright's husband, Robert R. Wright, to a special temporary position as chief justice of the state Supreme Court to hear the appeal of a Clinton political rival convicted of expense account fraud.
"there are few more outrageous acts than a criminal sexual assault followed by unwanted exposure, coupled with a demand for oral sex by the most powerful man in the state against a very young, low-level employee," but, "the governor's alleged conduct does not constitute sexual assault. Rather, the conduct as alleged by plaintiff describes a mere sexual proposition or encounter, albeit an odious one, that was relatively brief in duration, did not involve any coercion or threats of reprisal and was abandoned as soon as plaintiff made clear that the advance was not welcome."
Judge Susan Webber Wright
"Clinton should be pretty happy with her."
Robert Wright - Judge Susan Webber Wright's husband.
I Believe Paula
"It seems to me, that Wright, Bill Clinton's former law school student, took the safe way out -- like so many other U.S. public officials are doing these days. She decided to wash her hands of a hot case -- leave these issues for someone else to worry about. Don't think judges don't read public opinion polls, too.
But I suspect there was even more involved in this decision. I suspect there was real fear at work. Do you think Judge Wright, whose courtroom and home are in Arkansas, failed to notice the recent deaths of Whitewater witnesses James McDougal and Johnny Lawhon? Even if most of the establishment press didn't notice Lawhon's violent demise at the age of 29, I don't think Wright missed it.
This may sound darkly conspiratorial. But, I assure you, it is not. I have personally talked with members of Congress who admit, off the record, of course, to being afraid to pursue justice with this White House regime. They observe the incredibly high body count around this president. And they wonder -- coincidence, statistical anomaly, bad luck? No one's in a hurry to find out for themselves."
"Democrats and Republicans alike are celebrating over the 11th-hour deal struck between Independent Counsel Robert Ray and our 42nd president, a deal that allowed Bill Clinton to beat his perjury and obstruction of justice raps growing out of the investigation of the Monica Lewinsky scandal.
President George W. Bush has expressed satisfaction and outright relief over the compromise that allows his administration to get a fresh start, without having to make a decision on a pardon for his predecessor.
The night before Mr. Bush was sworn into office, television pundits were telling us that Mr. Clinton would be able to get a good night's sleep, knowing that there would be no effort to hold him accountable for alleged crimes he may have committed while in office."
SOURCE
Pryor Visit Puts Judge Wright in a Pickle
SUSANN COLEMAN - CLINTON, A PREGNANCY, AND DEATH
Clinton Confidential
By George Carpozi Jr.
1995 - pps. 82 - 85
Excerpt:
University of Arkansas Law School instructor Bill Clinton convened his criminal law class on the Fayetteville campus for the opening of the Spring semester that early February day in 1974. .....The pretty coed seated in the first row of his class was twenty-four year-old Elvira Susann Jenkins who married Dalton Miles Coleman in Little Rock on May 15, 1971 after completing her sophomore year at the University of Arkansas. ......A beauty with dark hair and large, brown bedroom eyes......the most attractive of the seven women in the class of 100 students.
Always with an eye for a pretty face and shapely body, Clinton appeared to seek common ground on which he and Susann could relate to each other-- and start what was always on his mind; a relationship. ....in 1974 Hillary Rodham was still in Washington D.C. .....He(Clinton) was twenty-seven in that spring of '74. ...When he stood in front of the class, he commanded a mastery over the coeds and enjoyed their flatteries, spoken or unspoken.
In time, some would label Bill Clinton a sex maniac. ......What if a coed such as Susann Coleman committed adultry with her as-yet-unmarried "professor" in that spring of '74. ....All the Clinton archives reveal is a sketchy report about a purported dalliance with Susann Coleman.
There are vivid road signs pointing unerringly to the pains Clinton has taken to destroy all traces of a relationship with his student. .....Jack Palladino is retained by the Clinton For President Campaign Committee. Palladino's mission was stated by The Washington Post as ...."The Clinton campaign is conducting a wide-ranging effort to deflect allegations about the Democratic nominee's private life and has hired a San Francisco investigator and lawyer to discredit stories about women claiming to have had relationships with the Arkansas governor."
No sooner had Clinton swept his draft-dodging story under the rug than the Susann Coleman scandal threatened in late June of '92. Just as he'd won the primaries and was headed for the Democratic National Convention, Clinton got wind that the Susann Coleman story was to be aired. This was a more worrisome expose' than anything in the past. It carried elements of moral turpitude that unquestionably could harm his candidacy. For months, a letter of unknown origin had made the rounds of newsrooms around the country. But for reasons unexplained, it was ignored. Until Bill Clinton's campaign committee got wind of what Floyd G. Brown was up to. Brown and his Citizens United organization had produced the "Willie Horton" ad that sank Michael Dukakis in the 1988 presidential race. Now Brown was reported to have completed a wide ranging investigation of the Susann Coleman story, and was about to air it with paid TV commercials. Clinton and his staffers put Jack Palladino on the pad with a $12,824.79 illegal payment out of campaign funds. The expense was listed for "legal services." The real reason, was to be a "Bimbo Eruptions Buffer." The "shamus" earned his money by taking the Susann Coleman story to "CBS Evening News." Correspondent Eric Engberg and a camera crew were dispatched to Augusta, Georgia, to track down Susann's mother and stepfather. Alvin DeMedicis had suffered a stroke in January and couldn't be interviewed. Out of fear, shame, or whatever unknown reasons, Susann's mother Ruth wouldn't face the cameras either.
Consequently, anonymous people were interviewed, people who had no personal knowledge about what the letter purported: "Susann and her husband Dalton Coleman left Little Rock abruptly in the summer of 1976, shortly before Bill Clinton was elected State Attorney General. The Coleman's moved to Memphis, Tennessee. Bill Clinton by then, had been married barely a year to Hillary Rodham. A short while later, Susann learned she was pregnant; Coleman said the baby couldn't be his and left his wife. She then went to stay with her parents in Warrenville, South Carolina. On February 15, 1977, in the seventh month of her pregnancy Susann Coleman is purported to have put the muzzle of a shotgun into her mouth and pulled the trigger. Her life ended just five months after her 26th birthday. She was buried in Warrenville's Pentecost United Methodist Church Cemetery.
The CBS Evening News segment on Susann Coleman aired on July 13, 1992 - less than two weeks after Palladino was retained to be Clinton's "Bimbo Eruptions Buffer." Anchored by Dan Rather, the presentation featured Engberg in a series of interviews with the "unidentified know-nothings" who protested Floyd Brown's gut-level negative attacks, but said nothing about Susann Coleman's relationship with Bill Clinton, not even to establish that she attended the University of Arkansas and was in Clinton's criminal law class. After citing the gist of the letter - that Susann Coleman's suicide fifteen years ago followed a love affair with her law professor, Bill Clinton, that left her pregnant - Engberg then concluded that Susann's family asserts that there is no truth to this, and reporters who investigated the anonymous letter found it to be a nasty hoax. Neither CBS nor any other accredited news gathering organization explored the many leads the anonymous letter provided. It clearly identified Clinton aides and associates at the time he was campaigning for Attorney General in 1976 - when Susann Coleman was living in Little Rock, and described sexual relations between members of Clinton's staff and hanky-panky in other forms: including homosexual encounters among the staffers.
No one talked to the people in the letter, except Floyd Brown. And he was getting the goods, until he was shot down before he could go public with his findings. If Palladino accomplished anything, he managed to put the lid on the most critical text in the letter, which contained charges that were never properly addressed. ....The affair had cost Susann Coleman her husband, her family, her self respect. Her heart was lost to the lover who rejected her and her baby. A mistress with a child wouldn't fit in with his political ambitions, and his ambitions were large scale. His ambitions were of a national scope. His name was Bill Clinton. ......Eleven days after the broadcast, on July 24th, another illegal payment of $5003.40 out of Clinton's campaign funds was mailed to San Francisco.
[End of Partial Transcript]
"There have been no scandals in this administration. And I was governor for 12 years, not a hint of scandal"
Bill Clinton - Washington Week In Review(PBS) - February 25, 1994.