Charles Ruff Quotes
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We are disappointed that the Court of Appeals has decided that, unlike every other client and attorney in this country, government attorneys and their clients do not enjoy the right to have confidential communications.
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What you have before you is nothing more than the product of a rush to judgment, ... How should you respond to the (House) managers' belated plea that more is needed to do justice? You should reject it. You have before you all that you need to reach this conclusion. There was no basis for the House to impeach. There is now, and never will be, any basis for the Senate to convict.
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Be wary, be wary, of the prosecutor who feels it necessary to deceive the court.
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Now, just -- just a few minutes ago, you heard Manager Gekas talk to you about perjury, ... And probably 90 percent of what he talked to you about was perjury in the (Paula) Jones case. It appears to make no difference, though, that the House rejected this charge, for the managers do continue to dwell on it, as though somehow they could show the House from which they came that they'd made a mistake.
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Yes, we didn't do this -- we didn't produce these videotapes on time. My letter to Sen. Thompson made clear we should have found them. But the one thing that is absolutely clear is that the only pattern here is not one of incompetence -- and we don't make an incompetence defense -- the pattern here is one of an ongoing intensive day-to-day effort to try to meet the committee's needs and that is the only pattern a fair reader can see.
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We should send a message to the House, please do not bunch up your allegations. Charge each act of wrongdoing in a separate count. Such a change would clarify things and allow for a cleaner vote on guilt or innocence.
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The questions ... were asked in a way that simply did not, and could not, for any fair prosecutor, form the basis for prosecution. The president surely did answer narrowly, answer carefully. The president did not want to reveal to Miss Jones' lawyers, or to the people ... that he had an improper relation with Miss Lewinsky.
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Whatever is in that report ... there is no basis for beginning an impeachment proceeding.
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Impeachment is not a remedy for private wrongs; it's a method of removing someone whose continued presence in office would cause grave danger to the nation.
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I understood that this was an issue that we needed to address, particularly in the context of the Independent Counsel subpoenas, ... My immediate focus was on the immediate compliance with the independent counsel's subpoenas.
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I did not do those things. I did not touch those parts.
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In the face of the seemingly insurmountable hurdle of Ms. Lewinsky's repeated denials that anyone ever asked or encouraged her to lie, the managers have persisted in arguing and continue to do so that the president did somehow encourage her to lie, even if she didn't know it, ... But neither the fact on which they rely nor their hypothesis was of much help to the managers before Ms. Lewinsky's deposition, and neither, surely, has any force after her deposition.
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There is no secret here when he stood in the Roosevelt Room and said 'I never had sexual relations with Ms. Lewinsky,' ... He knew when he said that ... that he was misleading the people who were listening to him.
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As we have stated before, the attorney general and the secretary of the Treasury have made their decisions on how to proceed in this matter with complete independence, guided by the advice of career law enforcement professionals. They have had only one interest -- to ensure that the Secret Service is able to perform its vitally important duties. Any suggestion to the contrary is without foundation.
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The time of our production had absolutely nothing to do with politics or tactics.
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The president of the United States did not tamper with a witness.
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We continue to believe that the attorney client privilege should protect conversations between government officials and government attorneys. The American people benefit from decisions made by government officials, including the President, on the basis of full and frank information and discussion.
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Give the course that these hearings have followed ... and given the special relationship between the legislative and executive branches embodied in our Constitution and our nation's history, we do not believe that it would be appropriate for the president to appear before the committee.
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They have, in essence, treated these articles as empty vessels to be filled with some witches' brew of charges.
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Moving targets, ever-shifting theories, each one advanced to replace the last as it has fallen, fallen victim to the facts, ... Empty pots. Attractive containers, but when you take the lid off, you'll find nothing to sustain you.
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Is this still the White House's stated and actual policy?
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The president has always urged everyone to tell the truth.
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Whatever your feelings may be about William Clinton the man, or William Clinton the political ally or opponent, or William Clinton the father and the husband, ask only this: should William Clinton the president be removed from office? ... Are we at that horrific moment in our history when our union can be preserved only by taking the step that the framers saw as a last resort?
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We know the pain the president has caused our society and his family and his friends, but we know, too, how much the president has done for this country.