In an embarrassing fall-out from his sworn denial of an affair with Ms Monica Lewinsky, an Arkansas disciplinary committee has recommended that President Clinton be disbarred from law practice.
Mr Clinton is a former Arkansas state attorney-general and a law lecturer but he has given no indication that he intends to practise law after his retirement as president next January. But disbarment would be a further humiliation after his impeachment by the House of Representatives on charges of perjury. Former President Nixon lost his New York lawyer's licence following his resignation over the Watergate scandal in 1974.
Mr David Kendall, who is Mr Clinton's personal lawyer, has said that the president will "vigorously dispute" the recommendation when it goes to a court in Little Rock.
The president has said, however, that "I will not personally involve myself in any of this until I am no longer president. It's not right." He has told an interviewer that his lawyers had looked at all the precedents and he claimed that if he were being treated the same as anyone else the proposed sanctions would be less severe. The recommendation for disbarment by the Arkansas Supreme Court's disciplinary committee follows the finding by Judge Susan Webber-Wright in April last year that President Clinton was guilty of lying under oath in the sexual harassment civil action against him by Ms Paula Jones. The judge found the president in contempt of court and fined him $90,000.
The president denied in that case that he ever had sexual relations with Ms Lewinsky but later admitted to having an "inappropriate" relationship with her and that he "misled people".
During the disciplinary committee private hearings, it is believed that Mr Clinton's legal team argued that while his arguments under oath about his relations with Ms Lewinsky may have been evasive and misleading they were "not legally false".
During his grand jury testimony in 1998, the president disputed that oral sex with Ms Lewinsky constituted sexual relations as defined in the Paula Jones case and so he had not committed perjury.
Mr Clinton also faces possible criminal perjury charges when he leaves office but this depends on the independent counsel Mr Robert Ray, who has taken over the investigation formerly led by Mr Ken Starr.
The disbarment recommendation now goes to a circuit court in Arkansas as a civil action trial. If that results in Mr Clinton losing his licence to practise law, he could then appeal to the state Supreme Court. Such an action could drag on for years.
Supporters of President Clinton point out that eight members of the disciplinary committee had excused themselves from the disbarment proceedings, citing conflicts of interest because of personal or business relations with Mr Clinton. So only six members heard the case against him.
It is also pointed out that disbarment seems an unduly harsh sanction which is usually applied in cases of defrauding clients. Mr Clinton had argued that his 20 years of public service should lead to leniency and that a reprimand would suffice.
Senior US military officers have said that they are uncomfortable with Russian proposals for both sides to cut nuclear arsenals to 1,500 warheads from the current target range of 2,000 to 2,500.
The joint chiefs told Congress that more analysis was needed before they could go below the 1997 accord reached in Helsinki between Russia and the US.
Meanwhile, US officials said yesterday there were signs that Pakistan was making some preparations toward conducting a nuclear test. "There have been indications of some preparations being made for [nuclear] tests in Pakistan. There is no indication these would be the final steps," a US official said. Activity toward a nuclear test had been taking place for several weeks, but appeared to have tapered off recently, and it was unclear whether Pakistan's leadership had made a decision to go through with a test, the official said.