Hunting The President.

• Author: CONASON, JOE
• Position: Review

GIL DAVIS AND JOE CAMMARATA, PAULA Jones' lawyers of record, weren't the sort of attorneys attracted to the highly ideological Federalist Society milieu. But two of the young lawyers working with them, George Conway and Richard Porter, a former Dan Quayle aid who had joined Kenneth Starr's firm Kirkland and Ellis in its Chicago home office, were among the group's active members. At the urging of Conway and Jerome Marcus, another young Federalist lawyer, a group of Federalist-affiliated law professors and constitutional lawyers had signed "friend of the court" briefs in 1994 supporting Jones' right to proceedings against the president while in office.

Now, as the date for argument on that issue in the Supreme Court approached, the young Federalist attorneys in the Jones camp called upon two of the organization's legal eminencies to help prepare Davis and Cammarata. During the first week of January, they brought Davis and Cammarata to the Army-Navy Club for a coaching session with Robert Bork, who had addressed the founding conference of the Federalist Society at Yale in 1982, and Ted Olson, the chairman of its powerful Washington chapter.

Bork had lost his own chance to sit with the nation's top judges during an exceptionally bitter confirmation battle in 1986, an experience that had left him furious at the liberal Democrats he believed had blocked him. Aside from his legal acumen, Bork could offer informed personal opinions about the court's most influential justices. He regularly played poker with Chief Justice William Rehnquist and Associate Justice Antonin Scalia.

Less renowned than Bork, Olson too had a brilliant reputation as an appellate lawyer [and] substantial Supreme Court experience. Olson had graciously hosted their last session at the downtown offices of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, the giant law firm whose Washington operations he managed.

According to Davis, George Conway had wanted to run the coaching session as a "moot court," with Bork and Olson barking out the kind of sharp questions Davis could expect from the justices. But the scowling, opinionated Bork--possibly self-conscious about mimicking "the Brethren" he would never join--preferred a less formal approach, and everyone else deferred to him.

For two hours the lawyers sat around a table eating sandwiches, as Olson and Bork advised Davis how best to present his brief urging that the case against Clinton proceed immediately to trial. To the justices, Olson emphasized, the...