Larry Klayman

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Larry Klayman is the founder and chief representative of the Klayman Law Firm, which is based out of Miami, Florida and Washington D.C., although he is known chiefly as the founder and former Chairman of Judicial Watch, a public interest and non-profit law firm, which attained notoriety primarily through the initiation of civil lawsuits against the Clinton Administration, and subsequently, an unsuccessful lawsuit against Vice-President Dick Cheney in order to obtain information about the White House's energy task force.

Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1951, Klayman graduated from Duke University in 1973, subsequently earning a Juris Doctor from Emory University School of Law.

After earning his law degree Klayman worked for Pennsylvania Senator Richard Schweiker for a year. The following year he worked as an intern for the U.S. International Trade Commission, and from 1977-1979 as an Associate in the litigation department of Blackwell, Walker, & Gray, a law firm in Miami, Florida.

From 1979 to 1981 he worked in various capacities within the United States Department of Justice as a prosecutor in the in the Consumer Affairs and AT&T Trial Section of the Antitrust Division. He represented the U.S. government in disputes related to decisions made by the Food and Drug Administration and Consumer Products Safety Commission, among other internal federal agencies.

From 1981 to 1983 he worked as a Senior Associate at Busby, Rehm, & Leonard, an international law firm based out of Washington, D.C.

From 1983 until the present day Klayman has worked for Klayman & Associates, a law firm that he founded, and which specializes in litigation.

[edit] Judicial Watch activities

In 1994 he founded Judicial Watch, which he describes as a public interest law firm that pursues instances of alleged abuse and malfeasance by the federal government.

Judicial Watch's first lawsuit alleged that President Clinton's legal expense trust fund, which was initially created in order to defray the costs of mounting legal bills incurred during Independent Counsel Robert Fisk's, and subsequently, Kenneth Starr's Whitewater investigations, as well as civil litigation arising from purported criminal offenses by President Clinton during his presidency and governorship in the state of Arkansas.

Klayman and Judicial Watch requested that the President's legal trust be dissolved due to its alleged violation of the Federal Advisory Committee Act, because the people involved with the legal trust were giving President Clinton unsolicited legal device, which they asserted constituted an illegal gratuity.

Although this tack would ultimately be rejected by Judge Royce Lamberth, he did concede that the activities of the trust presented some troubling ethical dilemmas, and allowed Klayman's Judicial Watch to proceed with further discovery.

The next line of inquiry against the Clinton administration was related to the Department of Commerce, then under Commerce Secretary Ron Brown, which he suspected had been selling seats on international trade missions in return for campaign contributions to the national Democratic Party and President Clinton's re-election committee.

In late 1996 Klayman inadvertently discovered the relationship of the Clinton administration to John Huang, a former Commerce Department employee, fund raiser for the Democratic Party, and member of the Lippo Group.

Klayman obtained the authority to force Huang to undergo a deposition, a seemingly innocuous event that would eventually lead to investigations by both the House and Senate Government Reform and Oversight Committees into what would eventually be dubbed Chinagate, which would explore the issue of whether foreign nationals illegally donated campaign contributions to Bill Clinton in return for tangible favors, e.g. trade concessions, positions within the federal government, etc.

Even after President Clinton had retired, Klayman pursued legal action related to his alleged behavior during his presidency and governership, e.g. representing Dolly Kyle Browning in a civil lawsuit brought against Bill Clinton.

However, the end of the Clinton administration marked a change in Klayman's legal strategy, as he began to file lawsuits against congressional Republicans and members of the Bush administration for what he perceived to be actions that were of dubious legality, or illegal altogether.

In late 2002 Judicial Watch filed a lawsuit against Vice-President Dick Cheney and Halliburton, asserting that Cheney engaged in potentially unethical and/or illegal behavior when he served as the director of Halliburton during the late 1990s.

Simultaneous with this lawsuit Klayman filed a lawsuit seeking the records of Vice-President Cheney's energy task force.

Judicial Watch has also filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission and the Department of Justice against former Repubican House Majority Leader Tom DeLay and the National Republican Congressional Committee, alleging improper conduct on the part of Representative DeLay and political action committees under his purview.

Other notable cases pursued by Larry Klayman and Judicial Watch include a lawsuit filed on behalf of Donato Dalrymple in relation to the behavior of federal law enforcement agents during their pre-dawn raid on the home in which Elian Gonzalez was living with his Miami relatives, and a request to inspect disputed ballots during the controversial 2000 Presidential Election.

[edit] Post Judicial Watch activities

In 2004 Klayman was an unsuccessful candidate for the Republican nomination to fill a seat in the United States Senate being vacated by Bob Graham. He would receive approximately one percent of the primary vote in that election.

Recently, Klayman has come into conflict with the current president of Judicial Watch, Tom Fitton. After leaving the organization in 2003 in order to campaign for the Senate, Klayman entrusted Judicial Watch to his deputy, Tom Fitton. Klayman later filed a lawsuit against Fitton, objecting to breach of "various agreements and laws," and reneging on Klayman's severance package after his departure from that legal firm.