They call themselves "just two country lawyers," but their case has the potential to humiliate the president.
Their opponents are two attorneys who are anything but country - Washington powerhouse Bob Bennett and the solicitor general of the United States.Suburban Virginia lawyers Gilbert Davis and Joseph Cammarata represent Paula Jones in her sexual harassment lawsuit against Bill Clinton. On Monday, they will appear in the stately chambers of the Supreme Court to argue that her case should go forward while Clinton is the president.
Of all Clinton's legal troubles, none has more potential to cause him chagrin. If his lawyers lose, the president may find himself giving sworn depositions about his sexual behavior.
Asked Friday if he was concerned the case would haul out potentially embarrassing details and cause him trouble, Clinton shrugged. "I don't have any control over what anyone else does. I can only control what I do," Clinton told reporters at the White House.
"It's not going to cause me any difficulties because I'm going to do my job."
Clinton's lawyers will argue that a chief executive should be immune to being sued while in office, lest he and future presidents be hamstrung by lawsuits to the detriment of the performance of their duties.
"It's not that there should be immunity (for the president)," Attorney General Janet Reno told reporters Thursday, "but considering the tremendous burdens on the presidency the matter should be delayed" until he leaves office.
Jones' lawyers will argue that no one is above the law. The issue has never been squarely addressed by the high court.
The case has a David vs. Goliath quality. David's team would be Davis and Cammarata, who have never handled anything so conspicuous.
Davis, 54, is the son, husband and father of schoolteachers and once taught seventh and eighth grade history and geography in Iowa, where he was born.
He also is a born-and-bred Republican who intends this summer to seek the Virginia GOP's nomination for attorney general.
His role as Clinton's antagonist cannot hurt that pursuit. He's already running on the promise to be "a fearless attorney general who will fight anyone who does wrong, including the president of the United States."
"This is a case with strong partisan overtones," says political scientist Mark Rozell, an observer of Virginia politics. "It is pretty much Gil Davis' launching pad. It's what will identify him with the public."
Pat Mullins, former Republican chairman in Fairfax County, Va., describes the 6-foot-4-inch, 250-pound Davis as charismatic: "When he comes into a meeting, he rarely moves. The crowd sort of gravitates toward him."
Davis and his colleague talked it over and decided that Davis, who has more courtroom experience, would argue the case before the justices while Cammarata does the spadework.
Does Davis hesitate about pressing a case that could end up deeply embarrassing to an incumbent president?
"Nope," he says. "I never have any qualms about who a defendant might be. Paula Jones' interests are certainly as important as his."
Cammarata, grandson of Sicilian immigrants, came into adulthood as a Democrat and worked as an advance man in Jimmy Carter's re-election campaign while in college. "I even rode in the motorcade," he recalls.
He went to Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service. His 1980 commencement speaker was Georgetown graduate Bill Clinton, then governor of Arkansas. Along the way since then, Cammarata became a Republican.
Davis and Cammarata inherited Jones' case from Little Rock lawyer Daniel Traylor, who found it more than he wanted to handle.
The Goliaths in this case are Bennett and Walter Dellinger, acting solicitor general and a former Duke University law professor. The solicitor general represents the government before the Supreme Court. In this case, he would represent the presidency while Bennett represents the president himself.
Bennett, 57, blustery, prickly, considered one of Washington's top lawyers in defending white-collar cases, is skilled both in legal intricacies and the public relations aspects of high-profile cases.
Among his other clients have been Hollywood producer Harry Thomason, a pal of Clinton's involved in the White House travel office firings; former Rep. Dan Rostenkowski, who pleaded guilty to mail fraud charges; Harold Ickes, White House deputy chief of staff, who has come under investigation in the Whitewater affair; Washington insider Clark Clifford, investigated but not prosecuted in the case of a crime-ridden financial institution, BCCI; and former Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger, who received a presidential pardon for his role in the Iran-Contra scandal.
Bennett commands $475 an hour. A Democrat, he has an even more famous kid brother - Republican William Bennett, former education secretary and drug policy coordinator, adviser to Bob Dole and author of the runaway best seller, "The Book of Virtues."
In the lawsuit, Jones says Clinton propositioned her in a Little Rock hotel room in 1991 while he was governor and she was a state employee. She says her civil rights were violated and is seeking $700,000 in damages.
A federal judge in Arkansas ruled that the trial should be delayed until Clinton leaves office but said pretrial fact-gathering could begin. Bennett appealed, and an appeals court ruled that the case could go to trial during Clinton's presidency. Bennett's appeal of that ruling is what is before the Supreme Court.