In his book WHORES: Why and How I Came to Fight the Establishment Larry Klayman dishes all on his long career of battling Washington DC and trying to instill ethics, morality, and religion to the Capital. Klayman, a conservative lawyer, is dedicated in his pursuit of justice and is quite notable for being the only lawyer to ever obtain a court ruling that a U.S. President committed a crime. He likes to see himself as a non-partisan freedom fighter and has founded two organizations Judicial Watch and Freedom Watch to be independent Justice Departments.
The book starts off during his days in Philly where he was bullied and learned to stand up for himself, a lesson he took to heart. It then briefly follows his career arc in Washington until he founds Judicial Watch. Then came the 18 different lawsuits against the Clinton Administration, including “Trustgate,” “Chinagate,” and “Filegate.” While labeled a Republican zealot going after a democratic president he would later boast having sued Dick Cheney over his Energy Task Force over not disclosing their records, with the courts later siding with the Task Force. The driving force throughout these years in Larry’s life was the pursuit of government honesty, transparency, and largely causing one large ruckus for those in power with something to hide.
In 2003, Larry would run for Senate in Florida as a Republican. Things were looking fine for him until the Bushes put out their own candidate Mel Martinez. His battle for the Senate seat is one of the more interesting aspects of the book since it shows first hand the corruption inherent in elections — how having the right friends means more than anything else. As your recent memory should tell you, Martinez ended up winning the election and Larry decided to go back to his law career.
The book’s a great read. It’s very entertaining and Larry Klayman’s public life leads to some great stories as he takes on the government, mafia, big corporations, and everyone in-between. He fights against the system that defends itself and is sustained by political jabs, in-fighting, and grandstanding but not by solving problems. In this effort the book details a bit of a wear down in Klayman, who starts off idealistic and taking on the president to a guy to runs a broken election against a de facto leader. Throughout you can’t help but root for the guy as he battles forces so larger than he and so complacent in the way things are. Even in corruption charges against the Clintons the Republicans decided to drop the investigation because they themselves were guilty of the same charges and could not face that in the press. So corruption runs rampant and no one cares ... well, other than Larry.
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