Impeachment Prosecutor, David P. Schippers, Joins Board
of Visitors
(from the Winter 2000-2001 Quarterly Newsletter)
 David
P. Schippers, who served as chief counsel to the United States
House of Representatives managers for the impeachment trial
of President Bill Clinton in the U.S. Senate, recently joined
the Thomas Aquinas College Board of Visitors.
From March 1988 through February 28, 1999, Schippers was
engaged in one of the most significant events in American
history, an impeachment investigation and trial against the
President, an event he chronicled in his best-selling book,
Sell-Out: The Inside Story of President Clinton's Impeachment.
Schippers, a born and bred Democrat who twice voted for President
Clinton, was shocked, not only by Clinton's actions (which
he called a far-reaching conspiracy to obstruct justice with
perjury, lies, and witness tampering), but by Republican and
Democratic politicians alike who sold out the impeachment
process.
Schippers had come to the job with a much different impression.
"I always thought the guy had a problem with sexual aberrations,
but I didn't think his problems rose anywhere near an impeachable
offense," he once stated in an interview. Congressman Henry
J. Hyde (R- IL), whom he had known for 25 years, had asked
him to come to Washington to manage oversight of the Justice
Department. Only after he arrived, did "the Monica thing"
hit and he was forced to assume a role in the impeachment.
After seeing the evidence that Independent Counsel Ken Starr
amassed, he pursued the only option he morally felt he could
pursue: Impeachment.
An attorney in private practice since 1967, Schippers is
the senior partner in the Chicago law firm of Schippers &
Bailey. The firm specializes in trust law, labor law, and
trials and appeals in the state and federal courts of Illinois
and throughout the country.
"Growing up in Chicago," he once said, "there were three
things paramount in my life: the White Sox, the Church, and
the Democratic Party – and not necessarily in that order."
He admits to being "an anachronism, a throwback" and an "old-style,
Truman Democrat." He was profoundly disappointed that the
Democratic Party failed to hold the New Democrat accountable
for his actions. (He endorsed Alan Keyes in the last presidential
race.)
From 1963 to 1967, Schippers served as a member and later
the chief of the Organized Crime and Racketeering Section
of the U.S. Department of Justice at Chicago. He prepared
and tried many major criminal cases in the federal courts
and was also involved in a many major grand jury investigations.
He previously served in the U.S. Attorney's Office as an Assistant
United States Attorney, trying major criminal cases on behalf
of the government and preparing and arguing appeals on its
behalf.
Schippers earned both his undergraduate and J.D. degree from
Loyola University in Chicago. He has served as a teacher of
trial advocacy and advanced trial advocacy to practicing attorneys
and senior law students at the Loyola University School of
Law. He has also taught trial advocacy at the Willamette University
College of Law in Salem, Oregon, and at the U.S. Air Force
Air University in Montgomery, Alabama.
He served as one of five members of the Illinois State Police
Merit Board from 1987 to 1993. He is the recipient of the
Loyola University Law Alumni Medal of Excellence, the Loyola
University Alumni Association citation for distinguished service
to the legal profession and the Award of Appreciation from
the Federal Criminal Investigators Association.
A longtime fan of Thomas Aquinas College, Schippers first
met President Thomas Dillon at a Legatus meeting where Schippers
was speaking last year. Last fall, he was added to the College's
Board of Visitors. Schipper's comment is unimpeachable: "Thomas
Aquinas College is the finest school in the U.S., if not the
world, and probably the only school I know of that educates
students as they should be educated."
Schippers and his wife Jackie have 10 children and 25 grandchildren.
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