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An Examination of Clinton's impeachment charges
Lis Riba, December 1998
People keep using the President's actions in the Paula Jones case as
examples of why he should be impeached. However, the House did not find
enough evidence to impeach Clinton on those charges. Therefore, they are
moot for the time being.
Instead, let's look at the first charge he was actually impeached for.
Excerpt from Article I [Footnote 1]:
"On August 17, 1998, William Jefferson Clinton swore to tell the
truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth before a Federal
grand jury of the United States. Contrary to that oath, William
Jefferson Clinton willfully provided perjurious, false and misleading
testimony to the grand jury concerning one or more of the following:
(1) the nature and details of his relationship with a subordinate
Government employee; (2) prior perjurious, false and misleading
testimony he gave in a Federal civil rights ac tion brought against
him; (3) prior false and misleading statements he allowed his attorney
to make to a Federal judge in that civil rights action; and (4) his
corrupt efforts to influence the testimony of witnesses and to impede
the discovery of evidence in that civil rights action."
Keep in mind that Clinton was not impeached over his testimony in the
Paula Jones case. This is his interview with the Office of
Independent Counsel we're talking about (the videotape which was aired
in September) and not his testimony in the Paula Jones case.
Now, the first thing you may notice in this charge is that nowhere
does it say *which* statements are considered perjurious. Makes it a
bit harder to defend when the charges are so vague. Normally, perjury
convictions point to specific testimony which are lies.
Instead, we have to look at the Starr Report [2] and the Judiciary
Committee Report [3] to get some idea of what statements they claim
are lies.
1. The nature and details of his relationship:
a. In Clinton's testimony, he claimed that his relationship with
Lewinsky began in early 1996; she claimed it started in late 1995. By
the federal definition of perjury[4], the testimony has to be relevant
to be perjurious. He's already admitted that they did have a
relationship. Does it make any difference when the relationship
began?
In addition, sometimes it can be a matter of judgement in determining
when a relationship started. Technically, my relationship with my
fiance began in October, 1994, when I asked him if he wanted to start
"going out." However, we usually mark our anniversary as December,
1994, when we had our first date. So, when did our relationship
start? When I first asked him out or when we had our first date? Is
either one *wrong*? If I said our relationship began in October, and
he says it started in December, would one of us be lying?
When people say that the issue is perjury, not sex, Michael Moore
likes to answer by eliminating sex from the equation. Let's
substitute the word golf for sex. The president is accused of lying
about playing golf with Lewinsky. "She says they first played golf in
November, 1995. He claims they didn't start until early 1996." Mind
you, he's answering these questions in 1998 -- over two years after
the events in question -- so how clearly can you recall exact dates?
b. The Judiciary Committee also counts as perjury the fact that
Clinton claimed he was alone with Lewinsky "on certain occasions" and
they had "occasional" telephone sex. They call use of the word
"occasion" an intentional lie and claim 20 sexual encounters and 17
phone conversations in more than a year are greater than "occasional."
Webster's Collegiate Dictionary defines "occasional" as an event
"occurring at irregular or infrequent intervals." So how often is
something that's "occasional"?
Again with the golf analogy. "He's lying when he said they played
golf on occasion, because they actually played golf twenty times."
c. In his OIC testimony, Clinton said he believed that the definition
of sexual relations in the Paula Jones case did not include oral sex.
The Judiciary Committee thinks that's a lie.
During the Judiciary hearings, they played some videotape at the start
of the Paula Jones trial. There was a lot of debate over the
definition of sexual relations. At one point, the judge commented
that "I'm not sure Mr. Clinton knows all these definitions, anyway."
So the question is whether Clinton "understood" that the definition of
sex included oral sex and lied about it, or whether he honestly
thought the definition only meant intercourse. Now, how do you prove
that in a court of law? How can you prove what a person thought?
Golf: "He testified that they never played golf. In fact, they did
play miniature golf several times. He says he thought that when they
asked about golf, miniature golf wasn't included. He's lying because
he knew golf meant miniature golf as well."
d. Other issues involving the "nature and details of his relationship"
fall under the question of whether he touched her and where. Since
there were no witnesses to their sexual encounters, this is purely his
word versus hers. The best you could do here is have them both reveal
every last detail of their sexual encounters and then compare the blow
by blow detail. But it still comes down to whose words you believe
with no way to prove them.
2. Prior perjurious, false and misleading testimony he gave in a
Federal civil rights action brought against him:
The President was not impeached over his testimony in the Paula Jones
case, but for what he said to the OIC *about* his Paula Jones
testimony. Apparently, they didn't believe his explanations for why
he said what he said. Again, there's no specifics about which
statements fall into this category, but it seems to be more of the
same.
3. Prior false and misleading statements he allowed his attorney to
make to a Federal judge:
Again, he's accused of lying in his explanations of what happened
during the Paula Jones case, not for lying in the Paula Jones case
itself. According to most reports, at the time of the Paula Jones
trial, the President's lawyer did not know that there actually had
been a relationship. So the lawyer held up Monica Lewinsky's
affidavit, in which she said there had been no sexual relationship,
and said that meant "there is no absolutely no sex of any kind in any
manner, shape or form." The grand jury thought Clinton should have
corrected his lawyers comments and asked Clinton why he didn't speak
up about it. Clinton said he wasn't paying attention.
That's the lie they're charging him with here. He claimed he wasn't
following all the exchanges between his lawyer and the other lawyers,
while the Judiciary Committee said he was paying attention. How do
you prove whether someone is paying attention. The Judiciary
Committee report says that Clinton was looking at his lawyer at the
time, so he must have been paying attention. But there have been many
times when I have sat and stared at a lecturer, and my eyes glaze
over, my mind wanders elsewhere, and I lose all track of the outside
world. I'm still looking straight at the
person, and outside observers may think I'm absorbing every word, but
I'm thinking of something else entirely. And again, the standard of
perjury is relevance. Is this really relevant?
Interestingly enough, this charge is repeated in Article III (the
other article that was approved by the House) Article III, [5] "On
January 17, 1998, at his deposition in a Federal civil rights action
brought against him, William Jefferson Clinton corruptly allowed his
attorney to make false and misleading statements to a Federal judge
characterizing an affidavit, in order to prevent questioning deemed
relevant by the judge." This is the same allegation. Should this be
considered double jeopardy?
4. His corrupt efforts to influence the testimony of witnesses and to
impede the discovery of evidence:
The president was charged with obstruction of justice in Article III.
This accuses him of committing perjury in covering up the obstruction
of justice. Again, this sounds like double jeopardy. Not only is he
charged with obstruction of justice (and Article III includes charges
of perjury) but he's separately charged with committing perjury about
the alleged obstruction of justice.
So that's what I see when I look at Article I. Now, I don't think the
President is above the law, but I am willing to give the President the
benefit of the doubt. The Judiciary Committee is making some pretty
picayune charges (when the relationship started, how often is
occasional) that are near impossible to prove (what he believed about
the definition, whether he paid attention). Therefore, I just don't
think they rise to the level of impeachable crimes.
Mind you, there are other issues as well. Frankly, I don't think
Clinton should ever have been asked about his sex life in the first
place, making everything that stems from that revelation suspect. I
also have a lot of problems with the independent counsel and how he
conducted the case. When the foundation is built on shaky ground
(illegal evidence about something irrelevant) then it's harder to
trust anything based on that. However, most of that is covered in David
Chase's excellent post of December 24.
Understand?
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[1] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/special/clinton/stories/articles122098.htm (return)
[2] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/special/clinton/icreport/icreport.htm (return)
[3] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/special/clinton/pdfs/hrep830.pdf (return)
[4] http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/18/ch79.html -- see Section 1623 on
grand jury testimony (return)
[5] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/special/clinton/stories/bctest092198_4.htm (return)
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