So in fact, if these 2 elements were not sufficient to establish the crime of perjury, you’d be revising your opinion, recanting your misguided ways and admitting you were wrong before all here present?
In any case, remember that an impeachable offense is what Congress says it is. Not what Airman Doors USAF says it is. Not what the people at large say it is. Not even what the law says it is, because the law doesn’t say. That’s why it’s left to Congress instead of the courts. It’s a political decision.
Is it even possible to invoke the 25th amendment without the VP?
:dubious: Bullshit, side to side and right through the middle! The Constitution does not define what is impeachable! Only Congress can do that!
Lying under oath is not the only requirement for a person to be guilty of perjury. There is also a requirement that the person has to have lied about something material to the case.
- Cite that Clinton lied under oath to the Grand Jury? Please keep in mind that Clinton ADMITTED the blow job to the Grand Jury? Contrary to popular belief, he was not impeached for anything he said in the Paul Jones deposition. The Articles of Impeachment included two charges: 1.) that he lied to Inquistor Starr’s Grand Jury about whether he ever sucked Monica’s nipples (again, he ADMITTED to the blow job in front of the Grand Jury) and 2.) That he “obstructed justice” by allegedly helping Lewinsky write the so-called “talking points memo.” This charge was never remotely proven and always denied by Lewisnki. The sole basis for the charge was that "a young girl like Monica couldn’t possibly have written it herself. It was never expalined why not).
So what were left with is an allegation that Bill Clinton lied to the Grand Jury when he claimed that he had never sucked Miss Lewinsky’s nipples. What is your evidence that he ever sucked her nipples?
The beautiful part of all this is that graduate students in history and political science will be wrangling over this, and microscopically deconstructing the Starr Report (late at night), generations from now.
God bless America! 
I’d love to do nothing but. However, you can put balls on a cow and that doesn’t make it a bull. Perjury is what it is. There’s no way to change the definition, because that is the definition.
Really? Was it material when Mark Fuhrman denied ever having said the n-word in the OJ trial? What possible difference could it have made to the physical evidence in the case? None at all. Yet he was forced to plead out a perjury charge.
In spite of your best attempts to wave it away, Clinton’s lie was a crime.
(from here. That puts aside your statement that he admitted to a blowjob. He didn’t. He denied it under oath and was later found out.
Oh, I agree with you 100%. As a citizen I have my own opinion, and I think that it was impeachable. The politicians agreed with me in this case, which makes it by definition impeachable.
I’m not sure what the vitriol is all about, though. And I’m also not sure why you repeated yourself twice in three posts except to shout a little louder a point that I have never disagreed with.
Now, I really hate hijacking threads like this, and I regret starting this discussion because it’s been done to death elsewhere and nothing is ever agreed to, so I’m done here. If you feel that you must continue this discussion, I would ask that you start another thread. I think we all know how that will turn out, and I think we all know that it will be the same people making the same points, so really, guys, the ball’s in your court. If you want to do this again I’m sure we’ll find plenty of willing participants.
Thus ends my part in this hijack.
The legal definition requires that the lie be material to the case. That’s a fact. That’s part of the definition of the crime. It is NOT just lying under oath. You’re wrong.
A prosecutor apparently thought so, but that’s really for a jury to decide.
His Paula Jones deposition and his Grand Jury testimony were TWO DIFFERENT PROCEEDINGS, Airman. He was subpoenaed to testify to Starr’s Grand Jury AFTER the Paula Jones civil deposition. In his testimony to the GRAND JURY, he ADMITTED the blow job. Here is the transcript of his Grand Jury testimony. This is the only sexually related material which he was accused of lying about to the Grand Jury:
So what he was accused of lying to the GRAND JURY about was not the blow job but about whether he’d made helicopter noises in her breasts or finger-banged her.
He also didn’t lie in the PJ deposition, by the way. He was given the following definition of “sex”:
As worded only asked if HE had ever touched any of HER naughty parts. It was a badly worded definition, it gave him a hole and he ran through it. He was not obligated to volunteer any information he was not asked. Technically speaking, his answer was accurate.
Even if you want to still say it was a lie, it still would have been next to impossible to PROVE it was a lie. In order to prove perjury, it would have been necessary to prove that Clinton KNEW that the definition was meant to include receiving oral sex. If someone says they understood a definition exactly as worded how can you possibly prove that’s a lie?
Gentleman that I am, I responded to offer someone else the opportunity to administer the coup de grace to Airman Doors. I am beaten to that by another poster having seized the day. Congratulations!
I now invite Airman Doors to make good his word.
So I’ve been hibernating a while, and I see two things upon my return.
You can say “troll” now. I mourn the passing of standards and the corruption of time less virtue. And you kids get off my lawn.
Secondly, a succinct and informed post by friend Doggyknees explaining why Clinton’s impeachment was a load of applesauce.
What the French phrase, about no matter how much gout the pig gets, he’s pretty much bacon? Or something.
Yes and no. It specifies two crimes as impeachable: treason and bribery. It then says “and other high crimes and misdemeanors.” (Art. II, Sec. 4, US Const.)
My reading: The House of Representatives is obliged to impeach on a clear showing of treason or bribery. It has the legal discretion to impeach for anything else. (And, of course, it is the sole judge of its own conduct, subject to the judgment of the electorate at the polls.)
Sorry, Xtisme, but there are all kinds of threads on the Dope about Republican malfeasance in both election, enough to make any reasonable person think hard. I’m afraid that suspicion of the Repubican party’s electioneering isn’t just for the Democratic faithful any more …
There are three requirements. The one you don’t care about is materiality. Well, actually, there’s a fourth - being charged. But you don’t care about that, either.
There’s the law, and then there’s justice, and they do *not * necessarily coincide. The law can be used as a tool of injustice. It is entirely possible to think that a law has been broken, but that justice forgives or even requires it. You do, I think I see, acknowledge that to many of us a commitment to the spirit of the law is more important than a commitment to the mere letter of the law, and that a commitment to justice is even more important than a commitment to the spirit of the mere law.
How about this, then - I’ll stipulate that Clinton should not have given the answers he did if you’ll stipulate that nobody had any business asking those questions. Deal?
Yes you are, Doors.
Sure it isn’t Evil.
-XT
For those of you (stubbornly) arguing that Clinton didn’t commit perjury, he admitted to it himself:
“Clinton explicitly admits that ‘certain of my responses’ were false when he gave 1998 deposition about Lewinsky in Paula Jones sexual misconduct suit; will pay $25,000 fine to Arkansas Bar Assn”
Admitting you made false statements under oath is not the same as admitting you committed perjury, because making false statements under oath is not perjury in all circumstances. You would know that if you had really followed this thread to this point.
As for agreeing to pay a fine to the Arkansas Bar, there are many things for which an attorney can be sanctioned, as violations of the rules of professional conduct, even though they do not rise to the level of crimes under the law.
It’s not? From dictionary.com:
per·ju·ry ( P ) Pronunciation Key (pûrj-r)
n. pl. per·ju·ries
Law. The deliberate, willful giving of false, misleading, or incomplete testimony under oath.
What am I missing here? He admitted making false statements under oath, which is by definintion, perjury.
You’re missing that it has to be a lie about something material to the case.
That ain’t a legal dictionary, and you got to make allowances. Every field of human endeavor has a specialized technical vocabulary, and “perjury” is a legal term of art. Look up “perjury” under the statutory code of your state, or the United States Code, or any legal dictionary.