Presidents lying to lead us into War... it should be illegal

[Bricker]

@Sevastopol

My accusation is that the impeachment was a kangaroo court.

That was your accusation?

I thought you said:

@Sevastopol

The articles of impeachment were gussied up to resemble the offense of perjury to deceive people just like Weirddave. Obviously this was highly effective. However, perjury is a complex and technical thing and the impeachment came nowhere near satisfying the substance of that offense.

That’s not an attack on the validity of the trial – that’s a claim that the charge is deficient, that “perjury” is complex and technical, and that the impeachment didn’t allege perjury correctly.

But OK. You’re now saying:

@Sevastopol

Now, ‘defendant’ rather than ‘accused’.

In substance, the above response states the positive elements but omits the technical detail of the defenses and other controlling circumstances surrounding perjury. These are as much constituents of the offense as its positive elements.

Consider for example the doctrines regarding proceedings bought for a collateral purpose. Similarly, the defenses and controlling circumstances surrounding perjury are crafted particularly to prevent proceedings commencing for the purpose of creating a subsequent perjury trial. But these are below the radar considerations that were severed in this case.

No, they’re not. What must be proved by the government in order to secure a criminal conviction for perjury are precisely the elements I described above.

As far as I can tell, when you mention “…defenses and controlling circumstances surrounding perjury are crafted particularly to prevent proceedings commencing for the purpose of creating a subsequent perjury trial…” you’re discussing what’s known in the biz as a perjury trap. This is essentially a special case of the entrapment defense, and, like that general defense, is an affirmative defense and must be proved by the defense to rebut the charge.

The only problem with this claim as applied to Clinton’s case is that it doesn’t work. (Now, again for clarity – this is not a discussion of the impeachment trial, which doesn’t have rules of evidence, a standard for conviction, or a requirement for unanimity from the finders of fact. This is a discussion of whether a sufficient record was made to support a criminal finding of guilty.)

Why wasn’t Clinton’s case a perjury trap? Because a perjury trap happens when a false answer is illegally procured by the government in an effort to induce perjury.

There were two different sets of testimony by then-President Clinton that constituted perjury. One was his testimony in the civil deposition of the Paula Jones lawsuit. This cannot form the basis of a perjury trap defense, because the testimony was not elicited by the government. The second was his grand jury testimony investigating the civil deposition perjury. When a grand jury is seeking information to further its investigation, the perjury trap defense is inapplicable. US v. Brown, 49 F.3d 1162, 1168 (6th Cir. 1995), cert. denied, 116 S.Ct. 377 (1995); US v. Chen, 933 F.2d 793, 797 (9th Cir. 1991).

Moreover, Clinton was explicitly warned about the consequences of perjury and the dangers of giving false testimony during his grand jury testimony. These warnings show that the prosecution was not seeking perjury, but rather truthful testimony, and eviscerate the perjury trap defense. US v. Williams, 874 F.2d 968, 974-75 (5th Cir. 1989).

What else you got?

[marshmallow]

This thread has wandered far afield of the original argument.

Should there be a setup where presidents are punished for lying and starting wars? Well, yeah. But it’s not gonna happen in a million years. We’re talking about a situation where many people in this thread think it’s the media’s responsibility to inform the general populace about foreign affairs and examine a president’s plans for wars with a critical eye (as opposed to say, blindly promoting them and having former generals give interviews about how great this next war will be, etc.).

Or that Congress is supposed to do anything, before or after the fact. That’s another good one. As if Congress isn’t just another cog which spins in due deference.

@Mr. Moto

If you want to make this illegal, you’d have grounds to throw every wartime president into the slammer. Every one

Bingo. And I agree. But Clinton Carter, and Kennedy lionizers would disagree and they probably outnumber me by a lot.

@Cisco

We have one. It’s called congress. They dropped the ball this time, of course, but historically our system has worked pretty well.

What history do you read? Over the course of the twentieth century “the ball” bas been dropped to the tune of several million deaths and that’s if we just want to talk about proper wars that have capital letters and everything. Not a path for the light hearted to tread. If that history can be discounted so easily then the current situation in Western Asia can be dismissed as practically irrelevant.

@Lakai

After Congress there is the people, who also failed to do anything about it.

I’m not going to start a rebellion. I’m pretty comfortable, thanks. You first. If things go well maybe I’ll join. I’ll bring lemonade.

The system isn’t always perfect, but at least it can eventually correct itself.

How so? As far as the system is concerned, nothing is wrong. It’s not like a grass roots popular movement is afoot or anything. People’s ideas nowadays of fighting the system – if such an alien thought enters their head – tend to involve blogging and writing their representative. Or voting Dem (the Daily Kos theory).

@xtisme

Of course it does. Had Bush’s little war gone exactly as he planned it wouldn’t be an issue today except with the way out loony left. It only gets any traction at all because it has been such a rough ride and popular opinion has shifted…and with it there has been a shift in the political power structure in this country.

Quite right. There is very little principled opposition to the Iraq or Afghanistan wars, even on this supposedly leftist board.

Does it bother you the whole United States conquering other nations thing is only a concern among the “loony left” here in the US?