Reading over the transcripts of Clinton’s testimony is illuminating, because I’d always been under the assumption that the allegation of perjury pertained just to the topic of whether he’d been blown or not, and I had believed that the constructed definition of sex presented to him did not include being blown. However, it strains credulity to read his responses as being honest, and I more fully understand why he copped to being less than forthcoming, and more fully agree with the punishments that he suffered as a result (except of course, his being impeached for it).
Nevertheless, it is important to my evaluation of the situation that Clinton’s perjury arose in the absence of any other crime - as far as I know, getting blown by or pleasuring Lewinski with a stogie is not illegal (or goddamn shouldn’t be! but I digress), and I believe that it should really matter to only three people - Bill, Hillary and Ms. Lewinski. If they can resolve it amongst themselves, it has no bearing on my life.
The hypothesized perjury in this case, however, is about the crime itself. In the absence of the perjury, there was still a crime. Furthermore, this crime resulted in specific harm to others, and indirect harm to our national security.
I personally believe that more people should be getting blowjobs rather than fewer. I also understand, if not feel positively towards, a response of “Ixnay on the owjobblay alktay in front of my ickchay.” On the other hand, I don’t think we should release any more confidential information about our intelligence community resources. Thus, while I cannot get worked up about the former, I am troubled by the latter.
Again, I feel it is necessary to remind that Clinton was not giving a deposition regarding his sex life for shits and giggles. He was the defendant in a sexual harassment lawsuit. Granted, there were no criminal charges pending, but that should not give a person free reign to lie to a court of law. That lawsuit was dismissed, perhaps it would not have been if Clinton had been forthright about his sexual activity with employees.
Seriously, people are treating his lies with a wink and a nod, as if it is completely understandable and acceptable. It isn’t. A person was trying to get justice through our court system, and the POTUS himself lied in his deposition for the suit. You cannot get justice if people refuse to tell the truth.
I never said he should have free reign to lie. It is however, easier for me to believe that Paula Jones was pursuing an opportunity to make some cash than to believe that the consentual relationship Lewinski had illustrates Clinton’s culpability in the Jones matter. I’m sure this is unfair towards her, but her behavior and the nekkid pictures of her that were going around tended to undermine, strictly IMO, her credibility.
By the same token, I don’t know how often it is the case that the presence of an affair later on can be taken as evidence of guilt regarding harrassment. Wouldn’t it be unfair to Clinton, presuming he was innocent of the allegation, if the matter were decided against him because of a later consentual relationship? I suppose I would feel more disposed to think that other instances of harrassment would have bearing.
Cheesesteak, the Jones/Scaife suit was purportedly over job discrimination, not sexual harassment. The case was dismissed because she was unable to identify any acts of discrimination. Clinton’s statements about getting hummers from Monica had nothing to do with that, and wouldn’t have kept the case in court. Clear now?
The seriousness of a false or misleading statement has quite a bit to do with what it’s about, doesn’t it?
No one is saying that it’s understandable or acceptable to lie under oath. Just that
It was an unnecessary scandal. The man’s sex life had little if anything to do with his presidency, but it still gets trotted out every time a member of the current administration fucks up.
It should be obvious to anyone that lying about getting laid and lying in order to go to war and getting a whole shit load of people killed just because of that lie are two entirely different things. Are they both lies? Yes. Should lying to a grand jury be acceptable? No. Are there degrees? Bloody hell, if there aren’t there should be, IMO. But I’m not an attorney. I would hope Bricker could chime in on that. Should the two be equated? FUCK. NO.
And yet, that is what is happening. Over and over and over. “Clinton lied to the Grand Jury! He did, he lied!” Okay, yes, after reading all that, I would say he did. So, knowing that, would you not agree that you’d expect more from an administration you support? Would you not demand the same hanging you (and by “you,” I mean all conservatives) demanded for Clinton? THAT is why the cries of hypocracy. You demanded blood for a blowjob, for fuck’s sake. Don’t you think the price should be at least that high for everyone?
First off, I’d like to see a cite on the lawsuit being about job discrimination, he’s the Washington Post saying it was sexual harassment.
When it comes to the legal point of this, if her lawsuit was without merit, it gets dismissed. I’d just like for all the parties involved to give honest testimony before the judge decides it is without merit. Is it relevant in an employee sexual harassment lawsuit for the plaintiff to show that the defendant had sex with other employees? I think it is, and as Bricker mentioned, some questions in depositions are not intended to bring direct evidence to the case, but to open up other questions that are more relevant. Clinton admits to having sex with Lewinsky, that opens up questions regarding how the relationship got started, perhaps that will show a startling similarity to Jones’ claims. Perhaps not, we’ll never know because he lied about it, and that whole line of questioning died on the vine.
Personally, if anyone in Bush’s administration perjured themselves during this investigation, I’d be happy to see them crucified over it. I’m just tired of Clinton getting a pass on his lies because they were about sex. The whole damn lawsuit was about sex, how can you use sex as an excuse for lying?
That and the jury might have said on the merits, this is BS they didn’t ask the question and the law says we can infer the reason they didn and used that bogus legal definition was because he simply didn’t. It’s not just very possible, it’s very likelly. A prosecutor has a duty to charge a crime. A prosecutor with no cases to compete for his time who thinks there was a crime and doesn’t charge isn’t doing his duty. A prosecutor does have discretion not to charge, but that is only for trivial matters and I think everyone arguing here concedes that perjury is not trivial. (It may be bs to persecute Clinton over this, but perjury is still serious.)
2,3,4 Since there is no question as a matter of law that Clinton’s case amounted to probable cause according to you, please provide citation to a similar case or explain why the prosecutor did not indict when he had a duty to do so. In short, I disagree with your “as a matter of law” finding. I contend that the prosecutors (Starr and successor) did not indict (a historical fact) because they as the actual prosecutors in the case we are discussing, disagreed. The only other alternative I can think of was that they were chicken of losing at trial and afraid to do their duty and that their whole investigation was political bullshit for which they were paid $400 an hour for 3 years.
I tend to think that it would be a sloppy prosecutor who would find probable cause based on what we’ve been discussing. But I think that a competent prosecutor would have asked “the question” too, and not relied on the “definition”.
5 Well, we don’t know what a jury would do without doing a jury trial. Most prosecutors are up against an overworked public defender, not Bill Bennett. Bennett is no callow Marsha Clark or drunken F. Lee Bailey. He’d wipe the fucking floor with whichever subordinate the chickenshit Ken Starr sent. Starr showed us his best when he filed his report. Bennett hadn’t started to cross-examine his first witness.
I’m thinking that an appeals court would say that as a matter of law, you can’t have a definition like the one used here supporting a conviction unless he was asked “did she give you a bj” directly and he lied. I think that there is a good argument that it is so convoluted that the court is just going to conclude that it is in so many subparts, vague, compound and complex that you cannot use it against a reasonable person without a specific non-objectionable question. Lawyers are required to ask single part questions for a reason. Moreover, I’m going to refer to my earlier arguments that Clinton can fairly interpret the language as applying to his case within his answer, the tortured rendition is necessary to have it mean what the “prosecutors” here are saying, and that, as a matter of law is reasonable doubt in Clinton’s favor. So, no, I don’t agree that an appeals court would uphold a conviction, they might be compelled to overturn it. I think Starr’s office came to this conclusion and others like it in deciding it was their duty not to indict.
(Now, of course,…) And it’s merely speculation on the prosecutor’s part that her “kinda grazed” tentative answers would have held up. My speculation is based on the fact that she was complaining that Starr was threatening and bullying until he finally cut a deal with her to shut up on her public statements. You don’t think she would have turned wickedly on Starr? The quotes you guys have made here in this thread are not the quotes of a witness friendly to the prosecution. At any time did you feel intimidated by the prosecution? Yes, they dragged you out of a lunch held you in a hotel room, told you not to call a lawyer or you would be charged and tried, etc.? All motive to lie to please the prosecutor. And the prosecutor may have decided based on comments he did not make public that she was, in fact, lying, which would be an alternative explanation as to why he could not put her on the stand, which would be required as she would be the only witness who could testify.
Of course no one knows for sure what a jury or appellate court would have done. That’s why we have a presumption of innocence, so that a politcal hack job that only presents part of the picture to the public doesn’t ruin people’s lives. It’s completely appalling to me that people have done this anyway to Clinton, and even more appalling that it was by people who are supposedly in favor of the classically liberal principle of presumption of innocence and the right to Clinton’s day in court.
I don’t. Please actually read all of my last post. But as far as the sex as an excuse thing goes: I just don’t give a fuck. Really, really, do not care. All men lie about sex. All men. Those who say they do not and have not? Lying. It just strikes me as one big “Who fucking cares?” Paula Jones carried on an affair for how many years with this man, and waited til he was president to decide to go after him? Why is that, exactly? I don’t care. Monica Lewinsky got hounded by her room mate to testify that she had consensual sex with the President. Why? Who cares? It’s not a matter of “why did he lie under oath” to me. It’s a matter of “Why the fuck did this lawsuit even happen in the first place?”
And really, Cheesesteak, why the fuck do you care so much? Was he not acquitted?
It’s not clear to me who you’re talking about in the current administration.
It’s not a crime for the President to lie to Congress and the world to start a war.
I know that must seem an awful thing to say, but the fact remains that it’s not criminal. FDR lied to the American people repeatedly to bring about World War II. That fact is not seen, today, as a weakness in his presidency. So even if I concede that Bush himself lied, and people died, it’s not a crime. It’s one way Presidents exercise their office. I’m not saying it’s admirable. But I have to admit that, knowing all I know today, if I were an adviser to FDR prior to Lend-Lease being passed, I’d advise him to continue just what he was saying and doing, even if it technically violated the Neutrality Act and was certainly lies.
Or were you talking about the alleged Rove/Libby actions of leaking a covert operative’s name to embarrass her husband? That’s a different kettle of fish. It’s illegal, and it’s PERSONAL. It’s not an act of government policy. It’s a personal act in violation of government policy. If true, it is deserving of the most serious response by the criminal justice system.
Yes! How many times do I need to say it? If guilty, Rove, Libby, whoever else… they need to be criminally convicted. Absolutely.
(But I didn’t demand blood for a blowjob. I demanded it for the lies told under oath.)
Thanks, Bricker. Could you please elaborate a bit further: are there any distinctions made as to the severity of perjury? Circumstances, etc? Or is it one size fits all?
Yeah, you finally post evidence and then I respond with how it’s inadequate. That’s how it works. I cannot very well respond to it until it is out there. And the burden is still with the prosecution (that’s you) to come forward with it. I’m not obliged to raise any objection to your evidence until you post it or link it. And even if I come up with something a day later that is an entirely new argument, what is the harm in that? It’s a further reason why the evidence is inadequate. If it isn’t fair to come up with an argument a day later, it sure as hell isn’t fair to Clinton to call him a criminal perjurer 7 years after his acquittal and when he was not allowed to call a single witness in his defense at his non-existent day in Court, seeing as you have discounted the Senate acquittal.
Who in this country is guilty of a crime without having his day in court? You even let OJ have a trial. Why doesn’t Clinton get a trial if you are going to accuse him of criminal activity. Shit, as much as I despise Bush because I think he should be charged as a war criminal, I think he would be entitled to his day in court. But no, because it’s about a penis and a Democrat we can dispense with a trial and just call him a criminal. Really, you should stop calling yourself a Democrat as you threatened, because that is just so basic.
Not only are you ignorant, but you are aggresively ignorant.
The “law” you quoted was a jury instruction that refers to civil trials. Try again.
I am a lawyer.
On this board, we have a number of lawyers that regularly participate, and they range politically from conservative to liberal.
I do not believe you will find one lawyer on this board that would conclude the Monica Lewinsky testimony does not give rise to probable cause to believe that Clinton committed perjury.
What is your legal training, the training that leads you to the opposite conclusion?
There is no general prosecutorial “duty to indict”. Prosecutors generally have unfettered discretion.
Really? And on what legal basis do you believe the appeals court would have rested such an argument?
Do you even understand how an appellate court reviews a appeal for sufficiency of the evidence? Please - lay it out for us. What, precisely, is the process of analysis by which an appeals court reviews a conviction for sufficiency of the evidence?
Respectfully, I believe you are mistaken, or at a minimum misframing the issue. Although I am not aware of any federal statutes, I am aware of various international laws that make wars of aggression illegal, including the Geneva conventions and the UN Charter, both of which are operative because the Senate has ratified them. Not that I expect any other country in the world has the chutzpah to try to bring charges. But I do seem to recall that we executed death penalties against a bunch of Nazis and Japanese for starting WWII under false pretenses.
Up until now, the entire discussion here was premised around US legal issues, and whther specific conduct was violative of US law.
Assuming without deciding that starting a war of aggression is a violation of international law, the violation of international law is well beyond what we’ve been discussing up until now.
In any event, it’s hard for me to take such claims seriously in the criminal context. What’s the penalty, under international law? To me it seems almost axiomatic that if we’re discussing criminal conduct, there is a specific code that provides clear notice to an individual of what conduct is proscribed, and what punishment is possible.
What authority may issue an indictment? What constitutes the tribunal? What affirmative defenses, if any, exist? Is international law a common-law or civil law system? What are the rules of evidence? What privileges exist?
The ephermeral answers to those types of questions are the reason I have trouble taking the “violation of international law” charge seriously.
Perhaps if we try really hard we can think of a trait shared by post-WWII Germany and post-WWII Japan that led to their leaders being tried on such issues.
Well, if you buy the Bush Administration’s argument that the US is engaged in a “war on terror”, then isn’t compromising the identity of an undercover agent in search of WMD-seeking terrorists a direct application of “giving aid and comfort to the enemy”? Especially in wartime?
I don’t recall Monica Lewinsky filing a lawsuit against Bill Clinton. But then, I’m one of those wacky wingnuts who think consentual sex between consenting adults is nobody’s business but their own.
