No way in the world a jury would convict Clinton of perjury in his Grand Jury testimony. None at all. There is no way you could prove he lied about his sexual affair with Lewinsky in the GJ testimony. He admitted the essence of it. What he refused to go into details about was understandable, if not ordinarily permissible without claiming the 5th. (What it amounts to is that Clinton would not explicitly admitted he had received oral sex from Lewinsky, but clearly indicated that the GJ was free to infer than he had. He did say he had not had intercourse, certain sorts of touching.)
Also no way a conviction in the Paula Jones civil deposition, especially when all the circumstances are considered. Perjury might be completely disposed, since the Lewinsky testimony was not material to the Paula Jones claim of coercive sexual harassment. Even if not decided by summary judgment on that issue, the Jury could certainly consider it, and the Pres. made a compelling witness on that subject. Combine that with the President's evident effort to thread the needle in the Jones deposition (or walk the minefields as he point it) -- to answer narrowly truthfully but avoid adding information that would reveal his affair with Lewinsky if he could, I think its clear you would NOT get a civil conviction. The Prez. makes it on his reading of sexual relations. It is utterly irrelevant if that is what most people would limit the definition to. It was a fought over and defined term and approved by the Judge, who had in mind a definition with some relevance to the harassment information the Jones lawyers, disingenuously, said they were after. The question then becomes did the Pres. slip up, or cross the line when he said that he couldn't recall if he was ever alone with her.
I think his explanation...that what he meant by alone was fully and safely outside of earshot and the risk of intrusion, is not utterly implausible. I.e., I think he figured out how he would interpret it at the deposition, and thought his answer would be defensible. And under all the circumstances you'd never get a perjury conviction on that.
If you are going to claim that he committed a crime, esp. when its such a marginal one as these would be under all the circumstances, then you have to show the evidence really would meet the burdens of criminal proof. And they certainly would not.
So drop it, zealots.
Doug |
