Democrats argue Clinton should be prosecuted for his perjury:
August 31, 1999
Perjury? Let the Courts Decide
During the impeachment debate, Democrats' favorite line was that it was the job of the courts, not the Senate, to decide whether President Clinton committed perjury. Here's what some of them had to say last February.
"Rejecting these articles of impeachment does not place this president above the law. As the Constitution clearly says, he remains subject to the laws of the land just like any other citizen of the United States."
--Sen. Barbara Boxer (D., Calif.)
"Whether any of his conduct constitutes a criminal offense such as perjury or obstruction of justice is not for me to decide. That, appropriately, should and must be left to the criminal justice system, which will uphold the rule of law in President Clinton's case as it would for any other American."
--Sen. Joseph Lieberman (D., Conn.)
"For those who believe that the president is guilty of perjury and obstruction of justice--criminal offenses--there is a forum available for that determination."
--Sen. Richard Bryan (D., Nev.)
"Still, President Clinton is not 'above the law.' His conduct should not be excused, nor will it. The president can be criminally prosecuted, especially once he leaves office. In other words, is acts may not be 'removable' wrongs, but they could be 'convictable' crimes.
--Sen. Herbert Kohl (D., Wisc.)
"[T]he legal system, our civil and criminal laws provide the proper venue for a president who has failed in his private character. . . . And in this case, the legal system can and will continue to address the president's personal transgressions."
--Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D., N.J.)
"Offensive as they were, the president's actions have nothing to do with his official duties, nor do they constitute the most serious of private crimes. In my judgment, these are matters best left to the criminal justice system."
--Sen. Kent Conrad (D., N.D.)
"I have concluded that the Constitution was designed very carefully to remove the president of the United States for wrongful actions as president of the United States in his capacity as president of the United States and in carrying out his duties as president of the United States. For wrongful acts that are not connected with the official capacity and duties of the president of the United States, there are other ways to handle it. There is the judicial system. There is the court system. There are the U.S. attorneys out there waiting. There may even be the Office of Independent Counsel, which will still be there after all of this is finished."
--Sen. John Breaux (D., La.)
"[P]unishment for alleged criminal law violations is not up to the United States Congress. That's up to the criminal justice system. After his term is up, less than two years from now, he is like any other American. He would have any other defenses that any other American has. That's the proper forum for that."
--Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D., Calif.)
interactive.wsj.com
August 30, 1999
Clinton's Other Perjury
By Gary L. McDowell, director of the Institute of United States Studies at the University of London.
A year and a day after Bill Clinton lied about the Monica Lewinsky mess to a federal grand jury, the three-judge special court overseeing Kenneth Starr's independent counsel investigation gave the president one more worry. By a two-to-one vote on Aug. 18, judges Peter Fay and David Sentelle refused to terminate Mr. Starr's probe. His "unusually productive" investigation should be allowed to continue, despite the dissent of Judge Richard Cudahy that the investigation had reached "a natural and logical point for termination" with the impeachment and acquittal of President Clinton.
At one level the decision can be read as simply granting the Office of Independent Counsel the opportunity to clear up a few trifling matters before it files its required report and closes up shop. But when pressed as to whether his office might yet file indictments against either the president or his wife, Mr. Starr declined to comment, leaving open the possibility of something yet to come.
There remains very much unresolved the matter of the president's perjury before the grand jury on Aug. 17, 1998. Since April, when Judge Susan Webber Wright found the president in contempt for lying in the Paula Jones sexual harassment lawsuit, the matter of Mr. Clinton's "other" perjury before the grand jury has dangled ominously above what is left of his administration.
Lying under oath before a federal grand jury is certainly as serious a matter as lying under oath in a deposition in a pending civil suit. And if Mr. Starr is going to tie up his long investigation with no loose ends, an indictment against the president for the multiple counts of perjury alleged by both the independent counsel and David Schippers, the chief counsel to the House Judiciary Committee during the impeachment proceedings, would be properly brought.
It is worth recalling that Mr. Clinton's impeachment wasn't simply a party-line vote; Democrats voted for it, too. And during the heated debates over the president's fate not even his strongest defenders denied that he had lied under oath to the grand jury.
Most took the tack of then-Congressman, now-Senator Charles Schumer of New York: "To me it's clear that the president lied when he testified before the grand jury--not to cover a crime, but to cover embarrassing personal behavior." Democrats argued that such perjury simply didn't rise to the level of being a high crime or misdemeanor as required by the Constitution for impeachment. Yet they still thought that there needed to be "some public consequence for the president's despicable behavior," as Rep. Ronald Berman put it.
Perjury to cover embarrassing personal behavior is still perjury; and such perjury is sufficiently serious a federal crime for Sen. Herbert Kohl to have argued that the president could still be "criminally prosecuted, especially once he leaves office." In Sen. Kohl's view, "his acts may not be 'removable' wrongs, but they could be 'convictable' crimes." Even the most ardent Clinton supporters did not see his acquittal in the Senate as placing the president above the law; in Sen. Barbara Boxer's words, "he remains subject to the laws of the land just like any other citizen of the United States."
But perhaps Sen. John Breaux summed up best what the president would still confront: "There is the court system. There are the U.S. attorneys out there waiting. There may even be the Office of Independent Counsel, which will still be there after all of this is finished."
As the federal government's prosecution of perjurers makes clear, there are plenty of parallel cases. One that was still very much alive during the president's impeachment and trial was that of Dr. Barbara Battalino, formerly with the Veterans Affairs Administration. Dr. Battalino had been indicted in April 1998 by the Justice Department for lying before a federal magistrate. Her crime was simple and straightforward and stunningly similar to that of the president: She had lied to avoid the embarrassment of admitting to a consensual sexual act on Veterans Affairs premises back in 1991. Her formal sentence did not end until this July.
The Battalino case shows how seriously perjury is taken as a matter of federal criminal law. The relevant provisions of the U.S. Code allow for those guilty of perjury to be "fined . . . or imprisoned not more than five years, or both." Under the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines, Mr. Clinton, if indicted and convicted of perjury, would pose an interesting problem for the judge hearing the case. On the one hand, he would be a first offender with no prior convictions and therefore might reasonably expect a degree of leniency that might mean for each count only six to 12 months in jail (or, more likely, in home confinement with an electronic monitor like Dr. Battalino's) and a fine of between $2,000 and $20,000.
On the other hand, he is a public official and the sentencing guidelines are less charitable in those cases: "If the defendant abused a position of public or private trust . . . in a manner that significantly facilitated the commission or concealment of the offense, increase [the punishment] by 2 levels." It would not be surprising to find a judge inclined to throw the book at the president, as Judge Wright put it, "not only to redress the President's misconduct, but to deter others who might themselves consider emulating the President of the United States by engaging in misconduct that undermines the integrity of the judicial system."
Deciding whether or not to seek an indictment is always a matter of prosecutorial discretion. Mr. Starr may well feel that the political controversies surrounding his investigation are such that indicting the president for perjury would itself undermine the public's faith in the judicial process. On the other hand, there are few public servants who have demonstrated as strong a commitment as Mr. Starr to do right as he sees it whatever the costs. Of course, that might mean leaving any indictment to the U.S. attorney after Mr. Clinton leaves office. The statute of limitations will not have expired by the time the president leaves office in January 2001.
And that is what should be especially worrying to the president and his wife as her bid for the Senate heats up. For one way or the other, as another famous non-native New Yorker once said, it ain't over till it's over.
interactive.wsj.com
|
