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Politics : Bill Clinton Scandal - SANITY CHECK -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Daniel Schuh who wrote (28315)	1/15/1999 11:40:00 PM
From: Dan B.	Respond to of 67261

Curious? Only to the biased. Nothing obliges the Senate to pay attention to the Rodino report. The tiny excerpt I quoted speaks for itself and indeed stands alone. It's meaning is clear and unhedged all by itself. The Senate Democrats have the power to prevent the removal of this President. They will probably do so. :-) They are foolish to do so IMHO. To defend the Perpetrator of this whole situation will have a far more detrimental effect on the future of the party than convicting him. To convict, when 80% believe he committed perjury, would be easily forgiven. But to let him off when so many of his own party recognize the harm he has done, and the harm defending him does, is the worst option for the Democratic party. Too many swing voters will never return to the Democratic side if they let him off, and many of their own won't either. Clinton has put Democrats between a rock and a hard place. Hey, it's my heartfelt opinion.

To: Daniel Schuh who wrote (28315)	1/16/1999 2:46:00 AM
From: jim kelley	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 67261

Some observations on the Republican prosecution of Clinton in the Senate: The prosecution began with a call for the head of Bill Clinton in a basket. The consequence of not delivering his head would be the inability to ever prosecute another president in the future for similar crimes and misdemeanors. Alas..... Of course, this is not true. Future congresses may do whatever they wish just as this congress has done. Then they cited his main act of perjury to be his misleading the Judge in the Paula Jones matter thereby denying her the ability to obtain justice. They failed to mention that if Clinton and Lewinsky had laid out fully the details of their relationship to their adversaries that it would have made no difference in the sexual harassment trial because the relationship was consensual and there was no element of harassment involved. The judge would have still thrown out Paula Jones's case because she failed to demonstrate that Clinton had retaliated against her or harassed her in any way after the alleged incident. Thus, contrary to the strident claims of the Republican prosecutors, this testimony was not material to the Paula Jones trial. Hence from their own exposition of the requirements for perjury the Paula Jones depositions of both Clinton and Lewinsky could not constitute perjury even if they were blatant lies. This obvious lack of materiality did not prevent these disingenuous prosecutors from claiming that these alleged lies were in fact material. They were lying in order to obtain their end of impeaching Clinton. The obstruction of justice charges are based on selective and non unique interpretation of Clinton's and Lewinsky's "pattern of concealment" of their recreational sex arrangement. They claim that Clinton and Lewinsky's desire to keep their relationship secret started out legitimately but became "obstruction of justice" when the Paula Jones trial erupted. There are several problems with this line of reasoning. They can not point to any overt statement made by Clinton that instructed Lewinsky or Curry to lie to either the Grand Jury or the Paula Jones judge. Instead, they argue that because they had concealed their relationship before that it became obstruction of justice when they did not reveal it during the Paula Jones case. This is despite the fact that the testimony was immaterial and would have inflicted serious damage on both Clinton and Lewinsky. They are forced to infer that the President meant to influence Lewinsky to lie despite the lack of statements attributed to the president which could confirm any such intention. The allege that the presidents great power made these women do whatever he wanted them to do without him having to expressly say what that might be. Needless to say this is an enormous stretch of reasoning. There simply is no smoking gun pointing to obstruction of justice. The Betty Curry interview on Sunday is interpreted by the prosecutors has having the intention of influencing Betty Curry's testimony. However, it is more likely that the president simply wanted to know what Betty's actual understanding and knowledge of the situation was. This is understandable and not illegal. In fact, there is no evidence that any discernible amount of influence was exerted on Lewinsky or Curry's testimony as both of these people testified. Republican's are relying on Lewinsky's ability to read Clinton's mind in order to arrive at their conclusion. In fact, Clinton had very little leverage over Lewinsky as she held all the cards in the illicit relationship by virtue of her ability to out the president. Curry testified without immunity and there is no apparent problem with her testimony. Lewinsky testified with immunity after her family and she were threatened by Starr. So where is the obstruction of justice? Then there were the gifts which Betty had under her bed which she gave to Starr upon request. Where is the obstruction of justice? Not here! All in all no case for perjury and obstruction of justice. Just an attempt to topple the president.