Crime and Punishment
And the latter in the absence of the former.
Editor and Publisher on Libby’s sentencing tomorrow, focuses on Clinton perjury** vs. Libby perjury. Clinton, of course, did have sexual relations with that woman and lied about it to the nation,* whereas Libby was not the source of information on that other woman, and whether he actually perjured himself is a matter of “he said she said” that includes a considerable amount of reasonable doubt, even after you get past the “who cares?” factor.
Meanwhile, here’s the former in the absence of the latter. Ronald Cass at RCP: Sandy Berger and the Clinton Coverup, Why It Matters. Unheralded fact that Berger last month voluntarily gave up his law license to avoid further investigation.
* Another great crime and punishment saga for the ages. Did Clinton commit a crime and should he have been punished for it? That continues to get blown off to this day by people on grounds of partisan moral meddling. Two problems. Clinton didn’t just have an extensive career of having sex with women not his wife, which is their business, but included junior subordinates among his targets. Then, there was the barefaced lying about it. His other choices included saying, “Yes, I did. Mind your own business,” and “I’m not going to discuss it. Mind your own business.” And let the cards fall as they may.
** reader Corndog is correct, though it depends on your definition of what “did” “is.” Clinton denied having sexual relations with Lewinsky in his Paula Jones deposition, later insisting he did not believe his physical contact with Lewinsky consitituted “sexual relations.” A majority of U.S. senators opted not to unseat a U.S. president over a hummer plus a humdinger. Further, God didn’t make little green apples, and it don’t rain in Indianapolis in the summer time.
Topics: crime, law & order, pols
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 10:32 am Comments (41) on Monday, June 4, 2007
41 Responses to “Crime and Punishment”
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June 4th, 2007 at 11:01 am
“Did Clinton commit a crime and should he have been punished for it?”
No, Clinton did not commit perjury, and should not have been punished for it.
June 4th, 2007 at 11:39 am
Moral equivalance?
I’m shocked…shocked!
June 4th, 2007 at 12:08 pm
No, Alphie, there’ s no moral equivalence here.
Clinton was never charged with perjury and could not have committed it.
On the other hand, a jury of Libby’s peers weighed the “he said, she said” against Libby and decided he was guilty of a felony beyond a reasonable doubt.
June 4th, 2007 at 3:25 pm
No, corndog. There’s a lot of apologists like yourself and Alphie parsing the events, but….
Clinton prevaricated in court about having sexual relations with Lewinsky during the Paula Jones trial. The judge instructed that Clinton be instructed in return about what constituted sexual relations. Clinton then said that he did not., preferring his own definition of whether receiving oral sex constituted sexual relations. For this he was held in contempt of court – we’re talking the Jones trial here.
Perjury charges were then filed against him but in the pretrial and discovery phase – no longer part of the Jones trial but a separate proceeding -, his attorneys on his behalf agreed to a deal where the charges of perjury would be dropped and he would admit to making a false statement , disbarrment for 5 years, and a $250k fine.
Clinton was charged with perjury in the House and impeached for perjury. As Mr Crittendon points out, the Senate by a vote of 55-45 did not uphold the article of impeachment, however, they did not address the charge of perjury one way or the other in doing so.
Look it up.
Libby is in the position of a he said/ I said perjury accusation. The determination will be whether Libby knowingly made a false statement under oath. He has not admitted doing so. Clinton, on the other hand, admitted through his attorneys in court and in front of a judge to making false statements under oath.
There is no equivalence here at all, but not for the reasons you’re suggesting..
June 4th, 2007 at 3:46 pm
Sorry, OMT,
You can make false statements under oath without committing perjury. Perjury only happens when the lie is material to the case. Before the Jones case was thrown out for lack of evidence (look it up), the judge ruled that the Lewinsky line of questioning was not material to the case. (Look that one up, too. It was big news at the time.) Thus, perjury was, by definition, not possible.
The only thing left in the Libby case has nothing to do with whether Libby knowingly made a false statement under oath. The findings of fact are over and it was determined beyond a reasonable doubt that, in fact, Libby knowingly lied to obstruct a federal investigation. Even Libby’s lawyers admit (see Libby’s sentencing memorandum) that “the offenses here are serious.”
The only thing left now is how Libby is to be punished.
June 4th, 2007 at 4:59 pm
Clinton did not commit perjury
Not getting convicted is not the same thing as not doing it. He did it. It was obvious to any but the most retarded he did it.
June 4th, 2007 at 5:14 pm
No, Purple. It’s not a question of not getting convicted of it. He wasn’t even charged with it, and couldn’t be.
Again, the definition of perjury requires that the lie be material to the case. The judge ruled that it was not material before she threw the whole case out as a joke. Perjury was impossible.
June 4th, 2007 at 5:43 pm
He wasn’t even charged with it
Bullshit. Read Article 1 of Clinton’s articles of impeachment. Articles of impeachment are charges.
“On August 17, 1998, William Jefferson Clinton swore to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth before a Federal grand jury of the United States. Contrary to that oath, William Jefferson Clinton willfully provided perjurious, false and misleading testimony to the grand jury concerning one or more of the following…”
June 4th, 2007 at 5:45 pm
I would add that pimping revisionist history that is so trivially refuted is pathetic. Surely you can do better.
June 4th, 2007 at 6:36 pm
The real issue is: How can the pro war dead enders get around the fact that their masters exposed a covert American agent for political gain.
It’s been a fun moral struggle to watch, and now, only the most gullible remain true believers.
June 4th, 2007 at 6:44 pm
Again, the definition of perjury requires that the lie be material to the case. The judge ruled that it was not material before she threw the whole case out as a joke. Perjury was impossible.
Sounds like “nonobjective criteria” to me.
June 4th, 2007 at 8:43 pm
The congress deemed it material enough to include in their charges.
Q.E.D.
June 4th, 2007 at 8:44 pm
for political gain.
And that “gain” was precisely what?
June 4th, 2007 at 9:26 pm
Don’t speak to these two idiots. One is a committed idiot, the other has yet to be, committed.
June 5th, 2007 at 3:02 am
Frankly I don’t give a toad’s spit about Clinton’s cheating on his wife, other than the fact that I resent like hell having a president wag his finger in my face and tell me a bold-face lie, and dragging this country through the muck of his adolescent mind.
I do, however, care very much about what Sandy Berger was about, and why. It stinks and I’d like to know the source of the stench. Something very serious has gone on here and few people seem to give a damn.
In fact, there seems to be very little that is serious getting the attention it deserves. It is much more fun to pick and choose those topics in which the script has already been written and can be vomited up at the sound of Pavlov’s bell.
June 5th, 2007 at 5:28 am
Fitzgerald is developing something of a track record for prosecuting the victims.
As for Clinton, everybody knowszzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
June 5th, 2007 at 8:22 am
Purple,
We are talking about the CRIME of perjury, not the political accusation of impeachment. Clinton was never charged with perjury in his Jones testimony because, as I said, he couldn’t be.
June 5th, 2007 at 9:53 am
Yep. More “nonbjective criteria”.
June 5th, 2007 at 10:18 am
Jeffy,
We had that discussion (though interrupted by some amazing idiocy from El Cid). You’re absolutely right – it is non-objective criteria, for sure. The thing is, our legal system is full of non-objective criteria. As this discussion is winding down, we can take this up again on a topic upstream.
June 5th, 2007 at 5:09 pm
corndog said:
“You can make false statements under oath without committing perjury. Perjury only happens when the lie is material to the case. Before the Jones case was thrown out for lack of evidence (look it up), the judge ruled that the Lewinsky line of questioning was not material to the case. (Look that one up, too. It was big news at the time.) Thus, perjury was, by definition, not possible.”
You are wrong. The reason you are wrong is that you are trying to put the cart before the horse. Clinton’s statements were made before any ruling that the defense could not use Lewinsky to show patterns. At the time he made them, they were made under oath in response to a line of questioning that was acceptable at the time. Perjury.
You are also wrong about perjury having to be limited to lying about facts material to the case even at the time the lie is uttered. The person under oath does not have the legal right to determine whether a question is material to the case. The judge does, in response to his own determination or in response to objection raised by the attorney for the people or the defendant. The objection was raised in the trial by Clinton’s team, and overruled by the judge and Clinton instructed to respond. Determination by the judge at a later time that the questioning was not material to the case are not retroactive. Perjury is lying in response to a question asked under oath and not sucessfully challenged at the time. Clinton committed perjury.
As a result of this, he was charged with perjury in a separate case – the part of my comment that you conveniently ignore. The charge was viewed seriously enough that Clinton’s attorney’s made a deal that included admitting to making false statements under oath and agreeing to disbarment and a fine EXPRESSLY in return for the perjury charges not going to trial. Clinton and his lawyers did not believe he would skate on the charges for the very reason that the perjury was committed PRIOR to the line of questioning being ruled inadmissible. The prosecutor’s office settled for the admission of lying under oath.
The fact that the perjury charge did not go to trial kept Clinton from answering to it in court, but did not protect him from the charge being legally substantial and the basis for his impeachment in the house. Which in turn, despite your parsing, IS the charge determined by the House legal counsel to be the legal basis for impeachment.
By the way – your arguments are right off the liberal sites that even to this day parse and parse in an attempt to show that Clinton did not commit perjury, and so should not have been charged with it, or impeached on the basis of it. Those sites are not attempting to say he was not charged with it, only trying to say after the fact that it wasn’t substantial in an attempt at historical revision.
Clinton and his attorneys thought differently.
June 5th, 2007 at 5:59 pm
On another matter, corndog, you are exposing yourself as rather ignorant. It has long been the position of liberals that Clinton’s impeachment for perjury was a political accusation. That has no basis in fact.
Impeachment is most definitely not a political accusation. It is a legal remedy provided for in the Constitution, and upheld as a legal principle by the Supreme Court. It provides for removal from office for malfeasance committed while in office. Malfeasance generally being accepted as a felony (misdemeanors like traffic violations or jaywalking do not meet the grounds for an article of impeachement. This legal remedy is part of the checks and balance system written into the Constitution and the president, any legislator, or any member of the judiciary is subject to it if malfeasance in office is proven. Stress proven.
The House Judiciary Committee – many of the members lawyers by training if not trade and under advisement by House Counsel – held a hearing into the conduct of Clinton and determined that he had committed perjury while in office. Based on that determination, an article of impeachment was drawn up, debated, passed, and then submitted to the Senate for ratification. The senate did not ratify it, expressly saying at the time that the substance of the Article of Impeachment did not warrant the ensuing damage to the office of the president. They did not dispute the finding the substance the article was based on – perjury.
June 5th, 2007 at 7:32 pm
OMT,
You are right in this sentence, until the end: “Clinton’s statements were made before any ruling that the defense could not use Lewinsky to show patterns. At the time he made them, they were made under oath in response to a line of questioning that was acceptable at the time. Perjury.”
Nope. The statements must be material to the case. Instance after instance in which someone is accused of perjury, the judge always must decide whether the statements were material to the case. Obviously, the judge can only decide that AFTER the statements are made.
The other stuff is just factually wrong. Judge -ah – I can’t remember her name, Barbara-something – did not want the Lewinsky line of questioning at all, but agreed with the Jones’ lawyers that she should wait and see whether they were at all related to the case at hand. After the questioning went on, she ruled the line of questioning was not relevant. Any possible criminal case immediately fell apart.
By the way, I have no idea what “liberal sites” I’m supposed to be copying from. I’m just telling you straight-up what the law is.
Your second post is just silly. You’re falling back on “well, the House Judiciary Committee had lawyers on it” to argue that this was a criminal prosecution for perjury? Really? That’s just… wrong. The House did, indeed, send up its accusation. But in the Senate, it was pointed out, accurately, that “The ‘materiality’ element is fundamental: it means that testimony given to a grand jury may be found perjurious only if it had a tendency to influence, impede, or hamper the grand jury’s investigation. See, e.g., United States v. Reilly, 33 F.3d 1396, 1419 (3d Cir. 1994); United States v. Barrett, 111 F.3d 947, 953 (D.C. Cir. 1997).
You just can’t get around that. And even though the House chose to ignore it, the Senate could not. Despite your contention, the Senate actually voted down the specific proposition that the President had “willfully provided perjurious, false and misleading testimony to the grand jury”. The vote was 45-55. Look it up.
June 5th, 2007 at 7:36 pm
By the way, OldTime, here are some bon mots from the House Committee you probably missed:
“The Senate Rules Committee rejected this analogy in 1974, stating, “an impeachment trial is not a criminal trial,” and advocating a clear and convincing evidence standard. Executive Session Hearings, U.S. Senate Committee on Rules and Administration, “Senate Rules and Precedents Applicable to Impeachment Trials” 93rd Cong., 2d Sess. (August 5-6, 1974). Indeed, it is undisputed that impeachable offenses need not be criminal offenses. See Submission by Counsel for President Clinton to the Committee on the Judiciary of the United States House of Representatives, 105th Cong., 2d Sess. at 14 (Comm. Print Ser. No. 16 1998) (”Impeachable acts need not be criminal acts.”) “
June 5th, 2007 at 7:58 pm
“Nope. The statements must be material to the case. Instance after instance in which someone is accused of perjury, the judge always must decide whether the statements were material to the case.”
Nope. You’re confusing making a false statement with lying. You do not know what you are talking about here. Making a false statement that is immaterial to the case is not perjury. It doesn’t even have to be lying – a mistaken statement is still false.
Perjury is knowingly lying under oath. Whether that lie is material to the case or it’s outcome or not, the law says it is perjury. The only protection Clinton had from the charge was if his lawyers objections to the line of questioning was accpeted at the time by the judge. Not taken under advisement, but accpeted at the time. It wasn’t. Clinton was instructed to answer. He perjured himself. Any other way you try to spin it is BS.
But hey, parse and spin away. The problem with parsing facts or spin, is that neither changes the facts. All it serves to do is to alter the popular perception of the meaning or relevance of the facts. In this case, the facts are resident in both the exhaustive trial records, and in the even more exhaustive congressional records. Clinton knows this. He knows that history will regard him by factual record as having been impeached for perjury.
You are defending a position that the principal, Clinton, does not try to defend – that no prejury was committed. Clinton’s great regret, and he has both alluded to this himself and it has been reported by people who have heard him say so more directly, is that he did not cut a deal that required him to admit to lying under oath. He never thought it would be used to impeach him. Being a guy very concerned with his legacy, his regret is understandable.
Your second comment begs the question of what an Article of Impeachment really is and means according to the Constitution. No, it is not a criminal trial. The target of impeachment can not be remanded to custody. He or she is be accused of and by the Article coming from the HOUSE, not Senate, shown to be guilty of malfeasance in office – committing a felony. The legislature can only remove he or she from office. Criminal penalties are a province of the judicial system if at all.
I stress House. The Senate’s function, as in all legislation, is to ratify and in most cases modify in order to do so. They do not propose Articles or legislation. That is a function of the House.
You really really do not understand the process of impeachment.
June 5th, 2007 at 10:33 pm
Robert Novak says:
i.e., Libby didn’t lie
All this seems very mysterious, until you learn more about Fitzgerald. Apparently he’s neither the sharpest tack in the box, nor the straightest.
This is a travesty of justice. If the President doesn’t pardon Libby to keep him from doing any jail time, then my esteem for Bush, which has always been fairly high, will be virtually erased.
June 5th, 2007 at 10:41 pm
Sorry, but I didn’t give the ref., for those first two quotes. It can be found here.
June 6th, 2007 at 12:00 am
THE MINT TEA SIPPERS
Wilson’s contribution to our national security is but an iota, if that. The damage he has caused is incalculable.
As more comes out, and hopefully it will, we might learn the true extent of the harm done by the ruthless selfish parasites who place their own self gratificatioin above national security and the invaluable contributions of honorable public servents to that end.
Libby probably did more for national security in an afternoon than Wilson and Plame did in their entire career. Yet they are free, and Libby faces jail, fines and debarment.
As the mint tea sippers return to their gossip with our enemies, both internal and external, I wonder if we will be privileged to survive this challenge to our existence. I also wonder when, if ever, we will merit being rid of those despicable pests.
As the pieces have fallen into place, it has become clearer why, with clowns like that in charge of our defense, we were so vulnerable on 9/11.
June 6th, 2007 at 8:37 am
No, Old Man Tyme, perjury is not lying under oath. And this, really, is the last time I’m going to say this, because I believe this is my 10th time or so. Perjury is LYING UNDER OATH ABOUT MATERIAL FACTS. You simply cannot leave out that last part. Without it, there’ s no perjury – it’s making false statements.
You say I’m defending an argument Clinton didn’t even try to make? Really? Did you even read his argument? There’s an entire section where he points out that perjury requires the lie be material. You must have missed it. Check it out.
Your comment about my second comment “begging the question” truly begs the question. My entire point about impeachment proceedings is that you cannot compare an impeachment to a criminal trial – the standard of proof is much lower, and the definition of “high crime and misdemeanor” is intentionally undefined. That means that a House finding that “perjury” has been committed does not relate to what a criminal proceeding would determine.
And now that you finally admit that an impeachment is not a criminal proceeding, your whole argument – that the Clinton matter and the Libby matter are comparable – falls apart.
June 6th, 2007 at 10:06 am
“And this, really, is the last time I’m going to say this, because I believe this is my 10th time or so. Perjury is LYING UNDER OATH ABOUT MATERIAL FACTS”
Yes. Which Wilkipedia definition you’ve been desperately hanging onto from the start. Which I don’t disagree with. Which I haven’t disagreed with FROM THE VERY FIRST COMMENT I MADE IN THE THREAD (second paragraph of that comment for the record – that pesky record.) For the last time (though not 10) – CLINTON WAS INSTRUCTED TO ANSWER A MATERIAL QUESTION UNDER OATH AND PERJURED HIMSELF.
What you’ve been basing your argument on – saying for 10 times or so I guess – and what I’ve been saying is wrong all along – less than 10 times though – is that when the line of questioning was called immaterial AFTER THE FACT, it absolved Clinton of perjury. It didn’t. So says the court. So says the later charges of perjury. So says the pre-trial deal Clinton’s attorneys cut giving up a fine (same dollar value as Libby’s by coincidence but more figuring inflation and all), and 5 years of Clinton’s right to practice law – to prevent it from going to trial. So says the pesky record.
How the hell you can still maintain differently in the face of that is sad but typical. You’re spouting the same argument that’s been spouted for the last 10 years or so right up to sites still posting the same tired parsing and spinning today. Some people simply can’t accept the fact that the man was impeached and why and are determined to ‘correct’ the impression despite that pesky record. The argument is usually the same one you’ve been trying to sell – since the line of questioning was later deemed immaterial Clinton would have been found innocent of the charge of perjury (despite there being no legal basis for assuming that, quite the contrary actually) So therefore he didn’t perjure himself and would not have been impeached and so on. Well, no knowing how the trial would have come out, (but plenty of indication how Clinton and his attorneys at the time thought it would), so there is no basis for saying one way or the other except wishful thinking
Nor did I say impeachment was a criminal proceeding. What I said was that it is a remedy for malfeasance in office and you were dead wrong calling it a simple political accusation. Malfeasance is by definition an unlawful act. And when I first mentioned impeachment, I intentionally qualified malfeasance as GENERALLY for commission of a felony. Again, that pesky record.
Last but not least, I never said that the the Libby and Clinton cases were comparable. First comment I made stressed – “There is no equivalence here at all, but not for the reasons you’re suggesting.” Hey, once again, that pesky record.
June 6th, 2007 at 10:12 am
clarification – ‘What I said was that it is a ‘legal’ remedy for malfeasance in office…’
June 6th, 2007 at 10:36 am
Dude, show me one single case in the entire U.S. legal history where someone has been convicted of perjury where the lie was not considered material. There is no case.
At the time Clinton spoke, his testimony was not considered material to the case. The judge specifically said she would wait to see how the deposition progressed before she determined whether it was material. It’s not a matter of “spouting,” it’s the plain fact of the law. If I’m wrong, show me one single case where a person is convicted of perjury for testimony that is later found not to be material. Or show me where the law says that the lie must be material at the time it is spoken.. You have not done so, instead, just stating it as fact. One single case, OldTime, and I’ll give you a piteous apology.
You say, ” it absolved Clinton of perjury. It didn’t. So says the court. So says the later charges of perjury.”
You say: “Perjury charges were then filed against him but in the pretrial and discovery phase – no longer part of the Jones trial but a separate proceeding -, his attorneys on his behalf agreed to a deal where the charges of perjury would be dropped and he would admit to making a false statement , disbarrment for 5 years, and a $250k fine.”
I don’t see any evidence of this having taken place. My bet is that OldManTyme is still confused. Clinton was charged with civil contempt of court for making false statements, not perjury. Contempt of court is a procedural matter, not a criminal one,a nd finding that someone has made false statements is an entirely different matter from perjury.
You do admit now, that you are dead wrong about the following “pesky record” you’ve stated, right?
- Clinton never argued materiality.
- “the Senate by a vote of 55-45 did not uphold the article of impeachment, however, they did not address the charge of perjury one way or the other in doing so.”
- “Libby is in the position of a he said/ I said perjury accusation. The determination will be whether Libby knowingly made a false statement under oath.”
- “Perjury is lying in response to a question asked under oath and not sucessfully challenged at the time.”
June 6th, 2007 at 10:56 am
And here, OldMan, is your biggest error:
“Perjury is knowingly lying under oath. Whether that lie is material to the case or it’s outcome or not, the law says it is perjury.”
Please square that with this:
§ 1621. Perjury generally
Whoever—
(1) having taken an oath before a competent tribunal, officer, or person, in any case in which a law of the United States authorizes an oath to be administered, that he will testify, declare, depose, or certify truly, or that any written testimony, declaration, deposition, or certificate by him subscribed, is true, willfully and contrary to such oath states or subscribes any MATERIAL MATTER which he does not believe to be true; or
(2) in any declaration, certificate, verification, or statement under penalty of perjury as permitted under section 1746 of title 28, United States Code, willfully subscribes as true any MATERIAL which he does not believe to be true;
is guilty of perjury.
When you read that, do you say that I am right, or that you are right?
June 6th, 2007 at 11:59 am
“Dude, show me one single case in the entire U.S. legal history where someone has been convicted of perjury where the lie was not considered material. There is no case.’
This is as far as I read.
There’s no point in going further with this since you cannot grasp what Clinton, his attorneys the courts, and the legal counsel for the House understood – that once the judge allowed the line of questioning and instructed Clinton to respond while under oath, there was no protection afforded Clinton against perjury because the line of questioning was determined immaterial to the case after the fact.
You are either a glowing testament for mindless parsing and spinning partisanship on behalf of a guy who did indeed perjure himself in the same spirit as that same guys prevaricating on what constitutes sexual relations, or a sad testament for blinkered stupidity.
June 6th, 2007 at 1:13 pm
OldMan,
Because I do not expect you to have the strength of character to come back and acknowledge your error, I will tell you now that I just went through the Jones v. Clinton docket and there was no separate perjury proceeding, no “settlement offer” from Clinton, nothing.
There was a civil contempt finding, just as I had said, and you have confused making false statements with perjury.
You’re totally wrong and have made an idiot of yourself.
June 6th, 2007 at 3:33 pm
Said this – what’s your expression, 10 times? Several times anyway. it indeed was a separate proceeding, and would not be included in the Jones proceeding. So reading up on the Jones v. Clinton case…good that you spent the time improving yourself reading though.
Clinton (or rather his attorneys) dealt down the perjury charge to contempt, paid the fine and accepted 5 years loss of license to practice. Clinton has come right out and said he wishes he had fought the perjury charge directly given the impeachment outcome (though expert opinion is mixed on whether he would have beaten it) instead of dealing.
What do you find so hard to understand about this?
The same old tired debunked ‘fact’ on the idiot sites you reissued in your claim that Clinton could not have committed perjury because of a ruling after the fact on the line of questioning is the sum total of your position. Which is relevant to the admission of evidence in the trail, but has no bearing on perjuring oneself before the fact. And as I’ve said, Clinton, his attorneys, House legal counsel… all agree with me that you are pretty much an idiot for buying into it.
Odd comment about the strength of character. Based on your usual run of comments, you are as gullible as they come concerning the BDS platform and related St Bill movement. You don’t borrow character by lockstepping with morons.
June 6th, 2007 at 3:55 pm
No, OldMan, there was no perjury charge. None. It never happened. If there was, then cite it. But you can’t, because it never happened. I can tell you this without a whisker of doubt because I looked at the record itself. You’re wrong.
Your quote, “Clinton has come right out and said he wishes he had fought the perjury charge directly given the impeachment outcome” shows you’re flailing all over the place now, because once again you’re confusing the impeachment charge with whatever you’re saying happened (but never actually happened) in the Jones case.
And this is the line that truly infuriates me: “The same old tired debunked that Clinton could not have committed perjury because of a ruling after the fact on the line of questioning is the sum total of your position”. Well, yes, OldMan, it is. That is exactly what I’ve been saying all along. It’s not “lockstepping” “spin”. It’s simply reading the law. Once again, the law requires that the lie be material to the case.
You say, an after the fact ruling “is relevant to the admission of evidence in the trail, but has no bearing on perjuring oneself before the fact.” That is not so. I have asked you to show me otherwise, and offered to apologize mightily if you could. But you just respond with more insults.
Based on that, I know exactly what a big boy you are.
June 6th, 2007 at 6:18 pm
“Your quote, “Clinton has come right out and said he wishes he had fought the perjury charge directly given the impeachment outcome” shows you’re flailing all over the place now, because once again you’re confusing the impeachment charge with whatever you’re saying happened (but never actually happened) in the Jones case…”
Well, no to the first part, since I’ve made it several times already. And no to the second part, because I’ve been explicit all along that the perjury charge and the Jones trial are separate proceedings. It’s you that can’t seem to grasp that you won’t find the perjury charge in the Jones case, because it requires it’s own discovery phase. That was the grand jury proceeding, NOT the Jones trial.
It’s sad really, since that pesky record about what I said that keeps biting you is in this case right in the thread.
The biggest problem you have is reading comprehension and/or short memory retention. The second is delusion. That comes out in your crowing about my backtracking on things I didn’t say in the first place.
“And this is the line that truly infuriates me: “The same old tired debunked that Clinton could not have committed perjury because of a ruling after the fact on the line of questioning is the sum total of your position”. Well, yes, OldMan, it is. That is exactly what I’ve been saying all along.”
Well yes, it is your position and exactly what you’ve been saying all along. But repeating it over and over does not make it right. And it is not reading the law. It’s misunderstanding it and applying the misunderstanding to a defense of a stupid position – to whit, When instructed to answer the question by a judge while under oath, Clinton’s lie magically became non-perjury because a line of question was ruled inadmissible as evidence.
Again, every principal involved felt differently than what you claim.
And you have no more grasp of the law than you do the requirements and procedures of impeachment. Quoting Wilkpedia summaries over and over again does not show any grasp of the law.
“You say, an after the fact ruling “is relevant to the admission of evidence in the trail, but has no bearing on perjuring oneself before the fact.” That is not so. I have asked you to show me otherwise, and offered to apologize mightily if you could. But you just respond with more insults.”
Here’s another insult. If you can not grasp that your rationale for your position doesn’t support, it makes you abysmally stupid. I’ve told you the reason why claiming that a line of questioning ruled inadmissible after the fact does not absolve one of perjury – the question per the instruction of the judge to answer it over the objections of the defense makes it a material question. Too damn bad you can’t quite grasp that – the judge instructed him to answer a material question under oath – or for that matter even address it in those terms. Which once again, ever principal involved did.
As far as your first paragraph, after Clinton was deposed in the Jones lawsuit, the special investigator Starr acting as a prosecutor – which is what special investigators do – filed before a grand jury the allegation that Clinton had lied under oath in his deposition for their consideration and discovery. This is a pre-trial sort of thing that those who do understand the law grasp. The fact that this was after the Jones case was over and after the Jones case judge ruled the line of questioning immaterial made no difference. Clinton was called to testify before the grand jury and tried to cover his butt by saying he’d never considered his relationship with Lewinsky included sexual relations – this despite having having had specific instruction on the matter in the Jones trial. The grand jury didn’t buy Clinton’s version that the statement was false, but not a lie. There is a huge difference between the two that everybody but you understands.
Starr submitted his open report based on the closed grand jury proceedings saying that there was evidence that Clinton lied under oath. This is the normal sort of outcome from a grand jury proceeding – whether or not there is evidence enough to sustain a charge – that people who understand the law grasp. Again, the grand jury report didn’t say ‘made a false statement’. It said that Clinton lied under oath in the Jones case and then willfully provided perjurious, false and misleading testimony to the grand jury. (Look it up)
This report along with a lot of other information went before a court in Arkansas where Clinton dealed it down to admitting making a false statement in return for the fine and disbarment.
The only thing Clinton ever admitted to, making a false statement, and very likely the kernel of truth that you read somewhere and built up into your house of cards.
BUT, there was a second track for the report. On to impeachment. The House, starting with the introduction of a resolution alleging that Clinton committed malfeasance in office based on the Starr report of the grand jury proceedings, continuing onward through deposition of witnesses, debate, review of relevant law, etc etc, approved an Article of Impeachment saying that Clinton did indeed obstruct justice by willfully provided perjurious testimony in the Jones case as determined by the grand jury.
This went to trial in the Senate. A LEGAL proceeding where all the senators are sworn in as jurors and the chief justice of the Supreme Court presides.
And the rest is history. He beat the rap.
BUT – he was most definitely charged with perjury, so you are wrong and have been wrong since 12:08 on June 4th, the comment I took issue with.
AND, Clinton did say after he was out of office that he wished he had fought the rap in Arkansas to both preserve his legacy and forestall the impeachment.
That help? Big Boy.
By the way, I see your comments in the other thread on the Libby sentence. Not too consistent on demanding non-objective interpretations of the law, what is proven and conjecture, what constitutes evidence, and what should be considered a crime or, in your eyes, just a pranking at the national archive, are you?
Typical BDS moron..
June 6th, 2007 at 6:32 pm
Old Man,
Since you won’t show me that I’m wrong, I went back to see for myself if there is any law or any case that has found someone to be guilty of perjury if the lie was believed material at the time, but later found not to be.
It turns out that in every single federal case (there are only 23 of them) in which a perjury charge has been claimed and a judge is throwing out the case, the judge throws out the perjury charge, usually saying something along the lines of “Because the matter has been found to be irrelevant, the statements could not possibly be material.”
You are dead wrong here, as well, OldMan.
And I’m really not going to wait around to see if you have the courage to admit it.
June 6th, 2007 at 6:53 pm
Nope. You are. The above is irrelevant because what you said way upthread and what I responded to was that Bill was not charged with perjury. Throwing a case out and any idea that the questions were material at the same time is not the same as throwing out a line of questioning.
Focus.
I put together a long post to satisfy tsome of your foolishness, but it appears it didn’t post for some reason, and I don’t feel much like putting it together again.
The long and short of it was – don’t wait around for any admission that you are right.
June 6th, 2007 at 7:50 pm
So when you say previously “As a result of this, he was charged with perjury in a separate case – the part of my comment that you conveniently ignore.” and now you say “Bill was not charged with perjury.” these are not contradictory?
You’re a piece of work, Old Man.
June 7th, 2007 at 1:49 pm
Looks like the long post did appear eventually.
Anyway, the reading comprehension thing surfaces again in your latest .
“So when you say previously “As a result of this, he was charged with perjury in a separate case – the part of my comment that you conveniently ignore.” and now you say “Bill was not charged with perjury.” these are not contradictory?”
To clarify the statement you’re trying to spin without even understanding it:
“The above is irrelevant because what you said way up thread and what I responded to was that Bill was not charged with perjury….”
means YOU said he was not charged with perjury, but does NOT mean that I say the same. In the original comment it refers to, you also said that he could not be convicted of such anyway. Which two points I originally took exception to and still do. You were wrong making that comment and have been spinning like a dervish from that point on.
Again, focus.
Where I have tried to stay with that point showing you repeatedly where the principals, a lot of very smart legal people, the grand jury, etc etc did not agree with your take as evidenced by their actions throughout and the easily researched record of events, you’ve been focusing on parsing an idiotic take on the law finer and finer rather than admit that you made a ill-informed statement despite all the evidence of the record.
Again, that pesky record. Just doesn’t seem to support your legalese, does it?
There IS a sad piece of work here.