-Caveat Lector- <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/">
</A> -Cui Bono?-
PRESIDENTIAL LYING AND THE LAW
BY JOHN F. McManus
Children who are properly reared receive early training about the
importance of truthfulness and the wrongness of telling a lie. By the
time they reach maturity, most become aware that lying after swearing to
tell "the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help me
God" will likely earn swift civil punishment.
Anyone who proceeds to law school benefits from additional instruction
about the crime of perjury, learning that the nation's entire legal system
is built on the need for truthfulness. if lying under oath isn't punished,
the whole fabric of justice is torn to shreds. In other words, perjury is
a momumentally serious offense deserving of stiff penalties.
Many of President Clinton's defenders, however, while admitting that he
lied under oath, insist that his offense doesn't rise to the level of the
"high crimes and misdemeanors" referred to in the Constitution. The insist
that because his misdeed supposedly didn't harm the nation, it does not
merit conviction and removal from office.
A January 14th,1999 NEW YORK TIMES article engaged in precisely such
trivializing. it properly diagreed with A White House memorandum asserting
that "the President truthfully before the grand jury." Yet the TIMES,
while admitting that he Clinton team's claim of truthfulness was
preposterous, went on to recommend that the Senate merely censure the
President and permit him to remain in office.
PERJURY AND STATE LAWS.
All who care about the integrity of the nation's legal system will profit
from examining how the matter of perjury is treated in various state
constitutions. California's constitution hold that "laws shall be made to
exclude persons convicted of bribery, perjury, forgery, malfeasance in
office, or other high crimes from office or serving on juries." Thus, in
our most populous state, perjury clearly falls within the designation of a
high crime meriting exclusion from office. The Texas State Constitution
likewise bars from office those "convicted of bribery, perjury, forgery,
or other high crimes.
"
In West Virgina, Pennsylvania and Illinois, perjury is constitutionally
categorized as an "infamous" crime, a term comparable to the word "high"
as it appears in the federal Constitution. In each of these states, anyone
convicted of perjury shall be ineligible to hold office.
The state constitutions of Wyoming and Missouri maintain that anyone
convicted of perjury shall be "forever disqualified from holding any
office of trust or profit" within the state. Colorado uses almost
identical language to bar a perjurer from holding office. Other state
constitutions either expand the listing of removable offenses or do not
specify any. None give any indication of trivializing perjury. If Mr
Clinton were subject to prosecution in a state court for his lying under
oath, he would certainly find himself in deep trouble.
"LITERAL LIES"
Some of the Clinton "Spin doctors" have also claimed that his sworn
testimony before the grand jury, though misleading, was "literally"
correct and therefore unpunishable.They maintain that under his tortured
definition of "is," "alone" and "sex," he never told a lie.
But New York University Professor Stephen Gillers points out that
literally correct answers still invite the charge of perjury if there is
an intent to mislead. He cited the case of Robert DeZarn, the former
adjutant general of the Kentucky National Guard, who thought he benefited
from an investigator's error when asked under oath if he had been present
at a gathering "in 1991" instead of in 1990 when it actually took place.
DeZarn's answers regarding fundraising at that gathering and subsequent
appointments to the Guard were indeed literally accurate, but were
undeniably intended to mislead.
The justice Department subsequently discovered the questioner's error and
indicted the general for perjury. In a widely publicized trial in
Kentucky, a jury convicted DeZarn of perjury and a judge imposed a 15
month prison term.
DeZarn appealed, but in October 1998 the lower court's action was upheld
by the 6th circuit Court of Appeals. The court ruled: "A perjury which
focuses only upon the precision of the question and ignores what the
defendant knew about the subject matter of the question at the time it was
asked, misses the very point of perjury, that is, the defendant's intent
to testify falsely and, thereby, mislead his interrogators. Such a limited
inquiry would only undermine the perjury laws, it would undermine the
rule of law as a whole."
Applying this ruling to MR. Clinton's responses under oath during the
Paula Jones case leads inescapably to the conclusion that the President is
guilty of perjury. If Robert DeZarn lost his job and went to jail for
literally correct but deliberately misleading responses, should the
President's similar conduct be swept under a convenient rug? The question
answers itself unless the fundamental doctrine holding that we are equal
under the law has been overturned.
Senators who fail to find the President guilty of perjury, or who agree
that he lied but decide to leave him in office, will have inflicted grave
damage on the nation as a whole. Such action must not be tolerated.
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