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Obstruction Of Justice

One of the most terrible things Clinton has done to the country is to make it respectable to lie. He was already pushing the envelope on lying. He claimed during his first campaign that he didn't inhale, and that he had no idea how he had ended up with a low draft number, and that he had "absolutely leveled with the American people" about Gennifer Flowers. Monica Lewinsky was just the reductio ad absurdum of all this. It had never been so obvious that Clinton was lying - baldly and repeatedly - to the American people.

When the story first broke President Clinton assured the public he would provide as many of "the facts" as he could, "sooner rather than later;" in keeping with his "obligation to cooperate with the investigation:" Then it was a total stonewall. Words mean nothing. " [T] he very existence of external reality was tacitly denied by their philosophy."

It may be illogical, but it is natural for people to think that if the president of the United States can lie, how can it be such a big deal if they lie, too? Fancy lawyers go on national TV to announce various exceptions to the quaint little anachronism of truthtelling. We have it on the authority of Susan Estrich, among others, that lying about sex is okay. This is absurd.

If we're going to have sex crimes, it cannot be that people are allowed to lie about sex. Rape, child molestation, sodomy, indecent exposure, prostitution - these are all sex crimes. People may have disagreements with the substantive law - for example, by opposing the application of sexual harassment laws to politicians who are "good" on abortion - but whatever the substantive law is, it is not okay to lie in judicial proceedings. The laws cannot be abstracted from the judicial proceedings necessary to enforce the law. If lying about sex doesn't count, then there cannot be sex crimes.

Is lying about sex okay if a woman levels a false allegation of rape or sexual harassment? Or only when a man falsely denies a charge of rape or sexual harassment? Paula Jones, Kathleen Willey, Gennifer Flowers, Dolly Kyle Browning, and the troopers have all given statements under oath "about sex:" Would it be okay for them to have lied? Lying is never okay.

It may sound trite, but truth is all that separates us from the cave. People cannot communicate if they cannot assume that most of what they hear is true. Truth is prerequisite for a society to survive, for capitalism to flourish, and for a system of law to dispense justice, rather than raw power.

This is evidenced by a casual review of the nations that prosper as well as those that muddle along. One of the countries least famous for its respect for the truth is France - the country whose morals we are being asked to emulate in the era of Clinton. Phony sophisticates suggest that only the lowbrow would fail to embrace the idea of Monica standing by the president's coffin next to Hillary, just as former French President Francois Mitterrand's wife stood next to her husband's mistress. Consider Nobel Laureate Milton Friedman's prognosis for countries such as France that share Clinton's view of the truth: The success of Lebanon as a commercial entrepot was to a significant degree because the merchants' word could be trusted. It cut down transaction costs. It's a curious fact that capitalism developed and has really only come to fruition in the English-speaking world. It hasn't really made the same progress even in Europe-certainly not in France, for instance. I don't know why this is so, but the fact has to be admitted.

The importance of truth-telling is of a much higher order in a judicial proceeding. There can be no system of justice if people feel no particular obligation to tell the truth under oath. Society recognizes that by imposing serious penalties for lying under oath. Perjury is completely unacceptable, even if you are in small claims court because your dog ate the neighbor's flowers. It is certainly unacceptable when the president of the United States is answering questions under oath because he has been accused of violating someone's constitutional rights.

If, as apparently everyone in America believes - except Hillary Clinton, Eleanor Clift, and Vic Kamber - the president lied to the American people about his relationship with "that woman-Miss Lewinsky;" he has also perjured himself in a legal proceeding. During his deposition in the Jones case, with a federal judge presiding, President Clinton stated, under oath, "I have never had sexual relations with Monica Lewinsky. I've never had an affair with her." And "sexual relations" was expressly defined to encompass the "certain type of sex" Clinton is believed to have engaged in with Lewinsky.

Members of the bar ought to be apoplectic that the president of the United States appears to have committed perjury. At least one member of the judiciary is duly alarmed by how casually the press has treated perjury by members of the Clinton administration. Federal Judge Royce Lamberth sentenced Ronald Blackley, the chief of staff to former Agriculture Secretary Mike Espy, to twenty-seven months in prison for making false statements under oath. In sentencing Blackley, Judge Lamberth said, apparently referring to William Ginsburg: A lawyer, who must have been on another planet-actually he was just from Hollywood-recently claimed that no one is ever prosecuted for false statements under oath in a civil proceeding.... This Court has a duty to send a message to other high-level government officials, that there is a severe penalty to be paid for providing false information under oath.

Judge Lamberth said his sentence should demonstrate "the seriousness with which this issue should be viewed by all" because "democracy depends upon trust between the people and government officials." You can lie to Gloria Steinem, but don't lie to Judge Lamberth.

President Nixon wouldn't turn over documents, claiming one legal privilege, one time. He won, and consequently a new privilege was created. Clinton has invented wild legal doctrines to cover up his relationship with a White House intern - among other Jane Does - and we have to "wait for the facts to come in."

Clinton blocked the search for the truth with these "trumped-up argument[s]," as former Clinton adviser Dick Morris put it: The president can't be sued civilly for conduct that took place before he took office; The president's aides do not have to give testimony to a grand jury about purely private conduct; White House lawyers cannot be called to testify about the president's personal conduct; Secret Service officers cannot be asked to testify to anything about the president, or the president's consorts.

He is president, so, his legal arguments go, he does not have to give evidence or respond to legal complaints. And to think Nixon had inaugurated the "Imperial Presidency."

Admittedly Nixon did not invoke his one privilege in an investigation "about sex" he personally engaged in or pressed upon unwilling females. He raised it in an investigation about a thirdrate burglary he didn't commit.

The only presidential privilege Clinton had not claimed was the one floating around the Internet: Going to hell would interfere with the president's ability to carry out the duties of his office, and God's judgment would violate the separation of powers. Sins are therefore excused in the case of a sitting president, at least if the economy is good.

The president's invocation of presidential immunity, executive privilege, attorney-client privilege, and "protective service privilege" to obstruct information from coming out about his relationship with Monica Lewinsky is about as plausible.

To state the obvious, White House discussions - at the highest possible level - about Monica Lewinsky cannot possibly be protected by a privilege for presidential communications about military and diplomatic secrets. They are, as his defenders say, "personal matters." Personal matters are not beyond the reach of impeachable offenses; they are beyond the reach of any legal privilege immunizing executive communications from production to a grand jury.

Nixon may have been paranoid about national security leaks and the "opposition government" in the midst of the Vietnam War. And covering up the existence of the "Plumbers" - the private group Nixon authorized in order to plug national security leaks - may well have constituted obstruction of justice. But he wasn't some horny hick in the White House asserting contrived privileges to cover his getting oral sex from the interns.

Warren Harding must be turning flips of delight in his grave to know that at least he isn't Clinton. No one has ever been caught like Clinton, in this tawdry combination of sexual perversion, witness tampering, and perjury. The most frothing-at-the-mouth Nixon haters never thought Nixon had himself committed perjury-even over a small matter like national security leaks during wartime. There was a dignity about Nixon unimaginable with Clinton. This is the most complete ignominy in American history.

If President Clinton can do what he has done and not face impeachment, we will have set an all-new, heretofore unimagined-unimaginable-low-water mark for elected officials. Not just that, but if Congress doesn't have the will to throw him out, Clinton will have established a new standard for the entire country. The new standard will be a total absence of standards. Lying doesn't really matter, as long as it's about sex, because sex doesn't really matter, even if it's gross, exploitive, adulterous, and risky. Go ahead: seize this loophole, to the ruin of your family.

And since manipulating the IRS or FBI from the top is all in the course of business, it must be okay to mislead them and divert them from the other end, too. If you get caught and don't have a good enough legal team to escape, you might have to pay a fine or go to prison. But there's no shame in it. The country doesn't really condemn this. We adore a lovable rogue. And we are very, very tolerant. The only thing we won't tolerate is a loser. Nothing matters except winning, and it is fine to lie and cheat and manipulate because honor is just a word, just hot air, and the country doesn't really believe in it.

The last line of the Declaration of Independence is: "And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor:" Impeachment isn't a revolution, and no one's lives or fortunes are at risk. It's not even our sacred honor this time. It's just a question of whether the country can patch together a little self-respect. The Founding Fathers said the price of liberty is eternal vigilance. We’re not even asking for vigilance. Just asking people to give a damn. If Americans don't care about this, then they are expecting liberty without paying any price at all.

Ann Coulter. . Regnery Publishing, Washington, D.C. 1998.

President Bill Clinton was acquitted by the Senate on February 12, 1999 of the December 19, 1998, impeachment charge by the House of Representatives. The charges were perjury and obstruction of justice, arising from the Lewinsky scandal. After a 21-day trial, the Senate vote fell short of the two-thirds majority required for conviction and removal from office under the Constitution. The impeachment proceedings were largely party-line, with no Democratic Senators voting for conviction and only three Democratic Representatives voting for impeachment. In all, 55 senators voted "not guilty," and 45 voted "guilty" on the charge of perjury. The Senate also acquitted on the obstruction charge with 50 votes cast each way.

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