Dear America,
Over the years, my opinion of both Bill Clinton and his presidency have changed. I didn't vote for him during the democratic primaries, but when he ran against H.W. and Dole, I had no trouble voting for him. But he was a sort of half-assed liberal: a populist of sorts, but only in half measures. When he presided over "welfare reform" with Newt Gingrich, I was disappointed, but I thought of it as a concession made in the name of partisan comity and progress generally. He did a good job with Bosnia and most other foreign policy initiatives and challenges, but the affair with Monica Lewinsky showed his true character to me. His equivocations and denials were hard to justify, although he would never have been impeached if he had had Donald Trump's lawyers.
I say that because until yesterday, when I saw Clinton weaseling out of questions about apologizing for the affair and to whom he did or didn't say he was sorry...when I heard him retreating into semiotic caviling rather than admitting that he was a marital infidel and that he had taken advantage of a young and impressionable intern, I looked up his impeachment and realized something of which I wasn't aware for thirty years. His articles of impeachment were for perjury and obstruction of justice, but I never knew the details of the latter charge. It stemmed not from anything but his pressuring Lewinsky into signing an affidavit that said that she had never had an affair with him, which both of them obviously knew was a lie. The details as to how that evolved into impeachment isn't really material, but the fact is that subornation of perjury is not just a crime; it is-- no matter what you think the meaning of "is" is, as Clinton is famous for opining during sworn testimony--obstruction of justice when, as Clinton was, you are under investigation for perjuring yourself during a deposition in a civil case. That's where the lawyers come in. I said it then and I say it now, Clinton was ill-advised by his big name lawyers in Washington, D.C. led by Robert S. Bennett, a graduate of Georgetown and Harvard who somehow came to prominence in the legal profession after a stint as an assistant U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia. He let Clinton give a deposition in the Jones case, presumably knowing what a snake Clinton was and that Jones's allegations probably had at least a kernel of truth in them. Thus, he let Clinton put himself in jeopardy rather than just advising him to refuse to submit, which would have led to a default in the case. Then, Jones would have to have proved her damages based on nothing but her own evidence, which in the end failed anyway. As it eventuated, however, Clinton did submit to questioning under oath, did lie, and then did suborn, that is order or arrange, the perjured affidavit of Monica Lewinsky to the effect that she hadn't had sex with that man, Bill Clinton. Thus, Lewinsky became a witness against Clinton in the Starr investigation of Clinton's perjured deposition under threat of prosecution for her own perjury. If on the day of the deposition Bill had just stayed in the White House doing his job, none of it would have happened...except of course the affair itself, which was a problem of a different sort.
So now, we are faced with Rudy Giuliani and a few other Washington hot shot attorneys who are trying to prevail upon Donald Trump to keep his mouth shut and his fingers off his twittering device, and to their credit, they seem to be doing a better job than Robert Bennett did...so far. The question is, what will Trump's adversaries be able to do with what they have in the way of evidence of obstruction of justice, and if they can get to the issue of impeachment in the House of Representatives, can they credibly bring the charge since they voted against conviction of Bill Clinton for something legally far worse, at least in character. All Trump did was dictate a letter with misstatements of fact relative to his idiot son's meeting with a Russian lawyer connected to the Russian FSB and presumably Vladimir Putin; no oath...no perjury...just two generations of stupidity and self-aggrandizement in the same room at the same time on a presidential jet confabulating over a lie. What else would anyone expect from a Trump father and son team.
So now, the Democrats will have a hard time impeaching Trump, presuming that they win in November, even though the fabrication of a deceit relayed to the investigators of a potential indiscretion, if not a crime, does constitute obstruction of justice, and it is admitted now after being denied for over a year by the liar in chief. But it isn't perjury, and that means that it isn't as bad as the way in which Bill Clinton obstructed justice, for which he was impeached...but also was acquitted. Oh what a tangled web we weave when we take Bill Clinton's side.
Your friend,
Mike
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