The lawsuit is legally a waste of paper, hasn't a chance in hell. What political benefit may come of I would not venture to guess.
Clinton wasn't convicted of anything. Or criminally charged with anything.
The "high crimes and misdemenors" language in the impeachment clause of the US Const. is undefined, and needn't mean crime in the statutory sense. Really it means whatever Congress says it means, since the S.Ct is unlikely to infere in the conflict bewteen coordinate branches.
Perjury rules don't apply to bar sanctions -- he was ultimately disbarred, or forced to resign his law license to avoid oficial discipline, because it's a disciplinary violation in Arkansas, as elsewhere, for a lawyer to lie to a federal judge. Or any judge. Bar discipline on that ground happens ALL the time.
Is lying to a federal judge grounds for impeachment? Should it be? I think not. Though I don't recommend to a lawyer. I think impeachable conduct ought to be really bad, like covering up a burglary. Or lying to justify an illegal war. But I don't make the rules.
Does it matter, constitutionally, politically, that Congress and the GOP declared war on the President and tried to bring him down by foul means or worse? Yes, of course it does. It debased our already debased politics even further and besmirched the Republic, which I, at least, care about.
Sigh.
jks
--- Luke Weiger <lweiger at umich.edu> wrote:
> Michael:
>
> > As to you and Luke wanting to pretend like the
> merits of the lawsuit
> matter:
> > You're simply wrong.
>
> I didn't say the (probably non-existent) merits of
> the lawsuit mattered. I
> claimed that the irrelevance of Clinton's testimony
> mattered, and it does.
> Point me to a case in which someone got nailed for
> providing misleading
> _immaterial_ testimony in a civil trial.
>
> If you really don't think it matters that Starr et
> al. set a perjury trap
> (and by "matters" I don't mean exonerates Clinton),
> your politics are
> seriously fucked.
>
> -- Luke
>
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