88 wrote:Terry in Crapchester wrote:88 wrote:And STFU about why he paid Paula Jones $850,000 to avoid a trial and more testimony under oath;
Paula Jones' case was frivolous. Even if everything she said was true, where were her damages?
Let's not forget that her case had been
dismissed at the time it settled, although an appeal of that dismissal was pending. The case settled because it was politically embarrassing, not because it was legally meritorious.
On this point, I mostly agree with you. Paula Jones claimed that Clinton lured her to his hotel room on the pretense of interviewing her for a job promotion, and once she got there, he dropped his trousers and asked her to polish the gubernatorial knob. She declined and left the room. I am not aware of her seeking any kind of medical or psychological treatment after the incident, and thus she has no compensible damages. The legal equivalent of no harm, no foul.
IIRC, Jones, when asked about her damages at a deposition, testified that she was the only secretary in her office who did not receive flowers on Secretaries' Day. That's quite possibly the most ridiculous damages claim I've ever heard.
Also relevant to the above, IIRC Clinton acknowledged meeting Jones at a convention but denied not only that he lured her to his hotel room, but even knowing at that time that she was a state employee.
And I agree that the Paula Jones suit was politically charged from day one. Her case was Moving Sale weak, but the allegations were salacious and the defendant could be hurt by them if he admitted that they were true. He publicly denied that anything occurred in the hotel room and adopted a scorched Earth defense. So, he dispatched his Bimbo Squad to destroy her and her reputation. He could have paid her off for a fraction of what she eventually received and kept everything out of the press. But if nothing happened there and she was lying, then kudos to Clinton for standing up to blackmail.
But then he stepped over the line. The defense attorneys were handed some more salacious information. Clinton (now POTUS) was getting a regular knob job from an intern named Monica Lewinsky. This information had very little relevance, if any, to the Jones claims, but the defense argued that it showed that Clinton had a propensity to engage in the very conduct that he denied attempting to engagee in with Jones. The evidence could demonstrate a pattern of conduct. Judge Webber Wright ordered that limited discovery could be taken into the issue, and Clinton purposefully chose to lie under oath about it.
I'll agree with this part. However, zero props to Clinton's attorney, Bob Bennett, for his handling of this matter.
First, he should have brought a Rule 12(b)(6) motion out of the gate. Instead, he chose to argue that Clinton could not be sued civilly as a private citizen while Commander-in-chief. This issue got him to the Supreme Court, of course, but quite possibly to the detriment of his client. Further, he should have appealed Webber Wright's ruling on discovery.
His crime was not that he let Lewinsky slobber on his cack; it was that he lied under oath and said it didn't happen.
Whether this was an impeachable offense, however, is another matter. It obviously was not treason or bribery, and therefore was impeachable only if it rose to the level of "other high crimes and misdemeanors."
In some jurisdictions, a lie under oath is not perjury unless it is material. In some other jurisdictions, a lie under oath about a fact which is not material is perjury, but most of those jurisdictions make this offense only a misdemeanor. To get to felony perjury in those jurisdictions, the lie has to be about a material offense.
I don't think that a lie about a consensual extramarital affair is material to a sexual harassment lawsuit, and in that case, it would not be an impeachable offense.
