Alleged Advice to President Clinton on Dismissing Lawsuit and Perjury Testimony

4.2.12 WC: 191694 she sought to the court, the case would be dismissed, regardless of whether or not Paula Jones agreed. Ifthe lawsuit were dismissed, there would be no depositions. I told the president that he could have justified his decision to pay off the suit by explaining that the American presidency is more than a full time job and that he had no time for depositions—the preparation for which are extremely time consuming—even if the Supreme Court justices (who work relatively short hours) thought he did. The President looked surprised: “Nobody ever told me I could have had the case dismissed if I had paid the money. [My lawyer] told me I had to be deposed.” Shortly thereafter, Bob Bennett was no longer representing President Clinton, and Clinton was seeking my legal advice, as his problems—all of which derived from the deposition he didn’t have to give—multiplied. He came close to being indicted. He was impeached (and eventually acquitted by an evenly divided Senate vote), and disbarred. During the course of these proceedings I conferred with the President, provided legal memoranda to him and his lawyers, and discussed his case in the court of public opinion. I also testified on the President’s behalf as an expert witness on the law of perjury before the congressional committee that was considering whether to impeach Clinton for the “high crime” of perjury. The chairman of the committee was Republican Congressman Henry Hyde, with whom I repeatedly clashed. The front page of the Washington Post featured a large photograph the next morning of the two of us angrily pointing accusatory fingers at each other. [get this photo] The source of our conflict was over the selective outrage directed by Congressman Hyde and other Republican lawmakers at President Clinton’s alleged perjury. I began my testimony by putting President Clinton’s false statements into a broader historian context: For nearly a quarter of a century I have been teaching, lecturing and writing about the corrosive influences of perjury on our legal system -- especially when committed by those whose job it is to enforce the law, and ignored or even legitimated by those whose responsibility it is to check those who enforce the law. On the basis of my academic and professional experience, I believe that no felony is committed more frequently in this country than perjury and false statement crimes. Perjury during civil depositions and trials is so endemic that a respected appellate judge once observed that, quote, "experienced lawyers say that in large cities scarcely a trial occurs in which some witness does not lie." Police perjury in criminal cases, particularly in the context of searches and other Exclusionary Rule issues, is so pervasive that the former police chief of San Jose and Kansas City has estimated that hundreds of thousands of law enforcement officials commit felony perjury every year testifying about drug arrests alone. But in comparison with their frequency, perjury crimes are among the most underprosecuted in this country. I then distinguished among various types of perjury. 215 HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_017362