Experts Say Perjury Charge Vague

The articles of impeachment to be debated today by the House Judiciary Committee broadly charge President Clinton with perjury in the grand jury and in the Paula Corbin Jones sexual harassment case, but they do not say what statements were false, a serious flaw in the view of some legal experts.

The key charge, Article I, says that Clinton lied before the grand jury in August “concerning the nature and details of his relationship” with former White House intern Monica S. Lewinsky.

Perjury before the grand jury is the strongest impeachment count, several wavering Republicans have said, and it is the charge most likely to be sent to trial in the Senate.

But as debate on the articles gets underway, committee Republicans who will prosecute the case have yet to set forth which of Clinton’s statements in August were “willfully perjurious.”

Under oath before the grand jury, the president admitted that he had “inappropriate intimate contact” with the former White House intern and acknowledged that he had misled his family, friends, staff and the American public about his illicit relationship.

However, Clinton also said then, and his lawyers say now, that he told the truth before the grand jury.

In the days ahead and certainly in a Senate trial, the debate over specific statements would prove crucial because a perjury case turns on precise words and their intended meaning.

Republicans Focus Broadly on Charge

To this point, the Republicans have focused broadly on the charge that Clinton is a liar. They have plenty of evidence to bolster that claim. They say that he lied about his relationship with Lewinsky in the January deposition, denying even being alone with her.

When news of their affair became public, he went before the cameras and lied to cover up his affair. And in August, he continued lying before the grand jury, they assert.

Clinton displays “a conscious disregard for the truth,” committee GOP counsel David Schippers said in summing up Thursday, and his pattern of lying has brought “scandal and disrespect” on the presidency.

But Democratic defenders want to narrow in on the details. Yes, they say, Clinton lied to the public in January. And he was misleading and evasive, even “maddening,” in his Jones case testimony, his lawyers concede.

But he did not lie under oath to the grand jury, they say.

Looked at broadly, the charges that Clinton lied appear powerful. Looked at more narrowly, however, the case against him for perjury in his grand jury testimony looks quite a bit weaker.

Under the Constitution, the House is free to impeach the president on whatever grounds it chooses.

Question of Fairness

However, several former prosecutors and law professors questioned whether it is fair to impeach the president for perjury without specifying the false statements.

“It’s basic. You can’t bring a perjury indictment without spelling out what the perjury is,” said Pamela Stuart, a former federal prosecutor here. ‘You have to show the precise statements that were false. In the recent [Webster L.] Hubbell indictment, [independent counsel Kenneth W.] Starr set forth the exact words that he claims are perjurious.”

“I’m surprised they didn’t lay out the specifics on perjury yet,” said Stephen Saltzburg, a law professor at George Washington University. “You can’t debate whether someone testified falsely unless you know what the false statements were.”

Aside from lacking in particulars, the perjury charges are weak, according to other experts, because they fail to include what prosecutors usually have in their arsenal: evidence from two or more witnesses that a defendant has lied under oath.

“It’s the president’s word against one other’s--Lewinsky,” said Paul Rothstein, a Georgetown University law professor. “To prove, you need to have two witnesses.”

In September, Starr pointed to three instances where Clinton allegedly lied in his testimony to the grand jury.

He said that the president lied when he denied touching Lewinsky in a sexual way, contradicting her testimony.

Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), a defender of the president, called this the “question of who touched who where.”

In his closing argument Thursday, Democratic counsel Abbe Lowell asked the Republicans to think twice “before you put the country through the unseemly spectacle of a trial requiring Ms. Lewinsky to describe what part of him touched what part of her.”

Starr also said that Clinton lied when he said the affair began in February 1996, rather than November 1995. Clinton also lied in August, Starr said, when the president said in January that he believed oral sex was not included in the definition of “sexual relations” read to him during the Jones deposition.

On Thursday, Lowell played part of the taped Jan. 17 deposition showing a confused, three-way conversation about the convoluted definition of “sexual relations” used in the Jones case. Prophetically, Judge Susan Webber Wright commented that the definition was rather unclear and would cause confusion later.

During this week’s hearing, committee Republicans cited a fourth example of lying to the grand jury. They said that Clinton lied in August, saying he was not paying close attention when Robert S. Bennett, his private attorney, told Judge Wright that the president had no sex of any kind with Lewinsky.

In one of his most effective moments, counsel Schippers played part of the January videotape that shows Clinton watching as Bennett asserts the president’s total innocence.

“Do you think for one moment, after watching the tape, that the president was not paying attention?” Schippers asked.

In his argument, the Republican counsel urged committee members to look at Clinton’s testimony “as a whole,” not to focus on statements that may be “literally true.”

But Stuart, the former prosecutor, disputed Schipper’s view.

“I guess I find that rather scary. In a perjury case, you are ignoring the rule of law if you don’t focus on the precise words,” she said.