Country Is ‘Asking for an End to This Nightmare’

Excerpts from the Senate presentation of David E. Kendall, the president’s private attorney:

The rule of law is more than rhetoric. It means that in proceedings like these, where important rights are being adjudicated, that evidence matters. Fairness matters. Rules of procedural regularity matter. The presumption of innocence matters. And proportionality matters. The rule of law is not the monopoly of the House managers. And it ought to be practiced in these proceedings as well as talked about in speeches.

We’ve heard a lot of pejorative rhetoric about legal hair-splitting that the president and his legal team have engaged in. . . . It’s not legal hair-splitting to raise available defenses or to point out gaps in the evidence or to make legal arguments based upon precedent. . . . And I think it’s particularly important in a proceeding like this where the charge is an accusation of crime. And Mr. Manager McCollum was quite explicit in his argument that the first thing you have to determine here is whether the president committed any crimes.

I’m going to try and focus on the facts and the evidence concerning obstruction of justice. I don’t think there is a need for me to go into the law. We’ve set forth the relevant legal principles in our trial memorandum. Mr. Ruff and Ms. Mills very ably covered some of the governing principles, and Ms. Mills played some videotape excerpts of experts. . . . Indeed, our primary disagreement with the very able House managers concerns the evidence and what it shows.

‘Nobody Asked Her Ever to Lie’

Subpart 1 of Article II alleges that the president encouraged Ms. Lewinsky to execute an affidavit in the Paula Jones case that he knew to be perjurious, false and misleading. The House managers allege that during a Dec. 17 telephone conversation, Ms. Lewinsky asked the president what she could do if she were subpoenaed in the Jones case, and the president responded, “Well, maybe you could sign an affidavit.” And that’s a statement the president does not dispute making.

First of all, Ms. Lewinsky has repeatedly and forcefully denied any and all suggestions that the president ever asked her to lie. . . . And she stated explicitly that neither the president nor anyone on his behalf ever told--ever asked or encouraged Ms. Lewinsky to lie.

In an FBI interview conducted on July 27, she made two similar statements, and you see them up here on the chart. Neither the president nor [Vernon] Jordan ever told Lewinsky that she had to lie. . . .

In Ms. Lewinsky’s Aug. 20 grand jury testimony, she stated, and she had to volunteer to do it: “No one ever asked me to lie, and I was never promised a job for my silence; no one ever asked me to lie, and I was never promised a job for my silence.” Is there something difficult to understand here?

It’s interesting to see how the House managers try to establish that somehow the president asked Ms. Lewinsky to file a false affidavit, but their argument essentially begs the question. They argue that the president in fact somehow encouraged her to lie because both parties knew the affidavit would have to be false and misleading to accomplish the desired result. But again, there is no evidence to support this conjecture.

The president explained, in his grand jury testimony on at least five occasions in response to the prosecutors’ questions, that he believed Ms. Lewinsky could execute a truthful, but limited, affidavit that would have established there was no basis for calling her as a witness to testify in the Jones case.

Moreover, there is significant evidence in the record that at the time she executed her affidavit, Ms. Lewinsky honestly could believe--honestly believed that she could deny a sexual relationship, given what she believed to be the definition of that term. In an audiotape conversation, which Linda Tripp secretly recorded, Ms. Lewinsky declared, “I never even came close to sleeping with the president. We didn’t have sex.” Again, I would remind you of Mr. Craig’s presentation yesterday concerning Ms. Lewinsky’s understanding of the term “sexual relations,” which was the same as the president’s.

She said, in her handwritten proffer that I had on the chart earlier, that the president did not ask her or encourage her to lie. She made that statement, when talking to the independent counsel, when her fate was in the hands of the independent counsel, when her immunity agreement could be broken and she could be prosecuted. She has, nevertheless, continued to maintain that nobody asked her ever to lie. She said in the July 27 FBI interview neither the president nor Mr. Jordan ever told her she had to lie. And she said that in her grand jury testimony.

[The House managers] claim that while the president maybe didn’t specifically tell her to lie, he somehow suggested that she give a false account of the relationship. What you should infer, according to [the managers], is based upon what they may have said about their relationship; at other times, previous times to this late night Dec. 17 phone call, the president somehow suggested that she say the same thing at her deposition, something like, “You know, you can always say you were coming to see Betty or that you were bringing me letters.”

Their claim boils down, however, to the inferences to be drawn from the uncontested fact that in the past before this time, before this Dec. 17 phone call, the president and Ms. Lewinsky had had discussions about what she should say if asked about her visits to the Oval Office. Both have acknowledged that. Not surprisingly, at the time these conversations occurred, they were both concerned to conceal their improper relationship from others while it was going on.

Now, to say that is not to excuse it or to exonerate it or justify it, but rather to emphasize that the testimony about visiting Betty or “bringing me letters” is in the record, but it’s not linked in any way to the Dec. 17 phone call or to any testimony or affidavit with regard to the Jones case. Here again, I want to go to the direct evidence that’s relevant on Count Two, because it undercuts the managers’ suggestion that this discussion of the cover stories actually occurred in the context of a discussion about the Paula Jones case.

President’s Remorse

The president has spoken powerfully and personally of his remorse for what he’s done. Others have pointed out that the poisonous partisanship led the other body to send you articles of impeachment on the narrowest partisan vote in its history. I think that the bipartisan manner, however, you’ve conducted this impeachment trial is a welcome change. . . .

We ask only that you give this case and give this country the constitutional stability and the political sanity which this country deserves. The president did not commit perjury, he did not obstruct justice, and there are no grounds to remove him from office.

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Excerpts from the presentation of former Sen. Dale Bumpers (D-Ark.):

We are here today because the president suffered a terrible moral lapse, a marital infidelity; not a breach of the public trust, not a crime against society--the two things handled and talked about in Federalist Paper No. 65. I recommend it to you before you vote. But it was a breach of his marriage vows. It was a breach of his family trust. It is a sex scandal.

H. L. Mencken said one time, “When you hear somebody say, ‘This is not about money,’ it’s about money.” [Laughter] And when you hear somebody say, ‘This is not about sex,’ it’s about sex.

You pick your own adjective to describe the president’s conduct. Here are some that I would use: indefensible, outrageous, unforgivable, shameless. I promise you the president would not contest any of those or any others.

But there is a human element in this case that has not even been mentioned, and that is the president and Hillary and Chelsea are human beings. This is intended only as a mild criticism of our distinguished friends from the House. But as I listened to the presenters, to the managers, make their opening statements, they were remarkably well-prepared, and they spoke eloquently, more eloquently than I really had hoped.

The relationship between husband and wife, father and child, has been incredibly strained, if not destroyed. There’s been nothing but sleepless nights, mental agony, for this family for almost five years. Day after day, from accusations of having assassinated, or had Vince Foster assassinated, on down. It has been bizarre. But I didn’t sense any compassion, and perhaps none is deserved.

The president has said for all to hear that he misled, he deceived, he did not want to be helpful to the prosecution, and he did all of those things to his family, to his friends, to his staff, to his Cabinet and to the American people.

Why would he do that? Well, he knew this whole affair was about to bring unspeakable embarrassment and humiliation on himself, his wife, whom he adored, and a child that he worshiped with every fiber in his body and for whom he would happily have died to spare her this or to ameliorate her shame and her grief. The House managers have said shame and embarrassment is no excuse for lying. Well, the question about lying, that’s your decision. But I can tell you, you put yourself in his position, and you’ve already had this big moral lapse, as to what you would do.

We are none of us perfect. Sure, you say, he should have thought it all out beforehand, and indeed he should, just as Adam and Eve should have.

Lack of Balance

And in this case, the charges brought and the punishment sought are totally out of sync. There is no balance. There is no proportionality.

The American people now and for some time have been asking to be allowed a good night’s sleep. They’re asking for an end to this nightmare. It is a legitimate request. I’m not suggesting that you vote for or against the polls. I understand that. Nobody should vote against the polls just to show their mettle and their courage. I have cast plenty of votes against the polls, and it’s cost me politically a lot of times. This has been going on for a year, though.

I talked about meeting Harry Truman my first year as governor of Arkansas. Spent an hour with him . . . I will never forget what he said: “Put your faith in the people. Trust the people. They can handle it.”