Bugliosi on "perjury" ..... - Democratic Underground

H2O Man

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Thu Jul-21-05 08:23 PM
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Bugliosi on "perjury" .....

Well, folks, it appears that within the next 24 hours, most DUers will be discussing perjury with our families, friends, coworkers, and neighbors. Because there will be an occassional mutant that spews forth a Sean Hannity-style, "But Clinton was guilty of perjury!", we must be prepared. Hence, I recommend Vincent Bugliosi's "The Betrayal of America."

In the book, which details "How the Supreme Court Undermined the Constitution and Chose our President" (surely worth re-reading tonight!), Bugliosi examines the two types of perjury. The first is known as "self-defensive" and the second as "criminal." But let's read from one of the best legal minds of our times!

"I say that the crime the Justices committed was not an actual crime since there was no specific law on the books prohibiting what they did. But with one Supreme Court Justice, the most important one, Chief Justice Rehnquist, he almost assuredly did commit an actual crime in 1986 in his confirmation hearings before the Senate for Chief Justice. The crime was perjury, and of the two basic types of perjury, Rehnquist's was the worst. Because the Nation article, and this book based thereon, makes the allegation that the five Supreme Court Justices are criminals, Rehnquist's crime of perjury, if true, becomes quite relevant. Before we discuss it, however, let's look at the first type of perjury and put it into the context of a criminal trial. The defendant, let's stipulate, did in fact commit the crime, but he takes the witness stand in front of the jury and denies under oath what he did. This form of self-defense, where no third party is hurt by it, is obviously anticipated and overlooked by prosecutors. We expect it. ....

"The above form of self-defensive perjury is precisely what took place in President Clinton's denial of having sexual relations with Monica Lewinsky. And that was in a civil case. Although Clinton's right-wing enemies struggled mightily in his impeachment hearing to come up with a precedent, they were unabled to come up with one single case ever of any man being prosecuted for perjury because of lying in a civil case about consensual sexual relations. Yet in divorce and child custody proceedings, for instance, this type of perjury has been committed hundreds of thousands of times throughout the years, and it's invariably overlooked. Though certainly not condoning or approving of these lies under oath, no prosecutor would ever dream of prosecuting such a case, and no prosecutor in America, to my knowledge, ever has. Trying to go after Clinton criminally for perjury in the Lewinsky case may have been unprecedented in American legal history. .... With Clinton, the monstrous, grotesque Ken Starr pursued Clinton's lie under oath not because it was relevant to any of the issues in the Paula Jones case, but simply to prove he had lied so he could destroy him. * .....

"The second and by far the most serious type of perjury is not where one is merely denying doing something, the commission of which would result in affirmative harm to him if disclosed, but where one lies under oath to further his own ends, particularly where in the process he is seriously hurting a third party, such as accusing an innocent person of a crime. That type of perjury, if proved, normally does result in a criminal prosecution. It's this second type of perjury that the strong weight of evidence shows Rehnquist committed."

( * - Bugliosi calls Starr "one of the most reprehensible public figures we've ever been exposed to in America," in a 1998 interview, and in his book "No Island of Sanity," pages 135-6. He shows that Starr was not pursuing justice, but something "much more like totalitarianism than the free society we all cherish." Remember that Judge Roberts was with Starr at this time.)

This passage, from pages 77-80 in Bugliosi's book, focuses on a number of areas that should be of concern to DUers. They include perjury, the Supreme Court, and the direction that jackals like Ken Starr and Judge Roberts want to take this country in.