A Quote by Jonathan Turley
Bill Clinton was impeached primarily for criminal conduct: lying under oath and misleading a federal grand jury about his affair with Monica Lewinsky. Nixon would have been impeached for a wide array of criminal acts, as well as abuses of power.
Related Quotes
I was in high school when Bill Clinton was impeached for lying under oath about his relationship with Lewinsky. We didn't have social media back then - hell, we didn't have a computer with the Internet in our home - so the details of it all escaped me.
In existing criminology there are concepts: a criminal man, a criminal profession, a criminal society, a criminal sect, and a criminal tribe, but there is no concept of a criminal state, or a criminal government, or criminal legislation. Consequently what is often regarded as "political" activity is in fact a criminal activity.
I won't impeach anybody the way they impeached Bill Clinton, for political reasons. No matter how much I don't like his politics, I won't do that.
The MacGuffin in that [Bill Clinton-Monica Lewinsky story] was [Bill] Clinton staying in office. That's what he wanted, and the media was hell-bent that he was gonna get what he wanted.
Obviously, Donald Trump won't be impeached or removed so long as the Republicans hold even one House of Congress. And even should they lose both in November of 2018, launching an impeachment - as the Republicans discovered with Bill Clinton - is very dangerous to the impeaching party. Unless you have a highly credible set of extremely damning facts, you turn a constitutional crisis into a political crisis. You rally potential supporters of the impeached president to him. You make his base bigger. So I imagine that he is likely to serve out the full term.
Nixon impeached himself. He gave us Ford as his revenge.
[Bill] Clinton and Vernon Jordan were talking about "the kitty," the pussycat every other sentence. Vernon got Monica [Lewinsky] a gig somewhere out of the White House, got her an offer for a gig somewhere. And then after Vernon left with Monica, here came Jesse Jackson to the White House for public prayer sessions so that Bill Clinton could get right with God after this mortal transgression and sin. It was the most puke-y thing.
An individual's refusal to carry out the criminal acts of his government sets the stage, in the most effective way possible, for the attempt to demonstrate the criminal nature of these acts.
Presidents at the end of their second term - Reagan with the Iran-contra affair, Clinton with Monica Lewinsky - often find they are bedevilled by hostile Congressional investigations.
I have made a career out of arguing that we shouldn't be criminalizing political differences. I've made a career out of arguing that the grand jury is an abusive institution. I have made a career out of arguing that we shouldn't stretch and expand the criminal law. I'm not going to change it because you think these are abnormal times. When Thomas Jefferson told the Justice Department that they had to prosecute Aaron Burr, and that he was going to have the chief justice impeached unless he found Aaron Burr guilty, those were special times too.
I have never lied about my relationship with Bill Clinton. The only proven liar, at this point, and the only admitted liar, is Bill Clinton; not Gennifer Flowers, not Kathleen Willey, not Paula Jones and not Monica Lewinsky, at this point. He is the only proven liar.
The Beltway media went into caroming-off-the-walls hysterics over Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky, whipping itself into a flaming casserole even as Clinton's standing with the American people remained upright and firm, so to speak.
Has Bill Clinton inspired idealism in the young, as he himself was inspired by John F. Kennedy? Or has he actually reduced their idealism? Surely part of the answer lies in Clinton's personal moral lapse with Monica Lewinsky. But more important was his sin of omission - his failure to embrace a moral cause beyond popularity.
Donald Rumsfeld should not just be impeached. He should be tried as a war criminal. As for Bush, he can be dispatched by the electorate while we are still a democracy.
Bottom line is that I have had a totally criminal moral code and operated with a totally criminal mind attitude that I have not fully confronted (even down to lying about lying and doing illegal things).
I'm a former federal prosecutor, a former associate attorney general. If I had done that, I'd have been prosecuted. It's a clear violation of 18 United States Code Section 791.What [Hillary Clinton] did were criminal acts. She has displayed the facts.
Related Authors
Alan Dershowitz Quotes
American
Lawyer
Cass Sunstein Quotes
American
Lawyer
Cenk Uygur Quotes
Turkish
Lawyer
Clarence Darrow Quotes
American
Lawyer
Elizabeth Edwards Quotes
American
Lawyer
Elliott Abrams Quotes
American
Lawyer
James Carville Quotes
American
Lawyer
Judy Sheindlin Quotes
American
Lawyer
Prashant Bhushan Quotes
Indian
Lawyer
Ralph Nader Quotes
American
Lawyer
Robert Green Ingersoll Quotes
American
Lawyer
Robin S. Sharma Quotes
Canadian
Lawyer
Robin Sharma Quotes
Canadian
Lawyer
Valerie Jarrett Quotes
American
Lawyer
William Jennings Bryan Quotes
American
Lawyer
Zephyr Teachout Quotes
American
Lawyer