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Now that the election is over, the House of Representatives can get back to business -- conducting impeachment hearings.
But before we proceed down this path, fairness compels me to point out that in my Oct. 27 column, I observed that one was more likely to see a UFO in the Third District than to see Rep. Scott McInnis.
That very evening, the doorbell rang, and on my front
porch, there stood a fellow who announced Surprise! I'm
a UFO.
Indeed this alien creature was our congressman, who explained that Speaker Newt Gingrich had been keeping them busy in Washington. McInnis had to rush off to a candidate forum, but he did exhibit the quality I esteem above all others in a candidate or office-holder -- a sense of humor.
Let us return now to the impeachment inquiry. Put yourself in the position of a Republican representative. Attacking President Bill Clinton for his profligate and promiscuous ways just means that every sexual affair ever conducted by a GOP representative will be discovered and leaked to the Biased Liberal Media.
Better, then, to focus on perjury, rather than sex. Clinton lied under oath in the Paula Jones sexual-harassment case. Congressmen are seldom under oath, and so any untruths they utter may be misleading, but not illegal.
Several years ago, when the Post's Empire was operating, the Sunday magazine carried a profile of well-known Wyoming attorney Gerry Spence.
There Spence observed that he had never been in a courtroom when a police officer testified that the officer did not lie under oath.
Empire later printed several letters from outraged cops and their spouses, all proclaiming the virtue of our peace officers and how they would never even consider such a thing.
Fair enough, but shortly afterward, I was chatting with a former prosecuting attorney -- hardly some bleeding-heart with a grudge against badges.
Oh, I'd say Spence is right,
he said. It sure
fits with my experience, anyway.
My only recent experience at observing police testimony came in a trial in the fall of 1997 in municipal court. At issue was Salida's loitering ordinance, but one of the loitering defendants was also charged with interfering with police operations.
It seems that he and a friend, walking home from a saloon, had seen a policeman arresting a young woman for loitering. They stopped to watch, standing about a dozen feet away with their arms crossed before them. Neither of them is especially tall or husky.
The policeman -- a husky fellow who had been toting a
gun and a nightstick and a can of spray -- testified that
he felt menaced
by them and threatened
by the
presence of two unarmed men standing several steps away
with their hands visible.
Sure. It was all I could do to keep from disturbing the courtroom decorum with an outbreak of laughter. The truth was that even if he was an employee of the public, he didn't like the public watching him on the job. The interference charges were soon dropped for lack of evidence.
More recently, I asked a defense attorney about the
prevalence of police perjury. I wouldn't agree with
Spence that it happens every time,
he said, but it
certainly happens and it's not infrequent.
In almost every trial, he pointed out, people under
oath offer different versions of events. So by elementary
logic, some of them are lying. But we generally rely on
juries, rather than the threat of perjury prosecutions, to
figure out who's telling the truth under oath and who
isn't.
He also noted that in general, it is illegal for you to lie to the police, but it is quite legal for the police to lie to you in the course of their work.
Put all this together, and there might be a way that this congressional inquiry into perjury might result in a great public benefit.
Note that our Congress, no matter how much blather we
hear about devolving
power to state and local
governments, is still fond of making federal crimes out of
things like cultivating the wrong plants in your
garden.
Add the prospect of trying an officer of the government -- the President -- for perjury. His lies, no matter how reprehensible, aren't going to put anyone in prison, whereas the lies told under oath by other officers of our governments could wrongfully deprive citizens of their liberty.
So let us hope that, as a result of the impeachment inquiry, Congress makes perjury by any officer at any level a federal offense, and gives the Justice Department the resources to go after it tooth and nail. What better way for Congress to restore respect for law while reining in the power of big government?
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