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4.2.12
WC: 191694

she sought to the court, the case would be dismissed, regardless of whether or not Paula Jones
agreed. If the lawsuit were dismissed, there would be no depositions. I told the president that he
could have justified his decision to pay off the suit by explaining that the American presidency is
more than a full time job and that he had no time for depositions—the preparation for which are
extremely time consuming—even if the Supreme Court justices (who work relatively short hours)
thought he did.

The President looked surprised: “Nobody ever told me I could have had the case dismissed if I
had paid the money. [My lawyer] told me I had to be deposed.”

Shortly thereafter, Bob Bennett was no longer representing President Clinton, and Clinton was
seeking my legal advice, as his problems—all of which derived from the deposition he didn’t have
to give—multiplied. He came close to being indicted. He was impeached (and eventually
acquitted by an evenly divided Senate vote), and disbarred.

During the course of these proceedings I conferred with the President, provided legal memoranda
to him and his lawyers, and discussed his case in the court of public opinion.

I also testified on the President’s behalf as an expert witness on the law of perjury before the
congressional committee that was considering whether to impeach Clinton for the “high crime” of
perjury. The chairman of the committee was Republican Congressman Henry Hyde, with whom I
repeatedly clashed. The front page of the Washington Post featured a large photograph the next
morning of the two of us angrily pointing accusatory fingers at each other. [get this photo]

The source of our conflict was over the selective outrage directed by Congressman Hyde and
other Republican lawmakers at President Clinton’s alleged perjury. I began my testimony by
putting President Clinton’s false statements into a broader historian context:

For nearly a quarter of a century I have been teaching, lecturing and writing about the
corrosive influences of perjury on our legal system -- especially when committed by those
whose job it is to enforce the law, and ignored or even legitimated by those whose
responsibility it is to check those who enforce the law.

On the basis of my academic and professional experience, I believe that no felony is
committed more frequently in this country than perjury and false statement crimes. Perjury
during civil depositions and trials is so endemic that a respected appellate judge once
observed that, quote, "experienced lawyers say that in large cities scarcely a trial occurs in
which some witness does not lie." Police perjury in criminal cases, particularly in the
context of searches and other Exclusionary Rule issues, is so pervasive that the former
police chief of San Jose and Kansas City has estimated that hundreds of thousands of law
enforcement officials commit felony perjury every year testifying about drug arrests alone.
But in comparison with their frequency, perjury crimes are among the most
underprosecuted in this country.

I then distinguished among various types of perjury.

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