Thread by @frodofied

“...the oath of office calls on him to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution...but he crossed the line and failed to protect the law...Under our Constitution, such acts are high crimes, and equal justice requires that he forfeit his office."

-@jeffsessions, 1999

1/

20 years ago President Bill Clinton committed perjury. His lie was a frustrating one, both for him & those who supported him. Republicans had ravaged both Clintons for nearly a decade by then. They had investigated every facet of their lives, and those connected to them.

2/

By then most of us had come to terms with the fact that Bill Clinton had some personal demons and weaknesses, particularly when talking about "sins of the flesh." I had been huge supporter of the President and I was gutted.

But I was also defiant.

But why? Why defiant?

3/

I was defiant because, and this was what would later frustrate Hillary Clinton too, despite the nature of the lie, it had been extracted by Starr's team (a team led, by the way, by Brett Kavanaugh) through judicial error. And an obvious error at that.

4/

While being deposed in regards to Paula Jones' sexual harrassment claims, the presiding judge allowed questions about the President's relationship with Monica Lewinsky to be introduced.

They should not have been. That may seem legalistic to many, but it's perfectly valid.

5/

In a case about sexual harrassment questions regarding possible marital infidelity should've been overruled as immaterial to the case. One behavior does not draw out the other.

That the Lewinsky questions were allowed was shocking to many, no more so than to the President. 6/

The notion of a perjury trap, a thing we hear Giuliani talk about openly & often lately, seems, to many, a silly one. For some it's as simple as if you are asked a question under oath you answer truthfully. There can be no trap.

But that's oversimplification.

7/

In Clinton's case it was a trap. Starr knew full well that Clinton and Lewinsky had had a personal relationship. Thanks to Linda Tripp he even had a dress with the President's DNA on it. Starr also knew that whether or not Clinton had had the affair we're not relevant.

8/

At least not in terms of whether or not he did or did not sexually harrass Paula Jones a decade earlier.

Starr threw out the questions fully expecting to be overruled, but did so to get them on the record. But the judge, despite vigorous objections, allowed them.

And Starr knew he had him. Clinton had denied the charges to everyone already. Worse, he had lied to Hillary about the affair, a thing he had promised would not happen again.

He knew she had believed him. His entire reputation, his relationship with Chelsea, all of it.

10/

After seven years of investigations, none of which amounted to a hill of beans, Clinton was suddenly forced to decide between saving his presidency & marriage or telling the full truth about a series of questions that shouldn't have been allowed to be asked.

He chose wrong.

11/

I dredge all of this up again because if or when Trump perjures himself to Mueller this subject will certainly a topic of discussion, and distinctions have to be made.

In Trump's case there will be no trap, unless Mueller has some surprise we don't know about.

12/

Trump is going to be asked questions about possible obstruction and/or conspiracy and therefore should fully expect to be asked questions explicitly related to those specific charges.

They are relevant questions material to the case at hand.

13/

That Trump will perjure himself because he is unable to tell the truth therefore the process of testifying is itself a trap and somehow wrong or immoral seems to be the argument Trump's team is walking toward.

It's the most tortuously immoral and unbelievable tactic ever.

14/

Even if it's true that he will do so and we all know it, it's no trap, because "I am unable to tell the truth," is not a defense against perjury.

When the both-sideristic comparisons between Trump & Clinton's behavior & crimes start to be made in earnest we must fight back.

15/

The crimes and sins are not equivalent. They are not even close.

Clinton lying about a personal relationship with a woman he had while being married is not the same kind or lie, nor the same kind of obstruction.

16/

Recall Sessions' quote at the beginning of this thread. And bear in mind that obstruction was a part of the charges in the articles of impeachment the House approved against Clinton in 1999.

Obstruction was a charge Starr hoped to pin on Clinton.

17/

"The president of the United States cannot obstruct justice," -@newtgingrich June 2017

Now watch this:



18/

We cannot let the country, nor the Republicans themselves forget/deny the outrageous well of hypocrisy being tapped into here. The lack of conscience, morality, and restraint being exhibited continually by everyone connected to the Republican Party is breathtaking & widening.
19/

Any obstruction that Bill Clinton undertook was undertaken because he didn't want his wife to know he got a blow job from another woman.

Donald Trump is obstructing justice because he doesn't want us to know he committed treason.

That is a huge fucking difference.

20/

Gear up my friends because Republicans, pundits, and probably well known members of the mainstream media are going to be drawing unfair comparisons. They will call us hypocrites.

Again, we must completely reject those claims without equivocation.

21/

We defend our party and our values. Bill Clinton was wrong and did wrong, but was impeached at the demand of Republicans who demanded his head because he lied under oath about questions that should not even have been allowed to be asked.

22/

The three successive Republican House Speakers who presided over various stages of that Impeachment, Newt Gingrich, Bob Livingston, and Dennis Hastert all pontificated about Clinton's dishonesty and cravenness we're all revealed to be doing or having done much worse.

23/

Gingrich, who led the charge was actually having an affair and lying about it at the exact same time he was hunting Clinton's head, Livingston was forced to resign on the very day the articles of impeachment were voted on because it was revealed he had four affairs.

24/

And Hastert turned out to be a pedophile.

The Republican Party are insufferable for their faux moral outrage whilst simultaneously being completely amoral. They are outrageously dishonest and riddled with hypocrisy.

They are a cancer.

We must be the cure.

#Resist