The Clinton Meltdown

KENNETH Starr has now filed his report with Congress, and it is unequivocal. This being Washington, almost every politician instantly equivocated. Sure, some of them said that what the President had done was immoral and wrong. But very few of them were willing to say that he had committed offenses justifying impeachment; instead, most of them offered bromides about waiting for more facts and the President’s response. That sounds reasonable, but in fact it is not.

Two questions arise: Are the President’s offenses serious? And, Do they constitute grounds for removal from office? These are not two ways of saying the same thing, because an impeachable offense requires “high Crimes and Misdemeanors,” and those, as we are reminded by the words of Alexander Hamilton, are “offences which proceed from the misconduct of public men, or, in other words, from the abuse or violation of some public trust. They are of a nature which may with peculiar propriety be denominated political as they relate chiefly to injuries done immediately to the society itself.”

About the Author

Robert H. Bork

The late Mr. Bork was a distinguished fellow at the Hudson Institute.

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KENNETH Starr has now filed his report with Congress, and it is unequivocal. This being Washington, almost every politician instantly equivocated. Sure, some of them said that what the President had done was immoral and wrong. But very few of them were willing to say that he had committed offenses justifying impeachment; instead, most of them offered bromides about waiting for more facts and the President’s response. That sounds reasonable, but in fact it is not.

Two questions arise: Are the President’s offenses serious? And, Do they constitute grounds for removal from office? These are not two ways of saying the same thing, because an impeachable offense requires “high Crimes and Misdemeanors,” and those, as we are reminded by the words of Alexander Hamilton, are “offences which proceed from the misconduct of public men, or, in other words, from the abuse or violation of some public trust. They are of a nature which may with peculiar propriety be denominated political as they relate chiefly to injuries done immediately to the society itself.”