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February 3, 2008
Posted: 01:14 PM ET
WASHINGTON — When the U.S. Senate cleared President Bill Clinton of impeachment charges, even though he had lied under oath about his relationship with Monica Lewinsky, many of his supporters passed it off on the grounds that “everybody lies about sex.” Some critics of the outcome worried that an unhealthy precedent had been set—a sort of “sneaking around” exception to the perjury laws. Last week, the chief prosecutor in Detroit launched a perjury investigation of the city’s mayor which could indicate whether American law is developing a tolerance of lying under oath, so long as the lies are about sex. The investigation is focused on Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick and his longtime aide, Christine Beatty, who swore under oath in a civil case against the city that they had never had an extramarital affair. Last month the Detroit Free Press published transcripts of text messages between the mayor and his aide indicating that their relationship had, indeed, been quite intimate. Ms. Beatty quickly resigned as the mayor’s chief of staff, and last Wednesday he delivered an emotional television address from a church with his wife and three young sons at his side. The mayor offered an abject apology to his constituents, but insisted that he will not resign. He did not discuss specifics of the false testimony issue. The chief prosecutor in the case, Kym Worthy, will be familiar to those who watched trials on Court TV in its early years. She was seen on camera trying cases as a young prosecutor and later as a trial judge, and always came across as a competent, no-nonsense professional. Mayor Kilpatrick is part of an influential political family in Detroit (his mother is a member of Congress in Washington), but he has been involved in of a series of controversial episodes. Time magazine once called him one of the three worst big-city mayors in the United States. If there is an indictment and jury trial, the case could be pivotal in determining if perjury is to be condoned, so long as the lies were about sex. – Fred Graham, In Session Senior Editor Filed under: Fred Graham |
 
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