Politics Take Back Seat To Law

By CBSNews.com staff CBSNews.com staff

September 10, 1998 / 9:56 AM EDT / CBS

Right now, politics are guiding decision-making on the Lewinsky matter. But should legislators decide they're necessary, legal proceedings can be the end result of those decisions, reports CBS News Legal Correspondent Kristen Jeannette-Meyers.

It's up to the politicians to decide if there will be impeachment hearings. If those hearings occur, there will be legal rules, and the ultimate result could be that the president loses his job.

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Impeachment is the same thing as an indictment in our courts. You draft impeachment articles, and if a simple majority of the House passes them, there is a trial in the Senate.

Impeachment proceedings are still a long way off. First, the rules committee has to decide how the House Judiciary Committee will go about deciding if there should be hearings.

Some of the other legal issues facing those involved in this case:

The president's lawyers had asked to see Kenneth Starr's report before Congress did. But had Starr done that, he would have been in violation of the law, Meyers reports.
He can't give out a copy to the president just to be fair and the president's lawyers know that. But Jeannette-Meyers hypothesizes that they wanted to raise the issue with the public that the president can't respond until all the accusations have come out.
The fact that the grand jury is still in session, even though the report is already finished, could be an ominous sign for some people who have testified, Meyers reports. It's possible the grand jury will come down with indictments. People have come before the grand jury and told different story. The grand jury could indict others for some kind of perjury.