11 good reasons to impeach

Afraid to wade into the sewer? Here's a quick primer on the basic charges in the Starr report: Lying. The president allegedly lied under oath both when deposed by Paula Jones's lawyers and when testifying before the grand jury. Ken Starr documents more than 15 specific lies the president told after swearing on the Bible to tell "the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth." Obstructing justice. Mr. Starr charges that the president tried to corrupt the judicial process by helping to hide the gifts he'd given Ms. Lewinsky, by making sure their stories "meshed" before she testified, by offering legal advice to help her avoid a deposition, by seeking a job for her in New York to get her away from Washington, by coaching his personal secretary on the "right" answers regarding Ms. Lewinsky, by refusing to testify for seven months, and by lying to senior aides so they would disseminate the lies through the media. Violating his oath of office. In this final category, Mr. Starr charges that the man who pledged to "faithfully execute the laws" in fact did all that he could to subvert those laws when they impinged upon his own behavior. The main complaint concerns Mr. Clinton's "frivolous" claims of executive privilege and protective privilege in an effort to keep the truth from coming out. Essentially, Mr. Starr says the president not only violated the justice system (his point in the first two categories), but that he also violated the trust of the American people who put him in office.