As Nadler saw it, committing perjury to cover up a consensual sexual affair might have been a federal crime, but it did not rise to the level of an impeachable offense, which the Constitution defines as “treason, bribery or other high crimes and misdemeanors.” “The Framers of the Constitution didn’t think Congress should be in the position of punishing crimes,” he said at the time, at an anti-impeachment rally in New York. “Impeachment was seen as the defense of the republic and of liberty against a president or other high official who would abuse the powers of his office, to make himself a tyrant, to undermine the other branches of government, or to undermine constitutional liberty.”
Clinton’s alleged crime—lying about sex—didn’t come close to meeting that standard, Nadler said. “When the president would misuse his power to become a tyrant, to subvert constitutional liberties, that’s when a president ought to be impeached,” he said at another rally in front of the Capitol. “But not for this.”
The passage of time and shifting political circumstances have a way of bending even the most hardened, principled positions—nowhere more so than in Congress. Standards are lowered, goal posts moved. But Nadler’s definition of what constitutes an impeachable offense sounds the same now as it did in 1998.
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