The rule of law is absolutely
essential to a representative democracy being able to endure even as strong
personalities in public office may seek to bend or even dismiss law for their
own purposes. The notion that anyone subject to law gets a pass according to
one’s own discretion and power is toxic to a republic being regarded as fair.
Just as everyone has a right to due process in legal proceedings in the U.S.,
no one is above the law there. This applies to former presidents and
secretaries of state, and thus to Bill and Hillary Clinton. Their written
statement in refusing to recognize a Congressional subpoena as valid—a presumptuous
stunt to be sure—reveals that they held the presumption of being able to decide
whether a law to which they were subject was valid. This presumption could also
be seen when Bill Clinton occupied the White House, for he deliberately lied under
oath, “I did not have sexual relations with” Monika Lewinski even though she had
performed oral sex with him in the Oval Office when she was a White House
intern. My point is that the underlying pattern is clear with respect to a lack
of regard for law itself (even though both Clintons went to Yale’s law school)
and the presumption of setting oneself in the position of invalidating law to
which one is subject. That Bill Clinton was no punished with incarceration in
the 1990s was unfortunate even for him and his wife as they were not afforded the
opportunity to learn a lesson.
On January 21, 2026, members
of the Republican group in the U.S. House of Representatives began the process “to
hold former President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary in
contempt of Congress” because the couple had repeatedly refused to honor a Congressional
subpoena to testify on the Epstein sex-girls racket.[1]
Photographic evidence that Bill had been in contact with Epstein had been made
public, and members of the House had questions for the Clintons regarding what
they may have known of Epstein’s crimes. Even though the demand for testimony
sounds reasonable enough, Rep. James Comer, the chairman of the relevant
committee, had said at the start of a hearing in which the Clinton’s attendance
was required that the Clintons had responded not with “cooperation but
defiance.”[2]
Such a blatant response to a Congressional subpoena is astonishing because, as
Comer said, “Subpoenas are not mere suggestions, they carry the force of law and
require compliance.”[3]
The Clintons contended that the subpoenas were “invalid because they do not
serve any legislative purpose.”[4]
But it is not for subpoenaed people called to testify to assess whether any
such purpose is being served, for otherwise anyone could disregard a
Congressional subpoena simply by declaring there to be no legislative
purpose.
In his ethical theory, Kant
argues that if universalizing a maxim results in a contradiction, such a maxim
is unethical. For example, if no one
were to tell the truth, no one would believe anyone else’s truth-claims and so
making such claims would not make any sense. Universalizing the maxim that it
is ok to lie would result in no claims being made. Similarly, were everyone to
act on the maxim, a person subject to a Congressional subpoena can determine
the validity of said subpoena and act on that determination, it would not
make sense for Congress to issue subpoenas because none would be honored.
Universalizing that maxim results in the absurd, so that maxim is unethical.
Another formulation of Kant’s
ethical theory holds that rational beings should be treated not merely as one’s
means, but also as ends in themselves. In presuming that the committee members
were merely playing political games in issuing the subpoenas and dismissing
them, the Clintons were treating the members as means only (to the Clinton’s
own ends) rather than as ends in themselves worthy of respect by virtue of
being rational beings. Why worthy of respect?
Because to Kant, it is by the use of reason that we assign value in the
world, so reason itself must have absolute value and thus be worthy of respect.
To Kant, the formulations of his Categorical Imperative have the necessity that
law does.
It is such necessity, both in
law itself and in ethical principles, according to Kant, that the Clintons repeatedly
and conveniently overlooked or dismissed outright, and with impunity. It is
significant, therefore, that being in contempt of a Congressional subpoena can
carry time in prison. There is a good reason for that, so I submit that the criminal
charges should be automatic rather than depend on a majority-vote in the House
chamber. Obviating accountability by means of political deals does no favor to
the guilty in terms of lessons learned, and no favor to an institution that
looks weak if its subpoenas can be ignored with impunity. Impunity for some and
jail for the rest is no way to run a republic that is based on the rule of law.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
