An Affair of State

[Posners] analysis of the political crisis surrounding disclosure of President Clintons affair with Monica Lewinsky is the most trenchant and illuminating yet. His precision about constitutional law and about definitions of perjury, subornation of it and obstruction of justice gives his narrative the tension of a thriller. And his judgments about key playersClinton, Kenneth Starr, Congressional leaders, intellectual and academic defenders of the president, all the lawyers involved, the Supreme Court (for letting the Paula Jones lawsuit proceed with Clinton in office)are scathing, unsparing, elegant and witty. * New York Times Book Review * Posner shows that, despite its lurid and shameful origins, the [ClintonLewinsky] episode raised questions of law and morality that are profoundly important to the direction of the country and to our sense of the American political order. His analysis transforms the impeachment into an event of abiding significance. Mr. Posner works with unusual care through each of the moral and legal questions of the impeachment process. He considers all sides and possible interpretations of each event. But he does not hesitate to hand down strong judgments. -- George L. Priest * Wall Street Journal * We fortunately have a distinguished jurists opinion in An Affair of State which amounts to a retrial of the president with Posner on the bench. One could scarcely imagine a more fitting judge [Posner] is possessed of one of the most synoptic and probing intellects in the country, or the world. That he does not flinch from raining scorn on the Supreme Court and even on the chief justice (to whom Posner is nominally an underling) suggests the sharpness of mind, independence of spirit and biting wit that make his book an intellectual feast. At last, something good has come of the ClintonLewinskyJonesStarr affair. -- Jonathan Raugh * Washington Post * A bravura performance by United States Circuit Court Judge Richard A. Posner. He deftly examines the endless constitutional, political and social angles of President William Jefferson Clintons impeachment ordeal [An Affair of State is a] first-rate dissection of Mr. Clintons impeachment drama flush with long-headed prudential wisdom and insights. -- Bruce Fein * Washington Times * In so many ways, [Posner] is a perfect man for the task [of analyzing the ClintonLewinsky affair], and this book doesnt disappoint His most valuable contribution is legal. In a way only good judges can do, he manages both to portray the ambiguity of constitutional lawand few areas are as ambiguous as the constitutional criteria for impeachmentand yet not shy away from judgement about what actually happened and what to make of it Posner deftly takes us through [the] constitutional and political mazes[and] shows that there actually is a final answer to the question of what perjury and obstruction of justice are, and at least some large common ground as to what might be the constitutional grounds for impeachment. -- Andrew Sullivan * New York Times Book Review * Of [the ClintonLewinsky] analyses, the most insightful is An Affair of State. -- David Kusnet * Baltimore Sun * Posners great asset is his intellectual honesty. He pierces the gaseous clouds of Clintons defense to make compelling arguments that the president committed perjury and obstructed justice. He absolves Starr of obsessive prurience and vindicates the medias reporting of the case. He ridicules the Senates performance, as well as the chief justices robes. But Posner also concludes that the office of independent counsel has died a well-deserved death, that the Supreme Court blew the Paula Jones case, and that Starr got carried away by prosecutorial excess. He skewers the doomsayers of the moralistic Right for wringing their hands over what, to Posner, is still a vibrant republic. -- John Aloysius Farrell * Boston Globe * An Affair of State is an impressi

Richard A. Posner retired as a judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in 2017. He was previously a senior lecturer at the University of Chicago Law School.