The President called Betty Currie and ordered her to come to work on a Sunday, specifically for the purpose of persuading her to adopt the following false tale. He told them he never had sex with Monica Lewinsky and that they had not had oral sex. Then in August, the President appeared before the grand jury and contrary to his public assertions that he would tell the truth, he perpetuated and continued his scheme to evade the discovery of the truth. It is easy to understand why the Founders viewed bribery as so serious an attack on the integrity of government that it should be explicitly proscribed by the Constitution. Bribery strikes at the very heart of government and erodes the public's confidence in the integrity of its institutions.
Pervasive bribery is a threat to democracy itself.
But so are perjury and obstruction of justice. These crimes strike at the very heart of the judicial system, and, if they were not vigorously prosecuted, the system would soon be undermined. The Federal Sentencing Guidelines , which the courts must apply when sentencing defendants convicted of crimes, treat perjury and obstruction of justice more seriously than bribery - conviction for these crimes can lead to longer prison sentences. So the argument that perjury and obstruction of justice are somehow less serious than bribery does not hold water given their treatment under modern criminal sentencing rules. In the final analysis, bribery, perjury, and obstruction of justice are all crimes against the integrity of government, and they are all impeachable offenses.