It now appears very likely that Sessions committed the very same crime he once voted to convict President Clinton of. The federal perjury statute forbids anyone who has “taken an oath before a competent tribunal, officer, or person” from “willfully and contrary to such oath” making a statement on “any material matter which he does not believe to be true.”

There is, to be fair, some wiggle room in this statute. To convict Sessions, for example, a prosecutor would have to prove that Sessions did not believe that his reportedly false statements about “the Russians” to be true. Thus, if Sessions had somehow forgotten about those meetings, that would provide him with a defense.

This is the sort of argument that Sessions’ defense attorneys could make on his behalf at trial. And Sessions, of course, should be afforded the same presumption of innocence that attaches to anyone accused of a crime.