Bush will let his top aids testify, but with a bunch of asinine qualifiers, including that
the aids wouldn’t take the oath to tell the truth.
His minions dutifully claim, “It really doesn’t make any difference because the penalties are the same: 5 years for perjury, 5 years for lying in a Senate hearing.”
But it would seem there has to be a catch. Otherwise, W wouldn’t have demanded the no oath proviso. So what’s the catch?
I asked this question in a thread about the attorney firings but got no responses.
The bizarre thing is, NO crime has been committed up to now.
Bush and Gonzales and their aides were playing politics with the firing of those U.S. Attorneys. Some people think that’s outrageous, others think that’s just the nature of the spoils system.
Bush and Gonzales COULD just have said, “We have the right and the power to make these personnel changes, just as all previous Presidents have, and we’re going to do it.” If they had, the Democrats could have complained vociferously, but there’d have been no need for hearings or investigations.
Instead, they’ve acted as if they’ve done something illegeal, even though they haven’t!
I think these guys have reached a point where lying and stonewalling comes naturally and automatically, even when there’s absolutely no need for it!
There’s no record of the proceedings so there’s no evidence to the perjury apart from the hearsay of the involved parties. The qualifiers were - private, no oath, no record. I am not a lawyer.
I’m not quite sure of the veracity of the quote you posted. In my mind there is no difference between perjury (lying under oath) and lying in a senate hearing (which is, as far as I know, always under oath). It reeks of doubletalk.
Any chance you could move this thread to Great Debates? It’s wallowing here and I’d
like to get an answer to my OP.
If you were the president and you put out these qualifiers…
1. Private Session - no TV coverage
2. No Transcript
3. Limited number of Congressional participants
4. No calling back of any testifiers for additional questions
…and then you capped it with an utterly outrageous 5. no oath, don’t you think that even Bill O’Reilly would realize you had something to hide? So why bother, if lying to a Senate Inquiry without the oath carries the same penalty as perjury?
Therefore, in my opinion, there’s something else at play here. Rove is almost always 2 or 3 moves ahead of us dumb ass Democrats, and I’d like to find out what’s going on.
(Yes I know, Bush had the big oil people testify without the oath, but that’s another matter.)
It’s pretty clear that Gonzales did some lying to Congress, but that just raises more questions: why did he feel the need to lie?
One of his aides, Monica Goodling, is taking the Fifth instead of testifying to Congress, which you can’t really do unless there’s an actual crime you could implicate yourself in. That’s why Congress is coming back to her and saying, “What exactly is it you’re planning to take the Fifth about?”
I think there has to be more to all this than we’re seeing. There’s just too much lying, Fifth-taking, and executive-privilege revoking over something that they clearly had authority to do.
Since Congress created the Justice Department in the first place, they have broad oversight over its operations. They can compel testimony from everyone from Attorney General Gonzales on down, within the department, and should do so before speaking with anyone in the White House.
Since the presidency is a constitutional office, oversight of it by Congress isn’t quite so direct. Congress has certain powers against presidential decisions, but there is a presumption that the decision making processes of the president are treated to a certain amount of confidentiality. Now, the law is not entirely well developed on this score, and it isn’t worth getting into, IMHO, unless investigation shows serious problems when talking to the Attorney General and other officials.
Mr. Moto, I do not mean to piss you off, but you didn’t address the question:
Bush insists that certain witnesses - Rove, Miers, and maybe others - to be called in the Attorney Firing Hearings must testify without taking an oath to speak truthfully.
Bush apologists argue that The Decider’s stance on this matter is reasonable because the penalty for lying under oath and lying to the Senate carries the same threat: 5 years in federal prison for each offense.
So if there is no difference in the penalties, why does W demand that his top aides do not take the oath?
Could the Pubbies have something up their sleeves? If so, what might it be?
I think it’s about public perceptions. People take the idea of testimony under oath seriously, and are likely to be less forgiving of lies committed under oath than lies spoken not under oath.
This Administration doesn’t have a whole lot of popular support these days, and Rove probably realizes the thinness of their margin of error in that department. So my WAG is that he’s doing his best to work whatever small edges he can find with respect to public opinion.
All presidents claim executive privilege, and all claim it to be far broader than current case law indicates. They avoid having it restricted in court challenges by producing testimony and evidence “voluntarily” after coming under political pressure.
Happens here, happened under Clinton, happened under presidents going all the way back to Washington and Jefferson. Check it out.
Isn’t there another “catch” in that the aides will be “interviewed” rather than “testifying”. I think that may make them immune from being prosecuted for lying to Congress.
I’m not sure, but it seems to me that taking an oath would be seen as an encroachment on executive privilege, given that that privilege has been used in the past to not only avoid testimony, but also ignore warrants.
You’ve got to remember this president feels that all men are created equal. It’s just that some are more equal than others so they don’t have to play by the rules like everyone else.
But even then, a lot of people still aren’t following this story very closely. Lying under oath would make people have an opinion who otherwise wouldn’t. Who’s to say which makes a bigger impact?
We have no evidence that they’ve done anything illegal. That doesn’t mean the evidence doesn’t exist.
As for the question, I wonder how much the transcript is the issue. If there was a transcript, any statement of fact made can be checked against other evidence. With no transcript, it will be hard to verify the story. It might be that emails during the 18 day gap indicate either Bush’s involvement, or perhaps provide smoking gun evidence that some of the firings were done in retaliation for investigation of Republicans. We just don’t know at the moment.
