Leonardo Angiulo: Swearing To Tell The Truth Means Something

Monday, June 03, 2013

Leonardo Angiulo, GoLocalWorcester Legal Expert

The past week's news cycle included rumors of inconsistencies in the testimony that U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder gave to Congress. The rumors were due, in large part, to a letter generated by the House Judiciary Committee that said exactly that. Now, no matter your political angle, this situation presents an interesting legal question of what happens if you lie under oath.

As you can imagine, there are significant criminal consequences for failing to abide by a promise to tell the truth and, thereby, committing perjury. This is because both our legislature and judiciary rely on evidence when making decisions. It is essential they have accurate information when doing so. The crime of perjury strikes at the very heart of our system of justice, as well as democracy, and is prosecuted zealously.

Perjury + Roger Clemens

Perjury is generally defined by section 1621 of chapter 18 of the United States Code as making a 1) knowingly, 2) false statement, of 3) material fact, while 4) under oath. In addition, there is the separate offense of making false statements to any department or agency of the United States under 18 USC §1001. The elements of this second offense are similar but do not require the statement be made under oath so long as they are made before a division of the government, including the legislature, on a subject that is within the jurisdiction of a department or agency of the government.

Do you remember Roger Clemens? When I was a kid I had his baseball card from his time with the Red Sox and I swear I still have it somewhere. With any luck, it's still in my mom's attic. I bring him up because this time last year he was acquitted of perjury. He was essentially prosecuted for telling Congress he never used performance enhancing drugs despite his former trainer later claiming he injected Mr. Clemens himself. All the ordinary rules of proving a criminal case apply here like a presumption of innocence, requirement of proof beyond a reasonable doubt and what not.

The Rocket beat his charges because a jury was not unanimously convinced that he juiced. But the moral of the story has nothing to do with Roger Clemens' storied career in the majors. The moral, I submit to you, is that even a lie about something as trivial as a game of baseball was serious enough to warrant a federal prosecution. Not because of the subject matter but because of the venue. Congress and its fact finding efforts are a central part of our democracy. No matter what the lie is, it must be addressed and it must be done publicly.

US Attorney General Eric Holder

And according to certain members of the House Judiciary Committee, there is some discrepancy between what the Attorney General said before them and what they learned later from other sources. Functionally, their letter to the Attorney General claims he disavowed in testimony any knowledge or involvement in potential prosecutions of the press. They also claim to have information that the Attorney General was directly consulted on warrants for a reporter's telephone records that label the reporter “either an aider, abettor and/or co-conspirator of” an espionage suspect.

What is yet to be seen is whether this is just another inning of the big political game or something bigger. Exactly who would conduct the prosecution of the chief prosecutor for the United States is a whole other question.

Leonardo Angiulo is an Attorney with the firm of Glickman, Sugarman, Kneeland & Gribouski in Worcester handling legal matters across the Commonwealth. He can be reached by email at [email protected] or through the firm's website at www.gskandglaw.com.