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Condi
the Perjurer?
Unlike Clinton,
she might well be guilty of it!
by Tamara Baker
April 9, 2004 -- SAINT PAUL, MINNESOTA (APJ.US) -- Rewind...
A statement must meet five criteria before it can be considered
perjury under Federal law:
1) The statement must be made under oath.
2) The statement must be material to the case at hand.
3) The statement must be known by its maker to be false.
4) The statement must be demonstrably false.
5) The statement must have been made with an intent to mislead.
If the statement in question fails to meet ANY of these five
criteria, it isn't perjury. -- Tamara Baker, from "Spin Control: Responding to an Anti-
Clinton Letter", American Politics Journal, April 19, 1999
I suppose y'all are wondering why I'm posting that blast from the past.
To which my answer is the same as William Faulkner's: "The past ain't dead. It ain't even past."
Having listened to Condi Rice throughout her under-oath testimony before the 9/11 commission this April 8th, it occurs to me that Richard Ben-Veniste, himself a lawyer -- and one of the heroes of the Watergate hearings over thirty years ago -- was doing his damndest to show that Condolezza Rice was lying her ass off under oath.
Indulge me in a little background first.
The five-point standard for perjury I cited back in 1999 is that codified as Section 1623 of Chapter 79 of Title 18 of the United States Code: "False declarations before grand jury or court." It is shown in Cornell University's online version of the United States Code.
This is a fairly strict definition of perjury, and since President Clinton was made to testify in front of a grand jury, it was applicable in his case. And, as I was able to show back in 1999, President Clinton under Section 1623 was not only NOT guilty of perjury, he wasn't even guilty of lying under oath.
Now we fast-forward five years, to Condi Rice.
Her statements today were under oath, but they were not made in front of a grand jury. So, I suspect that a far-less-stringent standard for perjury, as set forth in Section 1621 in that same title and chapter of the United States Code, probably applies in her case: Sec. 1621. - Perjury generally Whoever - (1) having taken an oath before a competent tribunal, officer, or person, in any case in which a law of the United States authorizes an oath to be administered, that he will testify, declare, depose, or certify truly, or that any written testimony, declaration, deposition, or certificate by him subscribed, is true, willfully and contrary to such oath states or subscribes any material matter which he does not believe to be true; or
(2) in any declaration, certificate, verification, or statement under penalty of perjury as permitted under section 1746 of title 28, United States Code, willfully subscribes as true any material matter which he does not believe to be true;
is guilty of perjury and shall, except as otherwise expressly
provided by law, be fined under this title or imprisoned not
more than five years, or both. This section is applicable
whether the statement or subscription is made within or without
the United States.
Got that? Instead of having to meet all of five separate criteria to be considered perjury under Section 1623, Condolezza Rice's statements, under Section 1621, need only meet two criteria: They must have been delivered while under oath, and they must not be believed by her to be true. Now consider some of what Dr. Rice said in front of the 9/11 commission on April 8, 2004:  "I do not remember any reports to us, a kind of strategic warning, that planes might be used as weapons," she told Thomas Kean.
But, as the Center for American Progress points out, Condoleezza Rice was the top National Security official with
President Bush at the July 2001 G-8 summit in Genoa. There, "U.S.
officials were warned that Islamic terrorists might attempt to
crash an airliner" into the summit, prompting officials to "close
the airspace over Genoa and station antiaircraft guns at the
city's airport."
[Sources: Los Angeles Times, 9/27/01; White House release,
7/22/01]
 She also told Thomas Kean that "I was certainly not aware of [intelligence reports about planes as missiles] at the time that I spoke" in 2002.
The CAP begs to differ: While Rice may not have been aware of the 12 separate and
explicit warnings about terrorists using planes as weapons when
she made her denial in 2002, she did know about them when she
wrote her March 22, 2004 Washington Post op-ed. In that piece,
she once again repeated the claim there was no indication "that
terrorists were preparing to attack the homeland using airplanes
as missiles."
[Source: Washington Post, 3/22/04]
 In a reply to Richard Ben-Veniste, she said that there was "nothing about the threat of attack in the U.S." in the Presidential Daily Briefing the President received on August 6th, 2001 -- one day before Bush would go on a month's vacation in Texas.
Again, CAP finds that Condi's own words, uttered in response to further questioning from Ben-Veniste, show that she knew this was not so: Rice herself confirmed that "the title [of the PDB] was, 'Bin
Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States.'"
[Source: Condoleezza Rice, 4/8/04]
There's more -- much, much more -- at the CAP Web site. Go check it out, because I've only scratched the surface here. And when you're done, tell me if you honestly think that, under Title 18, Chapter 79, Section 1621, she is or is not guilty of perjury. |
