If I read or hear "perjury trap" one more time I'll chew nails. There can be no such thing

[shraby]

if a person tells the truth.

It's as simple as that. TELL. THE. TRUTH.

[Arkansas Granny]

1. Yep. You can only 'trap' yourself by lying.

[unblock]

2. technically, it's a perjury trap if there's no underlying crime

the prosecutor has to have a legitimate purpose in asking the questions, be it to determine whether or not to indict the person answering the questions or someone else, for an underlying crime; that is, a crime other than perjury arising from lying under oath to those very questions.


if there's no underlying crime, or no real intention to pursue an indictment regarding those underlying crimes, and the hope is the questioned person lies so you can then charge him with perjury, then it's called a perjury trap whether or not the person actually lies.

more precisely, "perjury trap" is a defense someone charged with perjury can use in their defense.


agreed, though, if donnie tells the truth, he's not likely to be charged with perjury, and therefore the need for a perjury trap defense is not likely to arise.

of course, the presence of manifest underlying crimes also makes it very unlikely a perjury defense would hold....

[ProfessorPlum]

6. this is what I have always thought about the Clinton trial

Is it correct (or possible) to say that Clinton didn't commit perjury, since his lie was about an unrelated matter in a perjury trap?

[unblock]

8. my understanding was that the jones civil case satisfied the minimal legal requirements

that is, it wasn't immediately dismissed for lack of a prima facia case.

my understanding also is that in cases such as harassment, plaintiffs are allowed to ask about similar treatment of other women.

given that, i don't think the perjury defense holds, although there's little doubt that jones got a lot of support from people with a purely political interest in setting up a situation where clinton would likely lie. in all likelihood, this included jones lawyers.


specifically, consider the tortured definition they agreed to regarding what "sexual relations" meant, which they agreed would be defined in a way that allowed bill clinton to be technically accurate in saying "no" even though that would be highly misleading knowing what actually happened.

that's where the real problem was. no one has ever been able to point to any statement he made that's actually a lie under oath, afaik. only statements like this that were technically accurate but knowingly misleading. which is not the usual stuff of an actual perjury conviction.

[ProfessorPlum]

9. Thank you - that was very clear

and the best explanation I've heard about that whole mess

[maxsolomon]

3. You could argue the Clinton Impeachment was the result of a Perjury Trap

All those years the VRWC spent trying to find a way to get him under oath, then he dances around the truth instead of admitting to Adultery with an intern, then he's Impeached for perjury. All the GOP needed was a pretext.

There's no need for a Perjury Trap now, because President Narcissist has already committed impeachable offenses. In spades.

[unblock]

10. see my post #8. also,

"perjury trap" is a defense against a criminal charge of perjury.

it is not really a defense to impeachment. congress could just as well say that "being highly misleading under oath" while president amounts to a "high crime and misdemeanor".

but i agree, the vrwc certainly was gunning for a way to trap clinton and abused the legal process to do so.

[jodymarie aimee]

4. I feel the same way about

DIRT.....jeepers....a little intelligence and sophistication are in order...all this mobby talk...

[LandOfHopeAndDreams]

5. Not A Trap When Mueller Is Expecting Lies To Occur

I don't think Mueller has to worry about "trapping" Drumpf into Lying. Drumpf would do that on his own.

They want to frame it as a "trap," so when it happens, they can pretend that Drumpf was tricked somehow, even though he's going to commit perjury with everything he says most likely.

[zipplewrath]

7. Not exactly true

If one is questioned long enough, over a range of related topics, one can easily make statements that won't be entirely self consistent. Especially when working from memory. However, the reality of that is that short of a significant conflict in the statement whose sole purpose appears to be to mislead the interrogator, there is no real chance of getting a perjury charge. At the end of the day, if you don't try to mislead the interrogators, there is little concern about a perjury charge, even if you get a few facts wrong. The trap here is that the man's ego is so fragile, he can't avoid trying to alter the facts to constantly make himself appear smart.

[LiberalFighter]

11. Someone on MSNBC stated that too. One of the guests.

Not a host. Most of the newer hosts are dimwitted to understand it. They rather get emotional.

[oberliner]

12. Were you alive in the 1990s?

[Wounded Bear]

13. For Trump, the "trap" is that if he tells the truth he'll be admitting he committed crimes.

Now that's a perjury trap.

[dsc]

14. actually there can be

if telling the truth causes problems for the person being asked. For example if a person would be embarrassed by a truthful answer. What Clinton faced was close to that. His affair with Lewinski was actually exculpatory in the Paula Jones case, but clearly admitting the affair was embarrassing.