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In a word:
NO! No it is not OK to lie to Congress.
It is a crime, “that could land a person in some serious legal trouble.”
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What Are the Penalties for Lying to Congress?
www.findlaw.com
by George Khoury, Esq. — March 02, 2017
Perjury and lying to the federal government are both crimes that could land a person in some serious legal trouble. If convicted of either crime, a person could be looking at up to five years in prison. This means that if a person is found to have lied during a congressional hearing or investigation, or simply lied to an FBI or other federal agent, actual jail time could result.
Today, Attorney General Jeff Sessions' faced allegations of lying to Congress. However, high profile prosecutions for lying to congress, feds, or even for perjury, don't happen very often.
How to Prove Perjury or Lying to Congress
When a person is prosecuted, there are separate federal regulations for perjury specifically and lying to the feds generally. Under the United States Code, title 18, section 1001, a person who knowingly or willingly makes a material statement that is false, or fraudulent, to the feds, is guilty of a crime. What comes as a surprise to many is that unlike section 1621, section 1001 does not require that a person be under oath.
[...]
Section 1001 has a long and distinguished history, and has been used against notable, convicted liars Rod Blagojevich, Scooter Libby, Bernard Madoff, Martha Stewart, and Jeffrey Skilling. Furthermore, some might recall that President Bill Clinton faced impeachment not because of the inappropriate relationship, but rather because he lied about the relationship.
Beck Sullivan, NPR — May 3, 2022
"Roe v. Wade is an important precedent of the Supreme Court. It was decided in 1973, so it has been on the books for a long time," [Samuel Alito] said. "It is a precedent that has now been on the books for several decades. It has been challenged. It has been reaffirmed.
[Neil] Gorsuch took the uncontroversial line that Roe is a precedent. Precedent is the "anchor of law," he said [during his confirmation hearing]. "It is the starting place for a judge."
"I would tell you that Roe v. Wade, decided in 1973, is a precedent of the United States Supreme Court. It has been reaffirmed," he said. "A good judge will consider it as precedent of the U.S. Supreme Court worthy as treatment of precedent like any other."
"It is settled as a precedent of the Supreme Court, entitled the respect under principles of stare decisis," [Brett Kavanaugh] said [during his confirmation hearing]. "The Supreme Court has recognized the right to abortion since the 1973 Roe v. Wade case. It has reaffirmed it many times."
Like the justices before her, [Amy Coney] Barrett declined to say outright whether she believed Roe had been correctly decided. "I can't pre-commit or say, 'Yes, I'm going in with some agenda,' because I'm not," she said [during her confirmation hearing].
"Judges can't just wake up one day and say I have an agenda — I like guns, I hate guns, I like abortion, I hate abortion — and walk in like a royal queen and impose their will on the world," Barrett said in response to a question about District of Columbia v. Heller, a landmark Second Amendment ruling.
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Justice Alito should now be the subject of both a perjury investigation AND an impeachment inquiry
Glenn Kirschner, May 8, 2022
Alito addressed the point in his draft.
"Stare Decisis," he said, does not "compel unending adherence to Roe's abuse of judicial authority"
www.cnn.com
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Glenn Kirschner, May 7, 2022
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If elections have consequences, so too should lying in your Confirmation Hearings to get the job:
Precedent is the "anchor of law” …
"It is settled as a precedent of the Supreme Court, entitled the respect under principles of stare decisis,"
"Judges can't just wake up one day and say I have an agenda” …
"Roe v. Wade is an important precedent of the Supreme Court. … It has been challenged. It has been reaffirmed.”
Unlike America’s confidence in the impartiality of the double-talking liars on the Highest Court of the Land — courtesy of the Federalist Society litmus tests.
Confidence shattered, is more like it.
As Kirschner argues, if we don’t stand up for the Law and the Constitution, when they bend and break it, they will simply continue the abuse. McConnell should have been directly challenged when he nixed the Merrick Garland nomination. But no, we let it slide — and look where that got us:
A right-wing activist court, who have no qualms around lying to Congress, if it gives them a chance to redefine American rights in their own ideological image — to assert their own new precedents by overruling “those settled precedents” that they gleefully shined on in their own confirmations.
Without so much as the courtesy of a wink and a nod.
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