How big a deal must something you did/said be for you to lie about it?

[Xelor]

Have any of you noticed that over and over again, the people whom Mueller has convicted/indicted have been charged with lying?

I have, and frankly, I don't get why they lied. I don't because the stuff we so far know they lied about wasn't, on the face of things, illegal behavior; thus had they simply not lied (save Manafort who laundered money, which is illegal behavior in its own right), they wouldn't have been indicted, wouldn't now be felons, wouldn't have to do time in jail.

But tell the truth isn't what they did; they lied. To a man they lied about stuff that is seemingly lawful -- in some instances, shady maybe, but lawful nonetheless.

• Stone: (See page 18 of his indictment document)
  • 5 counts of lying
  • 1 count of obstruction (he's charged with trying to interdict the discovery of the truth)
  • 1 count of witness tampering (basically he's charged with asking someone else to lie)
• Flynn:
  • Lied to the FBI about having conversations with Russian gov't "big wigs" re: sanctions.
    • As the incoming Nat'l Security Director, Flynn easily could have said "Yes, I spoke with Russian gov't officials about sanctions. The Trump campaign is of a different mind than is the Obama Admin. about extant sanctions on Russia." But instead he lied about it.
    • What about the conversations was worth lying about and risking ruining an otherwise decent enough career, losing a good job, jail time and a felony record?
• KT McFarland: She was the incoming deputy national security advisor
  • Lied to the FBI about the essentially same thing Flynn did.
• People who knew about Flynn's having discussed sanctions with the Russian ambassador, and who also lied about such happening and about knowing it happened:
  • Reince Priebus
  • Stephen K. Bannon
  • Sean Spicer -- legion are his public denials of all sorts of eam Trump contact with Russians
  • Kellyanne Conway
• George Papadopoulos -- Lied to the FBI about the nature and timing of his conversations with someone claiming to be connected to the Russian gov't.
  • George was a foreign policy advisor on the campaign. It wouldn't have been out of line for him to see discourse with a representative of a foreign country.
• Donald Trump -- We now know that throughout the campaign, he was pursuing a business venture in Russia. On the face of it, that's not illegal, so why lie about it? The story he's telling us now about his Trump Tower Moscow deal is neither more nor less legit -- no matter how legit one thinks it is -- in 2016 and 2017 than it is now. So why then lie about having involvement with Russians as a matter of his pursuing a project that is concomitant with what he does for a living?
• Michael Cohen -- Cohen lied to Congress about the duration of the Trump Tower Moscow pursuit. Why? A building project isn't illegal.
• Jared Kushner -- The man failed to note, despite express instructions to the contrary, in his SF-86 form that he'd:
  • met with the Kremlin appointed head of a Russian bank;
  • met multiple times with the Russian Ambassador; and
  • participated in the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting with several Russians.

The common link between these people is that each of them lied about something, on the face of the acts/endeavors themselves, aren't illegal and thus aren't worth lying about. Yet in several of their cases, they opted to commit a felony instead of tell the truth.

I wouldn't lie about having done something that's legal to do. I damn sure wouldn't go to jail rather than tell the truth about my lawful behavior. Would you? I think most folks wouldn't.

I think many people would, however, lie about their lawful activities if "behind" those activities is an unlawful act or motive that would convert otherwise lawful behavior into criminal behavior. Now I wouldn't lie about that either because if I got caught doing something illegal, I'd sooner pay the piper for what I've done already than pay the piper for that and for lying....Unless I was reasonably sure that I could "win" at the prisoner's dilemma and the penalty for lying is less than the penalty for whatever be the unlawful act I might lie about. (Fortunately, I'm lawful, so that just isn't a scenario over which I need to fret.)

​

What I think we're seeing with Trump and his cohorts is a huge prisoner's dilemma gambit in play, and I think so because nothing else explains why they're so many folks lying about ostensibly lawful behavior. So what is it whereby jail time and a record as a felon is better than the penalty for the real crime being hidden?

 

[trouble13]

If they are essentially white lies, why charge them? How big of a lie do they need to be to justify pressing charges and wasting resources on prosecuting and jailing them to be worthwhile?

I'm not typically a person yo answer a question either a question but it seems appropriate here

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[Maccabee]

If it deals with national security or mine or a loved one's personal safety, I'll lie like a rug all day long.

 

[independentusa]

If they are essentially white lies, why charge them? How big of a lie do they need to be to justify pressing charges and wasting resources on prosecuting and jailing them to be worthwhile?

I'm not typically a person yo answer a question either a question but it seems appropriate here

Sent from my SM-G965U using Tapatalk

Actually the law says the lie has to be substantive. My question is why lie about what they have been lying about. None of it reaches to a violation of the law. They all must be lying to hide something important or they would not all be lying when they know they can be prosecuted for doing so.

 

[Xelor]

....My question is why lie about what they have been lying about. None of it reaches to a violation of the law. They all must be lying to hide something important or they would not all be lying when they know they can be prosecuted for doing so.

That^^^

These people have gone to great lengths and at great personal cost and harm to themselves to lie about what appears on the surface to be utter BS. Who lies about things like that? Nobody I've ever met.

And here's the thing. When the FBI question people, they ask one a question, and when one's answer doesn't jibe with the information the FBI already has, the inquisitors go through a litany of "are you sure about that" and other prompts to jog/refresh one's memory and give one clues that what one has said doesn't comport with evidence the FBI already has. If after all that prodding, for lack of a better term, one stands on the lie, well, there's not much for the FBI to do other than charge one with one or more perjury and/or Section 1001 offenses. It's not as though they're going to put one on the rack and torture the truth out of someone.


The other thing is that to the extent various individuals opt to lie and suffer the consequences of having done, there's bound to be some measure truth of what has transpired that the people simply won't discover. That there are people, lying witnesses and defendants, who think it more important to obscure some element of the truth from the 350M people of the US is particularly disconcerting, especially seeing as these people are (1) US citizens and (2) in some instances, public servants.