HORIST:It is called ‘perjury trap’ for a reason

Larry Horist

8 years ago

It is called &ldquo&semi;perjury trap&rdquo&semi; for a reason&NewLine;There is a lot of media chatter about whether President Trump should agree to an interview with Special Counsel Robert Mueller and, if subpoenaed, if he should take the Fifth Amendment&period;&nbsp&semi; In the world of politics and optics &ndash&semi; and in the court-of-public-opinion &ndash&semi; refusing to testify can be very damaging, to be sure&period;&NewLine;In America, we claim that &ldquo&semi;taking the Fifth&rdquo&semi; is a basic right and should never be construed as an indication of guilt&period;&nbsp&semi; It would be almost impossible to find a good citizen who does not see exercising the Fifth Amendment right as a confirmation &ndash&semi; maybe even a proof &ndash&semi; of guilt&period;&nbsp&semi; During the campaign, Trump, himself, has brushed aside the admonition to reserve judgment in favor of the accusation of guilt when talking about members of the Clinton campaign&period;&NewLine;So, why not just talk to Mueller&period;&nbsp&semi; After all, the outcry from the mob on the left is that &ldquo&semi;if you are not guilty of anything, why not just go in and tell the truth&quest;&rdquo&semi;&nbsp&semi; Sounds reasonable on the surface&period;&nbsp&semi; The answer is what every prosecutor in the nation fully understands&period;&nbsp&semi; It is never a question of telling the truth&period;&nbsp&semi; &NewLine;Prosecutors are not interested in the truth, they are interested in indictments and convictions&period;&nbsp&semi; It is a strong motivation because they do not get ahead professionally by losing or walking away from cases&period;&nbsp&semi; Make no mistake, Mueller and his team want to prove indictable offenses even if they cannot actually indict a sitting president &&num;8212&semi; although they can after a president leaves office&period;&NewLine;The problem is that IF a determined prosecutor wants to bring an indictment, they can no matter the guilt or innocence of the target party&period;&nbsp&semi; The common phrase in the profession is that a prosecutor can &ldquo&semi;indict a hamburger&period;&rdquo&semi;&nbsp&semi; Unfortunately, it reflects the truth&period;&nbsp&semi; (For a more detailed explanation, you can check out my commentary <a href="https&colon;//punchingbagpost&period;com/horist-not-so-grand-juries/" target="&lowbar;blank">The not so grand grand jury&period;</a>&NewLine;So, what about the so-called &ldquo&semi;perjury trap&quest;&rdquo&semi;&NewLine;It is a means for a prosecutor to entrap a target into making an inadvertent &ndash&semi; repeat, inadvertent lie &ndash&semi; in order to press criminal charges&period;&nbsp&semi; While some lies may be obvious and self-serving, the prosecutors have an option of arguing that a misstatement or memory lapse is a lie&period;&nbsp&semi; In theory &ndash&semi; again, theory &ndash&semi; such erroneous statements are not to be used as evidence of a determined effort to deceive, but again it is the prosecutor who makes that call&period;&NewLine;There is simple proof that the &ldquo&semi;perjury trap&rdquo&semi; is a device to lead to an indictment rather than part of a simple inquiry&period;&nbsp&semi; It is that the prosecutor already knows the answers to virtually all the questions&period;&nbsp&semi; They are not looking for information, but to catch the target subject in an even technical lie&period;&NewLine;Now imagine that prosecutors can ask questions based on their review of virtually every personal record that exists to compile a criminal case &ndash&semi; or at least something that could be sold as a criminal case to a Grand Jury&period;&nbsp&semi; This means that they could conceivably have your bank records, tax forms, medical records, personnel records, school records, and military records&period;&nbsp&semi; They can have endless notes and depositions from friends, employers, family and other &ndash&semi; many of which you did not even know had been interviewed&period;&NewLine;An additional problem is that the prosecutors have virtually unlimited funds and personnel to search for an attempt to establish a criminal case&period;&nbsp&semi; It is an imbalance that no private citizen could possibly match&period;&nbsp&semi; We see this in the Special Counsel&rsquo&semi;s investigation of President Trump&period;&nbsp&semi; Scores of people have been hired with an unlimited budget &ndash&semi; already having spent tens of millions of dollars&period;&NewLine;It is now widely believed that the original purpose of the investigation &ndash&semi; to determine if President Trump or his campaign criminally conspired with the Russians &&num;8212&semi; what is widely mislabeled as collusion&period;&nbsp&semi; As that prospect ebbed, it was hoped by the &num;NeverTrump resistance movement that the President could be found guilty of obstructing an investigation in which there was an underlying crime&period;&nbsp&semi; &NewLine;That may not make sense to the average common-sense fair-minded American, but it is how prosecutors put meat on an empty plate&period;&nbsp&semi; It increasingly appears that the charge of Obstruction of Justice will prove to be the next dry hole&period;&nbsp&semi; That leaves only two paths for prosecutors to travel &ndash&semi; technical perjury &ndash&semi; or some totally unrelated charges based on an unrelenting pursuit&period;&nbsp&semi; It is because the investigation is no longer investigating a suspected crime, but in pursuit of one for political purposes&period;&NewLine;In many ways, the Special Counsel law, as written, is a danger to the republic&period;&nbsp&semi; U&period;S&period; district judge Amy Berman Jackson alluded to this when he told the Mueller team that they may be approaching the firewall against unfettered power &ndash&semi; that they are abusing the judicial system to bank shot an impeachment of a President&period;&NewLine;