White House: Transcripts Would Create “Perjury Trap”The White House is only willing to permit aides to be interviewed in private, with no oath and no transcript. To which Congress says, OK, except for the lack of a transcript. As Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA) argued on the Senate floor earlier this month, they need a transcript in order to hold aides to account for lying. It’s a crime to lie to investigators, but without a transcript, it becomes much more difficult to prosecute that crime.
Which, it would seem, is precisely the point. During a backgrounder with reporters today, a “senior administration official” said that the arrangement had been offered in order to “provide information, not to appear to be having testimony without having testimony.” False testimony is a crime; whereas false information is, well, lamentable. Transcripts would mean testimony and that would create “a perjury trap” — I guess in the sense that a liar might get caught.
The official continued soothingly: “misleading Congress is misleading Congress, whether it’s under oath or not. And so a transcript may be convenient, but there’s no intention to try to avoid telling the truth.”
But for some reason, Specter, Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT), and others just won’t trust in the White House’s good intentions.
