30 May 2012
No Penalties for False Testimony to Congress? Corruption in America
In my lifetime, the House Un-American Activities Committee and the House and Senate committees investigating Watergate held the first hearings requiring those individuals giving testimony to take a pledge of truth-telling, just as is common in judicial proceedings. Today it is unusual not to swear in everyone giving testimony.
Indeed, perjury, the giving of false or intentionally deceitful testimony to Congress has been defined as a criminal offense.
9. . . .It is proper, however, here to transcribe a part of the 13th section of the act of congress of March 3, 1825, . . .
A more contemporary law dictionary states:[Internet: http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/False+testimony. John Bouvier, A Law Dictionary, Adapted to the Constitution and Laws of the United States. 1856]
perjury n. the crime of intentionally lying after being duly sworn (to tell the truth) by a notary public, court clerk or other official. This false statement may be made in testimony in court, administrative hearings, depositions, answers to interrogatories, as well as by signing or acknowledging a written legal document (such as affidavit, declaration under penalty of perjury, deed, license application, tax return) known to contain false information. Although a crime, prosecutions for perjury are rare, because a defendant will argue he/she merely made a mistake or misunderstood.
[Internet: http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/False+testimony. Gerald N. Hill and Kathleen T. Hill. Copyright © 1981-2005 All Right reserved.
Why is it, then, that none of the board chairmen or CEOs of U. S. petroleum corporations, the tobacco manufacturers or the largest banks and financial services corporations-all of whom have given false sworn testimony to Congressional committees-have been charged with perjury and adjudicated? Criminal and civil legal proceedings against particular individuals. i.e., Bernard Madoff, Enron financial executives, Charles Ponzi, Amaranth, Bernard Ebbers of WorldCom, involved securities and accounting fraud, but none of the banking leaders, the tobacco leaders or the petroleum industry leaders have been prosecuted for giving false testimony to Congress.
Every time one of these industry leaders groups testifies, we see a photo of them all pledging to tell the truth, yet their testimonies have been proved to be false. No one goes on trial; governing boards continue to compensate executive management at obscenely high levels.
We in the US read about the high degree of corruption within various foreign governments, where bribes gain favorable treatment by bureaucracies or enable access to key government officials. The US passed the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act in 1975 to prevent US corporations from participating in such distasteful practices overseas. Before we attempt to judge other countries for failing to end corrupt business practices or for voting fraud, I suggest we begin at home.
In my opinion, the U.S. economy is very corrupt in the financial system that underlays it. Wall Street and major, industrial lobbyists and higher education, health care and other non-profit lobbies operate to influence the federal and state governments, actually drafting legislation, funding election campaigns and helping to draft regulations or to gut them. Every issue has its special interest groups trying to influence or control our government.
Our Congressional representatives and senators depend on receiving campaign funding from special interest groups because of the high cost of campaigning for re-election or to unseat an incumbent. Influence peddling-how can this not be perceived as corruption? Super-PACs for framing the issues they want for the candidates for office to adopt in their campaign rhetoric and during their terms in office.
Thus, when I see the leadership of the largest corporations assuring Congress that business issues or financial crises are not wide-spread or that only a few "bad apples" caused the problems, I see just how corrupt our representative democracy, our republican form of government, is. Neither political party seems likely to do anything to disrupt such corruption.
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