It doesn’t have to be proven that the lie actually DID influence anybody. It only has to be proven that the subject matter was within the jurisdiction of the federal government and that the person deliberately chose to lie.
There are all kinds of excuses that the media can use to say that they are never responsible for deliberate lies. But I don’t see where this law allows those loopholes. It is true that nobody seems to be prosecuting these things, but I don’t see anything in the law itself that should allow the media to think that just because they have a press pass they are immune to prosecution under this law.
And that’s exactly what we need. We need the media to know that we DO have a way to hold them legally responsible for deliberate lies that impact federal issues.
As long as we’ve got judges saying that Twitter decides legal cases, there is no way to claim that deliberately false media statements are harmless because they’re not under oath.
Who's going to prosecute such a case and what would be the point??