Don't Tell FBI Agents Anything About Anything

From Sea to Shining Sea ^ | 1107/05 | Purple Mountains

[PurpleMountains]

One thing has become crystal clear from the Martha Stewart and the Lewis Libby cases: even if you are not guilty of any crime and even if no crime was committed by anyone, do not answer any questions put to you by a government agent about anything. If you remember events differently from the way other people remember those events, you can be prosecuted for obstruction of justice. I am reasonably intelligent and have a good memory, but sometimes I can’t remember what I had for lunch yesterday. My mind tries to remember important things and to forget trivia. I imagine that busy people like Stewart and Libby have scores of phone calls and conversations with people every day. It is ludicrous to criminalize misperceptions and forgotten sequences of events, if you are not guilty of an underlying crime, unless it can be proven that you are deliberately trying to help a guilty person escape punishment for that crime, or that you are wantonly trying to impede investigators for devious reasons of your own. It is especially ludicrous if there is no crime involved, and months or years have gone by since the conversations took place.

[theDentist]

By refusing to cooperate, can't that leave someone open to an "obstruction of justice" charge? Any lawyers out there who can explain the legal responsibilities and ramifications to us?

[linkinpunk]

I think Martha Stewart's problem was that she went in, AFTER the investigation started, and changed/deleted emails.

That is a little different than someone having a faulty memory.

[cynicom]

FBI is manned with self serving people that KNOW they are above the law.

While working for another Federal agency, years ago, cooperation with them became insufferable. It became undeniable that they were as a unit, users.

As individuals we ceased any help at all.

[satchmodog9]

Just simply answer with "I don't recall". Worked for many politicians on both sides of the aisle.

[wolfcreek]

Depends on what your definition of "is" is!

[johnny7]

Or... “ ...my brain's in a blender.”

[coloradan]

I don't recall.
I have no specific recollection of that conversation.
I don't know.
I can't remember.
That might have happened, but I have no memory of it.


(These are quotes of the world's smartest woman, answering questions about, for example, how the Rose law firm billing records appeared in the White House after the statute of limitations expired.)