Shouldn't it be a criminal offense to lie to the American people?

[Capperdan]

Lying under oath is. Presidents swear to uphold the truth when they accept the office. Fact checkers get small headlines when they expose lies. It's time our elected leaders face real consequences for deceiving the public.

[FBaggins]

1. Of course not

No... they don’t swear to uphold the truth (you’ve confused the president with Superman). We’ve never had a president who never lied (including cherry-tree-chopper Washington)

[Mountain Mule]

2. Hah!

Our already huge prison population would quadruple. Although, the thought of Moscow Mitch and his gang of repug traitors in the Senate peering out from behind iron bars does make me smile.

[Nictuku]

3. Every elected person should be under oath when speaking to the public representing their office

In my humble opinion.

[Capperdan]

4. Thank . You

Agree

[unblock]

5. it's not that they shouldn't lie, it's that the media should cover it better

al gore got torn to shreds for supposedly lying about "inventing" the internet (when in fact, he deserved much credit for getting early funding and for pushing government agencies to put massive amounts of useful data on the web, which made it vastly more useful than it had been; moreover, he never used the word "invented" and no one could seriously think he was claiming credit for being an engineer).

al gore previously had a reputation for being honest to a fault, which is exactly why republicans pushed tried to hammer him over the supposed lie. as usual, the media followed the republican script and relentlessly attacked gore over this one "lie". the real story was that republicans searched high and low and couldn't find a compelling lie, so they had to, well, invent one and pin it on gore.

but the media went with it and he was hounded throughout the campaign over this one completely and utterly trivial statement.


contrast this with how the media covers donnie's lies. mostly, the media just repeats them. sometimes they roll their eyes and lower their jaw. but they've only recently, after 10,000+ lies, even acknowledged that he's a liar and somethings he says just aren't true.


the right-wing bias is astounding.


but that's the problem. it's all in the media coverage. the media could shut down donnie's lying in the heartbeat if they just gave him a fraction of the treatment they gave al gore.

[onenote]

6. No.

I'm curious as to how you think this would work. Would it only apply to the President? What about the Vice President? What about cabinet members or other unelected officials, such as government spokespeople. What about members of Congress? Would it apply to candidates for election if they aren't already elected officials? Could someone challenging an incumbent lie without consequence, but the elected incumbent would face potential criminal liability every time they open their mouths? Do you really think it would be a good idea to let Bill Barr's Justice Department decide whether or not to launch a criminal investigation into elected officials? Every time someone accused an elected official of something and the official denied the accusation, it would set the stage for a criminal investigation.

So, no, it shouldn't. We have the First Amendment. We have the Speech and Debate clause. We don't need to re-write the Constitution.