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Comment by ynniv | Hacker News Reader

He's not under oath, so the consequences of lying are limited.

Lying to congress is a felony, whether you're under oath or not. It's the same statute that people plead guilty to for lying to the FBI, 18 USC 1001 [1]

[1] https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1001

That’s not the same as perjury, and relatively few people have been convicted of this. If it were “illegal either way”, then there would be no point to swearing people in. A decision was made to not swear him in, and he knows this.

> relatively few people have been convicted of this

I take it you don’t keep up with current events much. There have been a number of high profile convictions under 18 USC 1001 this past year.

Adding: the penalties for false statements and perjury are roughly the same, although false statements can also carry a heavier sentence in some cases. There are defenses against perjury that are not available under the false statements law. All in all, they are very similar.

You may find the Congressional research Service’s summary of these [1] to be helpful.

[1] https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/98-808.pdf

According to your summary document, 1001 has a number of requirements and limitations. It would not surprise me if those were meaningful. You are arguing that there is no additional benefit to being sworn in before Congress, but it is not treated as such when Senators demand that certain testimony be given under oath.

I’d be willing to bet that the donations to >80% of the panel interviewing him purchased the privilege to not having to ‘swear in’

While it's unlikely you'll ever face a problem like this, do know that lying is a punishable offence, which your comment incorrectly demonstrates. You need to take a moment and review "18 U.S. Code § 1001 - Statements or entries generally" [1] sooner than later.

[1] https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1001

Why wouldn’t they put him under oath? That just seems weird: the cost of doing it is zero.

Possible that if they did every single answer would be "I don't know the exact details, my team will get back to you"

He came without being subpoenaed, so not putting him under oath may have been a courtesy. Many of the congressmen thanked him for coming on his own accord.

Yeah. I'd even go further and say that if you are giving testimony in Congress and answering questions, then you should automatically be under oath unless Congress explicitly waives that requirement before the session.

Perhaps this is more of a show than the real thing

The cost for them is 0, the cost for MZ is incredibly high. I don't think he would have agreed if he was under oath.

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