It seems like a good time to make some distinctions between types of untruths — the garden variety and the really serious — which are often lumped together under the catch-all term “lies.” In these divisive times, the verb “to lie” has become so over-used as to almost lose its meaning. See for example Al Franken’s humorous but substantive book Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them.
So maybe I can add some input: not all untruths are created equal.
Some general principles can help us distinguish which untruths really matter. Some are just mistakes. Some are exaggerations or reflections of wishful thinking. Some are intended to deceive for a particular purpose. It’s this last group that deserves the label “lie.”
Attorney General Sessions finds himself in hot water in his very first few weeks on the job. How do we assess his denials to Congress, under oath, that he had not met with representatives of the Russian government during the presidential campaign when in fact he had two meetings, even with staff present?
How, for that matter, do we sort out the dozens of false statements the President makes every month, including this morning’s bizarre accusation that President Obama ordered his Trump Tower phones tapped? (Even in the unlikely event this claim is true, it could have only have happened through law enforcement and a court order, not via the White House, a detail lost on its current occupant.) With so many untruths abounding, how do we assess them, without becoming anesthetized by the sheer volume? How do we make sense of this new world in which lack of accuracy, whether intended or not, seems everywhere? A world in which false accusations go viral instantly?
Most of us were taught as kids “you should never lie,” and that lying to other people is per se wrong. George Washington couldn’t bring himself to lie, so the legend goes, and so confessed to cutting down the cherry tree, etc.
Life in the real world is more complicated. We now know from excellent studies on the topic that in varying degrees, people “lie” all the time, that is, they are less than truthful. (For an excellent discussion of this phenomenon, listen to the TED talks given by Jeff Hancock, Pamela Meyer, and Dan Ariely.) (http://bit.ly/2mpJpJ3) See also Why We Believe Obvious Untruths, by Philip Fernbach and Steven Sloman, http://nyti.ms/2mP26DE.
Many of these untruths are small and insignificant, and sometimes they are even socially appropriate (“you look great”) or even principled (“no I am not hiding Jews in my attic”). An article that long ago opened my eyes to these kinds of nuances was “The Insufficiency of Honesty” by Stephen Carter, which appeared in The Atlantic Monthly in February 1996 . Honesty without integrity is not enough. There are times when being truthful can be hurtful, put people at risk, and be totally lacking in integrity (telling your wife on her deathbed that you’ve never loved her and have been having an affair for the last decade). Similarly, acting with integrity can sometimes call upon people to shade the truth (as in the Jews in the attic example).
The point is we have to examine why people are being less than truthful. Context matters, it turns out; it matters a lot.
For the most part, people have good B.S. detectors. So much of communication is non-verbal, and we often know at a sub-conscious level when we’re being snowed or lied to. Many voters who supported Trump are not bothered by his untruths because they are not taking him literally. They understand his language to be that of a salesman, and they follow the emotion and general direction of what he is saying, more than the actual words. But this is tricky ground. In reassuring oneself that the President’s propensity to speak falsely is mostly harmless, we risk missing the serious times when he may be intending to deceive.
In everyday life, people exaggerate and embellish all the time, and they do so for many, often benign, reasons. We recognize, however, when an untruth is told with a specific intent to deceive someone, that untruth should rightly be called a lie. We feel rightly betrayed when someone sells us something and falsely represents the item’s quality or status. It’s the intent behind the statement that makes all the difference, and the context.
Problems arise with our tendency towards linguistic laziness. By labeling all untruths “lies,” we elevate some unimportant stuff to a level of gravity it doesn’t deserve, and we lessen the impact of the word for situations where an untruth is really serious.
In the law, these same distinctions exist. There are many laws which prohibit making false statements in specified circumstances like sworn testimony or in an interview with a law enforcement agent.
For a false statement to be actionable under the law, however, the statement must be “material” to something important. Lying to an FBI agent about your birth date may or may not be material, depending on the nature of the matter being investigated. Lying about whether you met with the Russian ambassador may or may not be material, depending on how important the question is in the current context.
When Bill Clinton wagged his finger at the camera and told the American public “I did not have sexual relations with that woman,” he was clearly lying in the normal sense of the word — he was intending to deceive the American public about what had happened.
The investigators and prosecutors who were seeking Clinton’s scalp could not use that statement in court, however, because it was not under oath and not a crime. It was as un-actionable as 45’s denials of mischief in a Moscow hotel room. So they set up a bizarre perjury trap to get him to make the denial under oath. Clinton, with his lawyers apparently sleeping on the job, fell for the bait and lied under oath. You know the rest of the story.
Predictably, the impeachment mania failed quickly. Why? Because not all lies are as “material” enough to warrant impeachment. Censure was surely appropriate, but impeachment was a waste of time because there was never going to be a super-majority of Senators voting for the proposition that lying about one’s sex life, even under oath, is a threat to the Republic. (No doubt many of the Senators voting were quietly thankful they had never been required to answer similar questions under oath.) This was simply not at the level, not even close, to Andrew Johnson’s refusal to execute Congress’ post-war laws or Richard Nixon’s provable crimes that directly impacted the functioning of government.
By elevating a stupid lie to an impeachable offense, Congress cheapened the standard and helped fuel the linguistic laziness that permeates our social media culture. Many Presidents have stretched the truth beyond normal limits, but we understand that not all such statements warrant removal from office.
To those who think the Clinton acquittal was the wrong result, our hypocrisy meters are ready for you, now that folks from the other party are being caught with their figurative pants down.
Which brings us to Sessions and 45. The President has achieved a level of mendacity and/or untruthiness (to borrow the Stephen Colbert phrase) that is unprecedented in the history of the country. We simply have never had a chief executive who so regularly abuses the truth. Many of his statements are in the B.S./puffery category, but many are more serious, like when he calls real news fake, and puts out “alternative facts” as reality.
Unfortunately, our task going forward will be not merely to point out when he speaks untruths, but to examine why he might be deceiving the public. Is it to distract us from other bad news? Is it to intimidate the press into not looking into matters? Is it to pressure Congress to not conduct investigations? This is the hard work to which he has put us. We fail at this task at our peril.
Attorney General Sessions should expect a bumpy ride. We know already he was “factually inaccurate” when he testified under oath he had not met with anyone from the Russian government. Could he have been mistaken and forgot? No. Surely he knew this question was coming, given the steady stream of headlines questions from Senators to all Cabinet nominees.
Was it material? You bet. The Russian government attacked our country by deliberately de-stabilizing our national election, attempting to tip the scales against the candidate it disfavored and undermine public confidence in U.S. elections generally. During that same time, many Trump campaign officials and other Trump supporters were in active conversations with the Russian government and its operatives. It is a matter of grave national interest to know what, if anything, was going on between these two entities. Are we to believe that these two fact patterns are unrelated? We cannot leave these questions unanswered — PERIOD.
In this context, lying about contacts with the Russian government, under oath, when you know the matter is of serious national security interest is not only serious; it is an indictable offense. See, e.g., the case of Richard Kleindeinst, who was removed as Attorney General and later pled guilty to a criminal offense for similar false statements during his confirmation hearing in 1972. George W. Bush’ chief ethics lawyer cites this example in his persuasive article on why Sessions must resign. http://nyti.ms/2mjqD6p
If you thought Clinton should have been convicted of impeachment counts for having lied under oath about his sex life, you cannot in good faith advocate for Jeffrey Sessions remaining in the highest law enforcement post in the country. He lied, intentionally, about the most important national security issue facing the United States at the present time.
Some untruths matter more than others. Some are just plain lies.
(The author was an Assistant United States Attorney from 1989 to 1997.)
Even We Here 
Robust argument packaged in silky language. I´d like a similar treatise on non-apology apologies (“I apologize to anyone who may feel offend.”) This drives me crazy; even The Times seems to accept such an apology as genuine.
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Yes indeed. Like unspecific praise “good job”.
“Sorry” without acknowledging the impact is empty.
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