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Perjury and False Declarations Part I

Learn about the two most common federal statutes used to prosecute lying – the general perjury statute and the false-declarations statute.

Transcript

The government most frequently relies on the general-perjury statute and the false-declarations statute to prosecute lying. These statutes overlap significantly but also have a few critical differences.

Suppose a witness deliberately testified falsely before a grand jury investigating a Medicare fraud scheme. Under which statute could the government prosecute the witness? The government could use either the general-perjury statute or the false-declarations statute.

Now suppose the witness...