Roland Burris says it’s not his fault that he withheld information from an Illinois House panel:
Mr. Burris said that when he testified on Jan. 8, he said he was not provided with an opportunity to fully answer the panel’s questions. When he was asked if had talked with anyone, including six friends and aides close to the governor, about the appointment, he answered: “I talked to some friends about my desire to be appointed, yes.”
Mr. Burris later mentioned Mr. Monk’s name but no one else’s.
On Sunday Mr. Burris said when he answered “yes” he meant he had spoken with most of those named. The Feb. 5 affidavit was his attempt to be thorough and transparent, he said. If Mr. Durkin had followed up during the hearing he would have offered more specifics, he said. But he did not, instead the line of questioning moved on and he followed it.
Burris’s justification does not stand up to scrutiny. Chicago Sun-Time columnist Mark Brown looks through the transcript, and finds not just that one occasion but seven in which Burris was asked clearly but evaded the question:
- Did you talk to any members of the governor’s staff or anyone closely related to the governor, including family members or any lobbyists connected with him, including, let me throw out some names — John Harris, Rob Blagojevich, Doug Scofield, Bob Greenleaf, Lon Monk, John Wyma? Did you talk to anybody . . . associated with the governor about your desire to seek the appointment prior to the governor’s arrest?
- Did you speak to anybody who was on the governor’s staff prior to the governor’s arrest or anybody, any of those individuals or anybody who is closely related to the governor?
- You said that you had visited friends perhaps in September of ’08 or July of ’08 concerning a desire to perhaps be appointed as a senator if our president-elect was elected. And could you give me the names of those friends?
- And I just was wondering who those friends were.
- Was it Lon Monk, was that the extent of it was Lon Monk?
- So you don’t recall that there was anybody else besides Lon Monk that you expressed an interest to at that point?
- Is there anybody that comes to mind in that light that you can —
Burris says that he was not given the opportunity to answer fully. That’s horseshit. Seven times he was asked, and each time he found a way to respond that withheld the extent of his contacts, or was simply unresponsive (“I can’t recall,” disputing minutia, or changing the subject).
It appears that he never explicitly denies speaking to anyone other than Monk, but he does imply it, and he deliberately evades questions that explicitly probe that very question. Not being a lawyer, I can’t say whether or not his deliberate evasion rises to the level of criminal perjury, but there’s no way to pretend he didn’t lie.
(Via Instapundit.)
UPDATE: Yes, it’s perjury, if the Chicago Sun-Times has this right:
In a sworn statement filed with the House panel Jan. 5, before he testified, Burris said he had no contact with Blagojevich’s camp about the Senate seat aside from his appointment in late December.
(Via Best of the Web.)
There’s no way he can blame the House questioners for the sworn statement he supplied before his testimony.
Internet Scofflaw 