This statute generally prohibits lying to or concealing information from a federal official. The purpose of 18 U.S.C. § 1001 is to "punish those who render positive false statements designed to pervert or undermine functions of governmental departments and agencies." United States v. Harrison (1985).

The statute spells out this purpose in subsection (a), which states:

Title 18 U.S.C. § 1001. Statements or entries generally
(a) Except as otherwise provided in this section, whoever, in any matter within the jurisdiction of the executive, legislative, or judicial branch of the Government of the United States, knowingly and willfully--
(1) Falsifies, conceals, or covers up by any trick, scheme, or device a material fact;
(2) Makes any materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent statement or representation; or
(3) Makes or uses any false writing or document knowing the same to contain any materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent statement or entry...

Even constitutionally explicit Fifth Amendment privileges do not exonerate affirmative false statements. United States v. Wong, 431 U.S.C. 174, 178, 52 L. Ed. 2d 231, 97 S. Ct. 1823 (1977). As the Court in Wong said, "Our legal system provides methods for challenging the Government's right to ask questions--lying is not one of them.

President Bush and his top administration officials in the White House Iraq group known as WHIG knowingly, willingly, and with criminal intent changed and manipulated CIA documents that specifically stated that Iraq was not an imminent threat to the United States of America. They deleted entire paragraphs, changed entire phrases such as "We judge that" to "Iraq has" etc. to falsify information and make a false case for war in Iraq through blatant lies, misinformation and purposeful anipulation. That is a federal felony under the Title 18 Law I have just documented. This has been documented by the Freedom of Information Act, countless books, videos and articles.

In the part of the FBI website dealing with fraud, the question"Why is it so important?" is answered: because of the honor and principles that supposedly makes this great country so just. So why are criminals being allowed to run this great nation and put our troops needlessly in the line of fire?

Please do something about this outrage!

George Mason, the father of the Bill of Rights (1791-2002), argued at the Constitutional Convention that the President might use his pardoning power to "pardon crimes which were advised by himself" or, before indictment or conviction, "to stop inquiry and prevent detection." James Madison, the father of the US Constitution (1788-2007), added that "if the President be connected, in any suspicious manner, with any person, and there be grounds to believe he will shelter [pardon] him, the House of Representatives can impeach him; they can remove him if found guilty."

Thomas Norton

Moraga, CA

There is a lot this administration had done that warrants investigation, but we must concentrate on the atrocity of the war in Iraq. The number of US soldiers and Iraqi civilians killed was totally unnecessary. What have we accomplished by spending billions in borrowed money? If there is a way to hold the president accountable for this mess, let's do it. I would gladly support any effort to that effect.

Mike D. Cruz

Ocala, FL

I agree with Mr. Weber below--this case is simply an academic argument, almost pure fantasy. Mr. Bugliosi has not practiced law in over thirty years. His continuous ranting during the O.J. trial brought snickers from most legal experts.

Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld et al. will go on to make millions of dollars more in speeches to right-wing think tanks, corporate boardrooms, and from their own investments and board chair positions with said corporations. Should anyone be surprised? No.

Instead of backing a half-baked Jim Garrison-type stunt that is bound to fail, progressives/liberals should make sure Obama is elected, and then hold his goddamn ass to the fire to make sure he doesn't sell us out. I'm not completely hopeful in this regard, but at least there is momentum, hope and a lot of youthful energy here to be tapped. If Obama would only realize who built his campaign, who sustains it and who ultimately, should he decide to sell out, will not go to the polls, ensuring a McCain win.

David Elliott

Dallas, TX

Where is the website gathering contributions to fund this effort?

Thomas Canfield

East Amwell, NJ

Mr. Bugliosi's thoroughly documented book presents an outline of a shockingly plausible criminal case for murder against Bush--which is, by Bugliosi's own admission, a highly doubtful proposition. The startling and troubling message of the book, to me, is that our elected political leaders can commit crimes in plain sight and get away with them.

The Bush presidency in many ways has been a case study in how the safeguards of our consitutional system can be be evaded and nullified. Perhaps Bugliosi's book is a first step in rehabilitating that system.

Robert C. Carmody

Manhasset, NY

As the United States signed the Geneva Convention and put in place federal laws to implement it, there is no doubt that many members of this Administration can be prosecuted in the United states. Further, they can be prosecuted in any country that has signed the Geneva Convention. The only safe place they can travel is Israel, if they don't destroy it through their stupidity.

Pervis J. Casey

Riverside, CA

It is incomprehensible to me that nothing has been done about the blatant misleading of America by Bush, Cheney and Rumsfield. Our country is broken. They are not being held responsible for the misuse of America's people and the funds that we very much need for people here--funds that were produced by the same people in need (50 million disenfranchised from medical just for starters). No one can question that America is no longer a democracy. The people are no longer choosing their leaders, and the leaders that are placed by Corporate America serve Corporate America at the great expense of the people, are not subject to any laws and even mislead the whole country. America as we knew it is gone and people are just too hypnotized by the boob tube to even see that laws and morality don't apply to the ruling 1 percent.

This war is for the benefit of the oil industry. Let them pay for it. They certainly have enough money to hire Blackwater themselves. How long before they do just that and point their guns at US citizens? Sound crazy? Our leaders dont care about us, that's obvious. They let our soldiers die and live in "disability poverty" without a minutes concern.

Just because Nancy Palousy has had a lobotomy and refuses to do anything but show up with a hairdo doesn't mean we have to put up with it. Wake up, America. Having this Administration is like having parents that are crackheads. It's all about them, and you are just a nuisance.

Leslie Nova

Spokane, WA

On September 13-14, 2008, Lawrence Velvel, the dean of the Massachusetts School of Law at Andover, plans a convention at the school's facilities, the attendees of which will plan strategies to prosecute members of the Bush Administration for war crimes.

Mr Bugliosi, please take note.

Stanley Hersh

New York, NY

A nice prospect, and one every progressive should relish-- especially since it could provide some legal basis for constraining the emerging Imperial Presidency when the Congresscritters (thanks, Jim Hightower, for the term) don't have the political will or guts to impeach.

On the issue of what W. believed after reading the National Intelligence Estimate (which I suspect was beyond his Personal Intelligence Capacity), this is irrelevant. Son of Sam was convicted, and so was Charles Manson, and many others, on the basis of their actions, and their personal delusions did not shield them from prosecution. The same applies here.

(In fact, it could be argued, that there are some discernible motivations--political and personal, the latter including financial--that could be ascribed to the actions of an Administration that at one point contained not a single person at the cabinet level without a financial tie to the oil industry.)

Peter B. Meyer

Taylor Mill, KY

This story restores my faith in this country and its Constitution. And in the nick of time, because I've been dreading reading the particulars of Sen. Obama's compromise with evil in regard to FIISSSaaa--the sound of air leaking out of his campaign tires.

Vincent Bugliosi is attempting to do what John Conyers ought to have done but didn't. Make the indictment, spell it out, declare a finding of facts to be further tested in our legal system.

Thank you, Vincent Bugliosi.

I especially appreciated the comparison between Manson and Bush.

Charlie Keil

Lakeville, CT

I commend Bugliosi. His argument is that the Manning memo is damning enough to convince a jury that war was not imminent because it was not plausible for Bush to provoke Saddam into killing him with a false UN flag if Bush knew (and he claimed exactly that) that Saddam was determined to kill him with WMD. Bugliosi's only loophole is that time is not on his side. If McCain becomes President, he will certainly pardon the mass murderer, as Ford did Nixon.Over one million people have been murdered by Bush.

And McCain will probably win, because of the fear engendered in the elections by a Mossad-led false (Iranian) flag, giving the green light for Israel and the US to bomb the hell out of Iran. The Mossad has helped the US before (we all know when), and would not hesitate to do it again.

Stanley Hersh

New York, NY

If only Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld et al. could be tried not only for murder but also for treason! They have not only killed 4,000 American soldiers and maimed many, many more but, in spending money on a war rather than on domestic needs, they have behaved with "depraved indifference" toward (to name a few) the city of New Orleans, commuters in Minneapolis and inhabitants of many towns along the the Mississippi whose levees have just collapsed.

Furthermore, since the price of oil has risen dramatically during their reign, Cheney & Bush may well have profited from their policies. The New York Times recently editorialized against further scheming by Cheney and his cronies to maximize their profits and longterm gains by drilling offshore and in Alaska.

If treason were defined as "acting for personal gain, and/or with depraved indifference, against the national interest," this Administration could be held accountable in the most appropriate way for all its misdeeds.

But the Constitution defines "treason" very narrowly as "making war" against the government—-not subverting it with lies and illegal practices. James Madison defended and explained that narrow definition in The Federalist #43, writing: "As treason may be committed against the United States, the authority of the United States ought to be enabled to punish it. But as new-fangled and artificial treasons have been the great engines by which violent factions, the natural offspring of free government, have usually wreaked their alternate malignity on each other, the convention have, with great judgment, opposed a barrier to this peculiar danger, by inserting a constitutional definition of the crime, fixing the proof necessary for conviction of it, and restraining the Congress, even in punishing it, from extending the consequences of guilt beyond the person of its author."

Unfortunately, Madison did not foresee the "newfangled and artificial treasons" that this Administration would perpetrate.

Carol V. Hamilton

Pittsburgh, PA

It seems so many years ago that I and thousands others marched in the streets protesting what we all knew: that there were no WMDs in Iraq. The Nation knew it too. We were unified. We simply could not understand how our fellow Americans could believe Bush. But they did, and I dropped out of society. I could no longer tolerate his lies and the people who believed them. I write from my mountain cabin. (Thank goodness for WiFi!)

I am proud that Bugliosi is taking the bull by the horns. I admire his tenacity. My greatest hope is that other courageous attorneys take him up on his offer. Bush, Cheney and all of their cronies need to go to prison for their crimes of not only the murders of our American soldiers but also the murders of the tens of thousands Iraqi citizens and the illegal imprisonment of thousands of international citizens with no hope of a trial.

Vincent Bugliosi, you are my hero.

Sally Jo Davis

Timberlake, NM

This an interesting, but strictly academic discussion.

Bush's defense is that while he may have indeed read the sixteen agencies' conclusion that Iraq was not an imminent threat to the US, he believed otherwise. Therefore, it was incumbent upon him, as President, to defend the US by going to war.

The crime of pre-emptive war is not being charged here, and would almost certainly never be a charge in a US courtroom, certainly not against a (former) US President.

So, interesting thoughts by Bugliosi, but nothing more than that.

No case, just talk.

R.H. Weber

Geneva, Switzerland