Political Quotes

“You know, I can give you a perspective on that. I won't take too long to do that. My experience, and I had many years as a prosecutor and also many years as an attorney in court, is that the oath that you take to tell the truth is a powerful thing. It is a meaningful thing, and it is an important thing, because when a person swears to tell the truth, it has the effect of opening one's eyes to the importance and the majesty of the process that is involved in coming before a body, whatever body that is, and holding up your right hand and swearing to tell the truth. What happens then is, frankly, the person who is going to tell the truth and swears to tell the truth is subjected to a host of requirements and possible penalties if they don't tell the truth. That also turns out to be a powerful motivator. In this country we have trial by jury where witnesses come to tell the truth. We have investigations by Congress where witnesses come to tell the truth. And that really has proven to be the best, clearest, most open way in an open, transparent democratic government, like the one that we want to have and want to preserve, to get to the truth. That is all we are asking. We are not intending to ask folks to say or do anything they didn't do or to tell us something that isn't so. We just want to get to the truth.”