James B. Stewart, 'Tangled Webs': How American Society Is Drowning In Lies (VIDEO)

James B. Stewart made an appearance on the Today show this morning talking about the most famous cases of perjury that he's written about in his new book "Tangled Webs: How American Society Is Drowning In Lies."

What "Tangled Webs" examines is people at the pinnacle of their professions--Martha Stewart, Barry Bonds, Scooter Libby, people from Wall Street right up to the White House--"brazenly lying." They're role models, and their behavior trickles down to society. "Why do they lie," asks Stewart? "Because they think they can get away with it."

Stewart makes the case that the judicial system is breaking down when oaths mean nothing and prosecutors are examining people for their skill at lying, instead of whether or not they are lying. Stewart says Marion Jones was considered the best liar of the bunch, including Bernie Madoff, Barry Bonds and Martha Stewart.

While James Stewart says there are no statistics showing an increase of lying, he feels it's an epidemic, happening at the highest levels and that as a society we've become too tolerant of lying in our homes and in the world. When you take an oath, you must tell the truth: "Our justice system depends on it."

Watch the interview below and read an excerpt of the book here.

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Comments

[Vieux Charles]

06:33 PM on 04/26/2011

How can you write a book about 'lying' without even mentioning Bill Clinton?

[anntares]

12:09 AM on 04/26/2011

They lie "because they think they can get away with it." Wonder if we could have a law with consequences when people lie in public and there are clear facts proving it's a lie not just freedom of speech. If someone says a house that's for sale has no leaks but buyers find out they bought a house with a rotten roof, I think the lie is a crime, not just a free speech issue. Or any other way to place consequences on the many lies that are filling the airwaves in interviews and ads? I have been involved in a situation where someone lied to maintain a certain image despite knowing his false accusation would destroy a life. As a result, I've noticed the many news articles about people released from 3, 20, 25, 33 years in prison because witnesses lied, prosecutors hid exculpatory evidence, etc. We need strong consequences for lying.

[icboulder]

05:50 PM on 04/23/2011

I have read ONLY the Martha Stewart portion of Tangled Webs but I wonder why G Chu is so adamant that she is innocent? The woman is obviously guilty of lying. Martha was told by the assistant of her broker at the broker's direction that she should dump ImClone as her close friend, Waxel, who was the CEO was dumping his shares. HIs daughter also wanted to dump her shares. That is inside information and Martha is no dummy. She knew it and dumped her shares and then bragged about it to her friend on vacation in Mexico with her at the time that her broker tips her to important information. Martha lied and lied to cover up her lies. Whomever G Chu is, he is also a lier. But of course unless you read the case or Mr. Stewart's book, it will be a case of which lier is the better at weaving the tale.

[G Chu]

01:32 PM on 04/24/2011

"G Chu is so adamant that she is innocent" because she is indeed innocent and her recorded words would prove that. Only a brainwashed mind believes the "woman is obviously guilty of lying." icboulder "read ONLY the Martha Stewart portion of Tangled Web" but James Stewart did not state the TRUTH about the sale of the ImClone stock by Ms. Stewart. To my intelligent mind, James Stewart is no ominipotent god whose diatribe is gospel, and I wouldn't line his pockets with my hard-earned money to buy his book.

Belief and the truth have a distinction. Belief equates not with truth, and belief is no substitute for the truth. Belief that she "knew it and dumped her shares" does not equate with the truth about the stock sale.

[icboulder]

07:30 PM on 04/24/2011

Who are you G Chu and how do you know all of this? Are you Martha herself??? or her cheerleader??? Considering that you have not read the book and would not buy it, how do you know what it says? How can you be so familiar with all the details? I have not read any other books about Martha Stewart although I have seen her in person and met her briefly at a promotion she did years ago in Nashville, TN for the Heart of Country Antique Show.

I do not agree with your input. You obviously have a strong bias and an axe to grind: most likely you are in the employ of Martha herself. I trust a Pulitzer Prize winning author who has investigated and written about many more important people than Martha Stewart far more than someone who is trying to promote Martha Stewart. Again you refer to the Bush goons....a telltale pointer as to whom you support or whom you are. Martha Stewart sold because Waxel sold. End of story. There are phone records. End of story. She lied to cover up her knowledge. End of story. Should she have gone to jail for it. Probably not. Was she guilty. Absolutely. Read the book.

Oh and G Chu, I noticed you have posted on a few other sites reviewing the book. I checked because you seem to have a vested interest in smearing this author and promoting Martha Stewart.

[G Chu]

01:33 PM on 04/24/2011

Continued #2

Martha had NO illegal insider information; she owed the Bush goons no explanation for the sale. Her own recorded words tell the truth, and in this appalling evidenciary void, James Stewart is a lying propagandist. Certainly, "Martha is no dummy"; she made the decision only a mere two months earlier to sell ALL of her ImClone in a tender offer from Bristol-Myers based on sound investment management principles, and she did so despite ImClone's rebuff of Bristol-Myers takeover bid. There's nothing to brag about with a perjuring friend when Martha had already made the decision to divest herself of all ImClone stock. In the absence of Martha's owned recorded words, only the brainwashed mind believes she "dumped her shares" on "tips" and "lied and lied to cover up her lies." Not knowing the truth, only a liar can lie that she lied.

[G Chu]

11:16 AM on 04/22/2011

Continued #3

In an evidentiary void, Martha Stewart was framed on trumped-up charges, including the big-time bogus charge with 10 years prison and a $2 million fine that was thrown out in court as baseless. The trumped-up charges were piled on to coerce her to cop a plea; but she honorably rejected plea bargaining on bogus charges. James Stewart reveals Martha Stewart's lawyer was Lawrence Pedowitz, who wanted her to cop a plea on bogus charges arising from legal malpractice.

As a state propagandist and apologist, James Stewart is blind to the perjury that was at the core of Martha Stewart's kangaroo court trial, with perjury by the Secret Service "expert witness" and perjury by a stealth juror, who lied under oath with impunity, and held above the law with no accountability by a prosecution-puppet judge.

The criminal justice system was abused and misused on Martha Stewart for political gain. Her criminal persecution stands as a blot on American democracy, and she is owed a presidential pardon by President Barack Obama.

With the complicity of the propagandist media and yellow journalism, James Stewart is lining his pockets in a ruthless exploitation of Martha Stewart.

[G Chu]

11:02 AM on 04/22/2011

Continued #2

The "tip" scheming and all the bogus charges relating to her trivial, legal stock sale were intentionally concocted in an evidentiary void to target Martha Stewart's destruction for political gain, and this was enabled, aided, and abetted by grossly incompetent legal representation. If Martha Stewart had ignored the Bush goons and gone about her business, they could do nothing to her, and none of the bogus charges would have come into existence.

Economic freedom in this American democracy gave Martha Stewart the right to sell her stock at any time she chose; she owed nobody any explanation for the sale; and why she sold the stock was nobody's business, including the Bush goons. She was no "insider"; she had no illegal "insider information." No justification existed for the witch hunt into why she sold the stock, which was unbridled state tyranny and prosecutorial malfeasance. 18 USC Section 1001 was abused and misused in framing her on bogus charges, and that makes a compelling case for the repeal of this law, which is no longer used for its original purpose.

[G Chu]

10:28 AM on 04/22/2011

As to Martha Stewart, the title of the book should be "Tangled Webs of Fiction" and "False Statements from James Stewart to Bernard Madoff."

Martha Stewart was involved in no perjury, and she made no false statements. She was never under oath at any time, and not one single word spoken by her or the Bush goons was recorded in a transcript or in sworn testimony. In this evidentiary void, and having no personal knowledge of the facts, James Stewart is a liar for lying about false statements by Martha Stewart, and he is a lying propagandist for repeatedly linking her falsely to perjury. Martha Stewart is of no relevance to James Stewart's diatribe.

Of almost 8,000,000 ImClone shares traded, Martha Stewart sold 3,928 shares in a personal stock sale that was perfectly legal under securities laws that have existed for almost 80 years. Only a mere two months earlier, Martha Stewart made the decision to sell ALL of her ImClone stock in a tender offer from Bristol-Myers Squibbs based on sound investment management principles. She made the decision to sell ALL of her ImClone stock to Bristol-Myers Squibbs despite the fact that ImClone had rebuffed the takeover offer from Bristol-Myers Squibbs. That is the fundamental truth underlying all sales of the ImClone stock by Martha Stewart, which is completely absent from James Stewart's diatribe of lies on her.

[Harvey Timmerman Pearce]

11:03 PM on 04/20/2011

Although I've been an avid reader of James Stewart's work over the years, I'm afraid that Tangled Webs is not one of his better pieces. Given Mr. Stewart's past record of artfully delivering insightful investigative journalism, I had hoped that the book would shed new light on the actions of the four central figures. Unfortunately, what I got instead was a re-hashing of info already in the public domain (in some cases for years) with little in the way of "insight".

I found myself scratching my head a few times and having to re-read paragraphs due to some pretty obvious inconsistencies in his arguments (especially re: Martha Stewart but also re: Bernie Madoff and Barry Bonds at times). Overall the book could have benefited from the meticulous review of a seasoned editor.

Had Mr. Stewart dug deeper and presented us with a compelling reason as to why these lies were told in the first place -- this might have risen to the level of "worth a read". Instead, it seems that Mr. Stewart's great insight on this question was "they lied because they could get away with it".

As it stands, however, I felt a little ripped off by the superficial treatment from such an author.

[G Chu]

03:25 PM on 04/20/2011

Censorship is alive and well at "Book Bench," The New Yorker, where James Stewart is a staff writer. It is shocking that my comments on James Stewart were deleted this morning. Is this America with First Amendment free speech? The deletion of my comments was appalling censorship by the New Yorker. Apparently, they didn't like that I called James Stewart a lying propagandist and that his vendetta of lies on Martha Stewart evidences he lives a parasitic existence abusing and misusing his First Amendment rights.

[lightist]

02:39 AM on 04/20/2011

This is the most important subject in regards to all that matters in life. In other words, lies destroy people, friends, lovers, marriages, intimacy, business, trust, families, towns, cities, countries, generations, the story of humanity and our tenure on Earth.

Here's my favorite relevant and massively funky song on truth. Pure genius.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=73F3S5uNe9s

"Say It Like It Really Is" ..... Public Enemy 2010

[Greg Uchrin]

10:24 PM on 04/19/2011

When Ted Kennedy said that GW Bush was lying about Iraq, Bush took him to task for being "uncivil." Civility is not calling a liar a liar and when you can't out someone for telling untruths, you grant a tacit respect for the words or the liars themselves. A truly decadent society is one where civility is more important than the truth.

[OLEGAR]

10:20 PM on 04/19/2011

And with the"Dumbing Down" of our younger generations, those liars in high places are much less vulnerable to being found out and chastized/

[Rex Devious]

10:00 PM on 04/19/2011

It should be noted though that people in rural areas are vulnerable to lying a lot more than people in urban areas.

In small towns, where "everybody knows everybody", it doesn't take long to develop a reputation for being a liar. With the 2 choices of being honest, or being ostracized until you can move away - most people just stick with honesty.

In big cities though, you meet new people everyday. People can ruin their reputation in one place by lying - then simply walk a few blocks and again be around people who've never heard of them. Which means that there are a lot more people who are skilled liars there, and in turn, an environment where people are on the lookout for folks like that.

There are no "Red States" or "Blue States", there's high population areas where people have seen enough liars to spot another one, and low population areas where people have had little experience with serial liars other than the occasional con artist who is of course "from away". In their small towns, they judge the risk of someone being a liar according to how different they are to the people they're familiar with - because it's really all they have to go on. The problem with that approach isn't so much that they'll mistrust people who are different, but that they instinctively trust people who seem "just like them".

It's hard for them to imagine that someone could fake that so well.

[LancelotLink]

09:43 PM on 04/19/2011

USA = get as much of whatever it is you desire at all costs and everyone be damned in the wake of how you obtain it.

[addisonsteele]

01:46 PM on 04/19/2011

Based on its description, this book would be must-reading for anyone who thinks that the government wasted money prosecuting Barry Bonds.

[3fingerbrown]

11:31 AM on 04/20/2011

I've been saying that here for a long time: The Bonds thing isn't about drugs, it's about lying. It's true that a lot of taxpayer money was wasted in the Bonds case--it was wasted by a long line of witnesses who took an oath to tell the truth, then lied their heads off. This case would've been settled years ago at minimal taxpayer expense if everyone involved would've simply told the truth when they swore to do so. Taxpayer anger should be directed at them, not Congress or the prosecutors.

[SeekingClarity]

01:39 PM on 04/19/2011

When Robert Redford’s film “Quiz Show” was released in 1994, reviewers (the ones I read in any case) felt obliged to explain that Americans were truly astonished and felt deeply betrayed to learn that several very popular quiz show games were rigged. This suggests a different expectation of truthfulness than we encounter today. Another scandal of the 1950’s was “payola”, a practice in which record companies paid disk jockeys to play and promote certain recordings without revealing that they did so, yet from selecting which products are featured in modern movies, to determining which products are displayed on grocery store shelves, producers and vendors accept hidden payments to promote certain products as the normal course of business. While not technically a lie, the expectation that a grocer will offer the best products, not just those they are paid to display, is thwarted.

I gather the focus of “Tangled Webs” is primarily the impact of our tolerance for lies (over and above the lies themselves) in matters of law, although the author indicates that the problem is pervasive. Lies that stand poison our ability to take just or effective actions, yet our passive acceptance of significant lies and liars seems to be increasing. Politicians in particular make statements that conflict with documentable facts and do so with little or no fear of discrediting their reputations. If this continues, societies that are more just and/or more in touch with reality will surely overtake us.