White House has dismissed criminal nature of private U.S. calls for Chavez's assassination

Judging from former White House counsel John Dean's interpretation of U.S. federal criminal statutes, Reverend Pat Robertson and FOX News guest Wayne Simmons could conceivably be brought up on either felony or misdemeanor charges for their calls to assassinate Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez Frias.  In an August 26 commentary for the legal website FindLaw, Dean points out that U.S. federal law prohibits threats against foreign officials, or the transmission of such threats via interstate or foreign broadcasts.   The former White House counsel’s legal assessment appears to contradict the statements of U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and State Department spokesperson Sean McCormack, both of whom have implied that Robertson was acting within his free speech rights when he called for Chavez’s assassination on the Christian Broadcasting Network’s 700 Club.  

The Calls for Assassination

On Monday, August 22, Reverend Robertson declared, "I don't know about this doctrine of assassination, but if he [Chávez] thinks we're trying to assassinate him, I think that we really ought to go ahead and do it. It's a whole lot cheaper than starting a war, and I don't think any oil shipments will stop."

Calling Chavez a "terrific danger" that threatens to turn Venezuela into "a launching pad for communist infiltration and Muslim extremism all over the continent," Robertson said, "We have the ability to take him out, and I think the time has come that we exercise that ability."

Following up on Robertson's remarks, former CIA analyst Wayne Simmons stated on FOX News' Hannity & Colmes (August 24) that "[Chávez] should have been killed a long time ago... It doesn't matter to me who kills this guy... He needs to go."

In response to FOX co-host Alan Colmes' rejoinder that such an assassination would be illegal, Simmons stated: "The president can order that... That should have been ordered... This guy needs to go."

Federal Offense?

According to John Dean, who once served as counsel to President Richard Nixon, "It is a federal felony to use instruments of interstate or foreign commerce to threaten other people." Given that Robertson's 700 Club and FOX's Hannity & Colmes are broadcast throughout the United States and in a number of foreign countries, these programs clearly meet the legal definition of instruments of interstate and foreign commerce. Title 18 of the United States Code, Section 875(c), states: "Whoever transmits in interstate or foreign commerce any communication containing any threat to kidnap any person or any threat to injure the person of another, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both."

On grounds that Robertson clearly attempted to threaten the Venezuelan President, Dean suggests that the conservative evangelist may have also violated Title 18 of the United States Code, Section 112(b). The misdemeanor statute states: "Whoever willfully... threatens... a foreign official..., [or] attempts to... threaten... a foreign official..., shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than six months, or both." The same statute could conceivably apply to the remarks of former CIA analyst Simmons as well.

Although the White House has clearly disassociated itself from Robertson’s call, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld downplayed the gravity of the statement by stressing in an August 23 Defense Department briefing that Robertson was a “private citizen” and that “private citizens say all kinds of things all the time.”  In a State Department briefing on the same day, Department spokesperson McCormack dismissed suggestions that legal action could be taken against Robertson.