And just to be overly clear, the quote does not generalize to: "If the FBI watches you for 500 days, you're going to get charged with money laundering and conspiracy to defraud the United States".
back
1 comments
If the FBI watches you for 500 days, they will either find something to charge you with, or they will entrap you into doing something they can charge you with, because their budget does not include as much money for "pointless investigations of innocent people" as it does for "nailing guilty-looking people to the wall, and making the agency look good in the press".
Generally speaking, the "trap" they use is to provoke you into lying to them, because lying to them is a felony (Title 18, United States Code, Section 1001). [1]
[1] https://reason.com/archives/2018/02/08/donald-trump-shouldnt...
-- edit - I realized the URL might make it look like a slanted political article, but it's more about the law than it is about politics. The article author is the same guy that runs the Popehat website.
They will also charge you with a felony if you accidentally lie to them. If you tell them "good morning" as a greeting, and the weather is actually a bit lousy outside, they could charge you.
You really need professional coaching in order to talk to them. You'll have to program yourself to say things like "in my opinion..." or "in my memory of that event..." or "hypothetically, if..."
It's really counterproductive. Because any conceivable response could incriminate the respondent, the interviewee can plead the 5th to anything they are asked, including "is water wet?"