I'm not a lawyer, but as I look at Temporary Senator* Roland Burris' disgraceful dissembling and odious parsing of words over his sworn testimony to the Illinois House impeachment panel, I see a lot of lying but no perjury.

We've had this lesson before in the informal law school class that is news coverage of important legal issues, but let's refresh on perjury:

Perjury, the Supreme Court has said, is "an obvious and flagrant affront to the basic concepts" of justice.



To prove a charge of perjury, according to the Department of Justice handbook for prosecutors, the government must at least show: that the testimony was given under oath; that it was false and that the accused knew it to be false; and that it concerned a matter that was "material" to the crime being investigated.



"Materiality" has been defined by the courts as anything "capable of influencing the tribunal on the issue before it." (Washington Post article published in the Tribune, October 30, 2005)



It's on the materiality issue where, for now, Temp. Sen. Burris has to get a pass.

If we go back and assume that he gave the same answers in his testimony that he gave in his recently revealed affidavit -- that he'd actually had several other contacts with members of former Gov. Rod Blagojevich's inner circle about Barack Obama's U.S. Senate seat and that he'd been asked to raise money for the governor -- there is still, in that admission, no reason to deny Burris that seat, to which Blagojevich later appointed him.

Burris now says he did not raise money for Blagojevich, did not agree to raise money for Blagojevich in the future and even told Blagojevich's brother that such fundraising would be inappropriate under the circumstances. Further, from what Burris now says there's no evidence that he was presented with a pay-to-play offer that he should have reported.

So there's nothing legally material as regards either Burris or Blagojevich in Burris', um, failure to tell the whole truth during his testimony and previous affadavit. At least not so far, near as any of us know.

Still, Burris' oleaginous hair-splitting and preposterous excuses do amount to a serious political offense, and I expect voters will administer their punishment to Burris on primary day, 2010.

* Why do I call him a Temporary Senator? Because that's what he is according to the 17th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.