Vincent Bugliosi

We begin our chat with famed prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi with a few minutes of pleasantries. Bugliosi is utterly charming and very kind. At one point, he will call me “honey” and pat my shoulder, and since he is 74, he has the prerogative of age. I have heard he is an arrogant bastard; he certainly thinks well of his abilities, but perhaps since I am a young lady he can be courtly and gentlemanlike, as there is no need for competition.

We are in his home, filled to bursting with silk flowers and statues of kittycats and ormolu clocks, and a very beautiful tea service with irises, elongated and stretched as if Modigliani had veered into china-making. I forget what we are talking about at first, and invite you to join us here, at this point, where I begin taking notes.

–Rebecca Schoenkopf

Vincent Bugliosi: Will you be attending the Democratic National Convention in Denver?

L.A. CityBeat: No.

Yes, I’ve been invited, but I’m not sure it’s appropriate. I’m talking about prosecuting the president for first-degree murder! I’m not sure that fits in with Obama’s message!

Well, it would sure fire up the base! But it might – maybe – just alienate a few in the middle.

You’re aware I testified before Congress last week?

Yes, I saw your opening statement on YouTube.

It went on for hours! We didn’t even break for lunch; I testified from 10 to four. Conyers said, “This is not an impeachment hearing” so I wasn’t allowed to accuse Bush of a crime or even any dishonorable conduct – I could only use the phrase “Bush administration.”

I got a phone call June 16 here at the house from a conservative Representative from the South. He supported the war, was a very vocal supporter, and heard my book [The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder] on tape. He bought several copies of the book, and handed them out. He gave one to Conyers too.

I do present evidence in the book that Congress was lied to in a major, major way. For example, the classified report from 16 intelligence agencies, the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate, also known as the NIE. All 16 agencies concluded that Hussein was not an imminent threat to the security of this country. Three days later, the Bush administration put out an unclassified “summary” of this report, the “White Paper.” In the summary, the conclusion was deleted! The classified report, when it got into questions of weapons of mass destruction: “We assess that blah blah he has biological weapons.” The White Paper: “He has biological weapons.”

The astounding thing to me right now, and I’m never gonna get over it till the day I die, is this despicable human being took us into an unnecessary war, and the mainstream media is protecting him and blacking out my book! Until a couple of weeks ago, the blackout was total and complete. This is unusual for me! My books are important books! It got so bad that ABC Radio refused to take money from my publisher for an advertisement!

Bush may be responsible for a million deaths – in my book I use the very conservative estimate of 100 thousand – he sends them to their cold graves, and they won’t even talk about prosecuting him! How can we get over that? Unless something’s wrong with me? I don’t think I’m losing my marbles!

So to prosecute the president for murder, would any District Attorney have jurisdiction, as long as there was a dead soldier from his county?

Exactly. I just need one prosecutor. There is no statute of limitations for the crime of murder. Pinochet in Chile, 33 years later, had charges brought against him! It has nothing to do with Congress, or the mood of the country. Just one prosecutor. Once Bush is out of office, he is like any other private citizen. Nixon, when he resigned in ’74, there was quite a clamor to indict him, and then Ford stepped in and pardoned him. If he’d had immunity, there would have been no need for a pardon.

So you get a prosecutor; wouldn’t a judge just quash the case?

Say, hypothetically, the Fargo, North Dakota, grand jury indicts him. A motion to quash, 99 times out of 100, is denied. Here it would go all the way up to the Supreme Court. And I don’t see how they can deny it!

You wrote a book about how they could deny it! [The Betrayal of America: How the Supreme Court Undermined the Constitution and Chose Our President] You called the Supreme Court “criminals in the very truest sense of the word” and said it was a “judicial coup d’etat”!

[Chuckles.] Oh, Bush v. Gore, yeah! [Chortle, laugh.] There are 50 state Attorneys General and about 950 DAs. Not in all of those counties has there been someone who’s died [to create jurisdiction].

We cannot let this guy get away with this. When I prosecuted Manson, there was nothing personal about it, and that’s the way it should be. It certainly was personal for the survivors and loved ones, but I just viewed Manson as a terribly evil person, who deserved the death penalty. I also knew if he got out he was going to continue to kill, would kill as many people as he could.

With Bush, it’s very personal with me.

Is it possible that might cloud your judgment?

It could, but it’s a non sequitur to say because it’s personal, your judgment’s askew.

I would seek the death penalty against him, Cheney, Condoleezza Rice, and possibly more. If I were the prosecutor. Maybe in front of the grand jury, it comes out Rove or Rumsfeld is involved ... . With all these people, it would not be personal, except Bush.

The evidence is indisputable that all these soldiers, 19-year-old kids, while they’re being blown to pieces in Iraq, George W. Bush was having a lot of fun, enjoying every moment of his existence. He’s laughing, dancing, swiveling his hips like Elvis! How dare he – how dare he – have fun while kids are dying?

While he is uttering the following words – at the very time he is saying them – kids are getting blown up: “Laura and I are having the time of our lives.” “I’m in a great mood.” “It’s going to be a perfect day.” “I’m feeling pretty good about life.”

Even if it was just a mistake, and not murder, what kind of monstrous individual would be happy with his life?

Off-topic, but I’m dying to ask you. In your last book, Reclaiming History, how could you say Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone??? We all know the CIA killed Kennedy!

No no no no. No no no no. [Pats me on the shoulder. Howls with laughter.]

What about Woody Harrelson’s dad being one of the three tramps let out the back door of the Dallas PD? Did you look into that?

Of course, of course. [Waves hand dismissively.]

Probably 70 percent of the country knows the government did it!

Ha ha! Oh, honey. If 50 million people think something foolish, it’s still foolish!

So, let me ask you this: Would you have prosecuted Johnson?

No, he did nothing wrong!

But what about the Gulf of Tonkin?

[Kindly.] Would you like to know ... may I tell you a little bit about that?

Certainly.

There was overwhelming evidence LBJ did not want to go to war. There was a transcript of a telephone conversation between him and Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, and LBJ is clearly responding to new information. It could not be clearer. Two or three years ago, National Security Adviser Robert Hanyok’s report was declassified: Apparently NSA technicians misinterpreted some North Vietnamese intercepts, and wrote up that there had been an attack. Shortly thereafter, they covered up their mistake.

But even if LBJ had lied us into war, assuming he “got by with it,” that’s no defense. We should give a freebie for murder? There’s no LBJ Defense under 187 of the California penal code!

I don’t like people getting away with murder. In O.J.’s case, two murders! I wrote a book about it, Outrage!

You were quoted online as saying you would have spent 500 hours on your closing statement. Is that right?

Did I say that? Well, hundreds of hours, certainly. I have my summation written before the trial starts! I know the purported weaknesses of my case. In the O.J. case, they were writing it the night before! Not going over it – writing it! I’m pro-prosecution all the way, but they didn’t do their homework.

You said that it would be impossible to try the president for war crimes. Why?

We’re not a signatory nation to the International Criminal Court, which was set up in ’02 – and perhaps for that very reason.

Why did Spain have jurisdiction over Pinochet? Were Spanish nationals killed?

[Judge] Garcon, was that his name? I’d like to find a Garcon! I don’t know how they got jurisdiction in that case, whether it was the International Criminal Court, which usually operates from The Hague, or a Spanish court. I’ll have to look into that. Jurisdiction was the big thing I had to negotiate in this book. I spent a lot of time at the Ninth Circuit and the downtown Bar Association. Jurisdiction was what I spent the most time on. It wasn’t easy: jurisdiction gets complicated. But I nailed it down. No matter how hard I tried, though, I couldn’t establish jurisdiction for the murder of the Iraqis.