FFC’s fanatical attention to detail provides the fuel that keeps this thread going. His attention to legal and regulatory matters enriches our understanding of Michael Corleone’s dilemmas in GFII. I’m taking the time to flesh them out for you because I think you’ll enjoy the movie more if you’re better informed:

The Fifth Amendment to the US Constitution protects defendants against “self-incrimination”: you cannot be compelled to be sworn in and answer questions against you aimed by prosecutors in a trial. However, a Congressional hearing like the one Michael was subpoenaed to appear before isn’t a trial. You cannot avoid being sworn in. Your Fifth Amendment “privilege” extended only to refusing to answer specific questions. And, the only permissible form of response is, “I refuse to answer that question on the grounds that my answer might tend to incriminate me.”

Now, suppose, when Michael was asked if he planned the murder of the heads of the Five Families in 1950 [sic], he replied, “I refuse to answer that question on the grounds that my answer might tend to incriminate me.” He could not be prosecuted for perjury because he didn’t lie under oath. But everyone on the planet would know that he was hiding something big—what “might incriminate” him? It would fatally undermine his “legitimate” pose.

He also didn’t know that Pentangeli was alive and was being secretly prepared to testify against him. I posted a thread a while back whose point was that, even if Pentangeli had testified as planned, Michael might not have been convicted of perjury: A conviction would have required a corroborating witness (someone who’d testify that he’d heard or seen the same incriminating things Pentangeli cited), or incriminating evidence (like a court-approved wiretap). Neither was likely in Michael’s case. BUT, having Pentangeli testify, in public and under oath, about all the murders and other crimes Michael ordered him to do, would have indelibly created a detailed image and account of Michael as a Mafia Don. It would have destroyed his reputation.

It also could have cost him his casino holdings:

In 1958, after years of evidence that organized crime was running gambling in Nevada, the State Legislature took control over the gaming industry out of the Tax Commission, where oversight was lax, and put it into a new Gaming Commission. They gave the new commission two big teeth: the power to license “key employees” of casino hotels (like the casino manager and the credit manager); and the “Black Book”—a list of people who could be barred from even entering a casino, much less owning or operating one, because of past convictions or simply having unsavory associates or reputations (BTW: that’s the rule Nicky and Ace ran afoul of in the movie, “Casino”). Since those were commission regulation, rather than laws, the Gaming Commission didn’t have to put you on trial or otherwise prove beyond reasonable doubt that you were a criminal—they could place you in the Black Book simply because they didn’t like you or the image you had. Frank Sinatra lost his license and his ownership interest in the Cal-Nevada Lodge simply because he let Chicago Outfit boss Sam Giancana stay overnight at the hotel. If Michael had “taken the Fifth” at the Senate hearing, and/or Pentangeli had testified against him, it would have been sufficient for the Gaming Commission to kick him out of the casino business with no further ado. Guess who would have picked up his casino holdings?

That’s why Michael could never have “taken the Fifth” at that hearing—and, knowing that, why Roth was so brilliant in setting up that sting with Questadt and the Senate subcommittee.