In an interview on 'Sixty Minutes', US Attorney General Janet Reno defines a 'cultist' as someone who 'has a strong belief in the Bible and the Second Coming of Christ'.

See the story here.

The earliest versions of the email claim Reno made the statement in 1994. Reno did not appear on '60 Minutes' in 1994.

More recent versions of the email claim Reno made the statement on June 26, 1999. June 26, 1999 fell on Saturday. 60 Minutes airs on Sundays. 60 Minutes II airs on Tuesdays.

Janet Reno did not make the statement in another forum.

The Department of Justice's Office of issued the following statement in response to Rep. Rep. James V. Hansen of Utah query about the hoax:

This responds to your January 23 letter inquiring about Attorney General Reno's alleged statement on the television program '60 Minutes' defining a "cultist."

The plain fact is that the quote is a hoax. The Attorney General has never been interviewed on '60 Minutes.' She has never discussed cults, or tried to define one. There is nothing in the counterfeit quote that guides government policy.

The quote first appeared, to our knowledge, in the August 1993 'Paul Revere Newsletter' of the Christian Defense League in Flora, Illinois. The information came by telephone from a woman in Florida whose name was not noted. The newsletter subsequently ran a retraction.

• Janet Reno Rumor from CitizenLink by Focus on the Family
• ANOTHER FALSE RUMOR from the Falwell Confidential
• Janet Reno Defines 'Cultist' from About.com
• Reno Failure from the Urban Legends Reference Pages

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