TRUMP HAS THE RECORD FOR THE U.S. PRESIDENT WITH THE MOST LIES

…Liar, Liar , Pants On Fire

And this lying record was achieved in less than 2 years as president.

There is only one entity that tells more lies than our president.

That operation is Fox News, specifically Fox & Friends and the Fox pundits such as Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham.

But when Trump goes on Fox & Friends, that’s when we get lies on top of more lies.

Once again, while on Fox & Friends last month, the president again stated the whopper about James Comey that earned him another Four Pinocchio’s.

The statement was: “James Comey is a proven leaker and liar. . . . He leaked CLASSIFIED information, for which he should be prosecuted.  Comey said he gave it [his memo] to a friend and he gave it to a friend to leak classified information. It’s all classified. It was totally classified.”

President Trump has claimed for months that fired FBI director James B. Comey leaked classified information when he passed a memo of a conversation with Trump to a friend who then spoke to the New York Times about its contents.

Here are the real facts:

First, it should be noted that as the FBI director, Comey, was in the unusual position of deciding what was classified, and what was not.

His first memo, about the briefing he gave Jan. 6, 2017, about the material in what was then a secret dossier, that was labeled “SECRET” and “NOFORN” (No foreign nationals). “I am not sure of the proper classification so have chosen SECRET,” he wrote. “Please let me know of it should be higher or lower than that.”

The bottom of the memo said, “SECRET/NOFORN/ORCON.” The latter means “originator controlled,” which meant Comey could decide to whom he gave the memo — i.e., his top FBI aides.

The next memo, about a private dinner with Trump at the White House on Jan. 27, was labeled “CONFIDENTIAL/NOFORN,” a lower level of classification.

But the next memo, Feb. 8, about a meeting with then-White House chief of staff Reince Priebus and Trump, is again “SECRET/NOFORN.”

The most important memo, the one he shared with a friend, that memo concerned a private meeting with Trump on Feb. 14 in which Comey claims that Trump urged him to stop investigating fired national security adviser Michael Flynn. “He is a good guy,” Trump allegedly said. “I hope you can let this go.”

For the first time, one of the memos is labeled “UNCLASSIFIED/FOUO.” The later designation means “For Official Use Only,” indicating that the material may not be appropriate for public release.

Comey even notes, “Because this is an unclassified document, I will be limited in how I describe what I said next.”

Two subsequent memos, one being an email, about conversations with Trump, these were also listed as “UNCLASSIFIED/FOUO.”

His last memo, about a phone call with Trump on April 11, is labeled “CONFIDENTIAL”

Comey apparently did not submit his memos to any classifying authority. But now that they have been released, FBI officials re-dacted portions of the memos written on Jan. 6 (labeled SECRET), Jan. 28 (CONFIDENTIAL), Feb. 8 (SECRET) and April 11 (CONFIDENTIAL). None of the memos written as “unclassified,” had any redactions.

This greatly undercuts Trump’s claim that the Feb. 14 memo contained classified information. If it did, it would have had redactions before its public release.

In his book “A Higher Loyalty,” which I have read, Comey defended giving the memo to Dan Richman, a friend who is a professor at Columbia Law School: “Dan had been giving me legal advice since my firing. I told him I was going to send him one unclassified memo and I wanted him to share the substance of the memo, but not the memo itself, with a reporter.”

Comey added: “To be clear this was not a ‘leak’ of classified information no matter how many times politicians, political pundits or the president call it that. A private citizen may legally share unclassified details of a conversation with the president with the press, or include that information in a book.”

The inspector general is examining this issue.  But the inspector general is not examining whether Comey mishandled classified information.  But instead, whether he complied with the FBI policy as he should have in making the memos, and in the way he stored them.”

The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) says that after Comey was fired, the FBI upgraded one of the memos he deemed unclassified to “CONFIDENTIAL,” the lowest level of classification, though it is unclear which memo they chose. The Hill newspaper has reported that four of the memos were marked “SECRET” or “CONFIDENTIAL”.

The president may only have grounds to complain about Comey’s handling of the memos.

But Trump cannot say that the memo regarding the Feb. 14 meeting, the one memo Comey specifically hoped would reach the news media, contained classified information. For whatever reason, Comey wrote it specifically so it would not be considered classified.

The FBI released the memo without a single re-daction.

Ergo, it is not classified. The president himself has made this into a Four Pinocchio’s level of falsehood by accusing Comey of committing a crime by releasing an unclassified memo.

Once again, the current president maintains his record as the US President with the most Pinocchio’s….ever.

Copyright G.Ater  2018