PRESIDENT TRUMP IS BY FAR, THE WINNER OF THE MOST PINOCCHIO’S

…The Washington Post’s top liar’s award: the four Pinocchio’s:

Trump is falsely altering timelines so he can play “gotcha” on the Democrats.

OK, I am aware that I only have blog followers of somewhere over 14,000, but I feel that even for that small number on the internet, I have to make it clear to those followers just how much our president lies to his supporters and the American people.

Let’s start with what the president said about the Chair of the House Intelligence Committee Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-CA), and I will then, break out the truth.  When you see how much I write about this one issue, you will understand just how mentally ill is our current Commander-in-Chief.

Per President Trump:

Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.) “made up a conversation. He made a conversation that didn’t exist. He never thought in a million years that I was going to release the real conversation. And when it did, the whistleblower turned out to be totally inaccurate.”

— President Trump’s interview with Jeanine Pirro on Fox News, Oct. 12

“Nancy Pelosi hates the United States of America because she wouldn’t be doing this. And I’m telling you, foreign nations, foreign people looking at us, they honestly think we’re nuts. And then you have presidents and saying nothing was wrong. … But Nancy Pelosi said, ‘Well, that’s what he said. Isn’t it?’ But she was angry as hell when she got to read the transcript. Because she said, ‘Wait a minute, that’s not what I was told.’ But she was stuck, she was stuck.” (Totally untrue.)

— Trump, at a campaign rally in Lake Charles, LA. Oct. 11

Here is what The Washington Post, Fact Checkers, said about the president:

 ”In our database of President Trump’s false or misleading claims, we’ve documented how he twists things out of proportion or simply invents stories out of whole cloth. Sometimes, he even goes through a time warp. All of these elements are present in this pair of statements, which are similar or identical to other statements he made over the weekend at various events or media availabilities.  Central to the president’s message is a Four-Pinocchio claim: that the whistleblower complaint inaccurately portrayed his July 25 phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and the events surrounding it." 

"We’ve documented that most of the whistleblower’s factual allegations have turned out to be on target.  The president wants his supporters to believe that the complaint falsely portrayed the phone call so he can explain why, in his words, the man leading the impeachment investigation “made up” a conversation and the House speaker supposedly was upset when she saw the actual transcript. In an added twist, Trump sometimes tries [falsely] to adjust the time frame to make his point appear even more dramatic.”

Per The Post, Here's a description of what Chairman Schiff actually said:

“In a bit of a self-inflicted wound, Schiff at a congressional hearing on Sept. 26 summarized the content of Trump’s July 25 call, occasionally with dramatic effect (or what Schiff later called a parody), that he opined was “a classic organized crime shakedown."  

"There is no exact transcript of the conversation, in which Trump urged an investigation of former vice president Joe Biden, a potential 2020 election rival, as the summary was cobbled together from notes by White House officials. So Schiff told the audience that “this is the essence of what the president communicates” and that he would describe “in sum and character, what the president was trying to communicate.” That was a signal to listeners that he was not quoting verbatim from the rough transcription. Nevertheless, Schiff did include some eyebrow-raising embellishments.”

Here are Schiff’s actual embellishments, per The Post:

Schiff suggested that Trump, after asking for “a favor,” of Zelensky he said something along the lines of: “I’m going to say this only seven times, so you better listen good. I want you to make up dirt on my political opponent.”  This is where Schiff gave Trump an opening for being attacked.  Biden’s name actually came up only twice in the call, not seven times. The president also urged a probe into the totally discredited conspiracy theory that a private company had a role in starting his “Russian hoax” because supposedly a Democratic National Committee server has been spirited to Ukraine. Trump also did say three times in the call that his lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani or Attorney General William P. Barr would get in contact with Zelensky.  So there were a number of requests of Zelensky,  ABC News counted eight, not the reported seven about Biden.

Trump has taken this inaccurate account by Schiff and run hard with it. (Never mind the fact that Trump routinely embellishes his so called “facts.”) Trump has even declared that Schiff was guilty of a “crime” and should be tried for “treason” or even “impeached,” even though members of Congress cannot be impeached.

If Trump's accusations were true, then the president is guilty of thousands of treasonous acts since he even started running for office.

In addition, the "know-nothing about governing" US president doesn't know that US Representatives and Senators cannot be impeached.  There are other ways of removing them from office.

But then later, President Trump just had to say the following about Adam Schiff:

“He gave the most horrible rendition, adding his own words. … He took my really....believe it or not ....congenial and gentle words, and he made me sound like a tyrant,” (Trump said  this on Oct. 5.)

But apparently, even this spin was not good enough for the president. In recent days, he has added a new wrinkle: that Schiff gave his description of the call, even before Trump released the transcript, thereby Trump provided a gotcha moment on Schiff for his fans.

“He [Schiff] made a conversation that didn’t exist. He never thought in a million years that I was going to release the real conversation. And when it did, the whistleblower turned out to be totally inaccurate.” (Trump, Oct. 12, Fox Interview and totally false)

“This crooked Adam Schiff made a statement — long, beautiful statement — and it was a fraud. He repeated my call, but it wasn’t me. He made it so bad. … But then I did something that they didn’t expect. I immediately called up Ukraine, through my representatives. … I got approval to immediately make that call public. … By the way, he only did it because he never thought that I was going to release the transcript. … He did it and then I released the transcript. They never thought in a million years, even in terms of violation with another country, but we got approval.” (Trump, Oct. 12, Value Voters summit)

“When Schiff goes out and speaks before Congress, they never thought I was going to release the transcript of my call.” (Trump, Oct. 11, campaign rally in Lake Charles, La.)

“Democrat’s game was foiled when we caught Schiff fraudulently making up my Ukraine conversation, when I released the exact conversation Transcript.” (Trump, Oct. 14, tweet)

But this is incorrect. The rough transcript, which the White House acknowledged was not verbatim, but it was released on Sept. 25 and Schiff held his hearing on Sept. 26.  Republicans at the hearing were able to call out Schiff’s embellishments precisely because they had a copy of the recorded words in front of them.

Now this is what Trump falsely said about House Speaker Pelosi’s reaction:

While Trump has been knocking Schiff for trying to put words into Trump’s mouth, Trump has also been putting fake words in the mouth of House Speaker Pelosi. In Trump’s dramatic telling, Pelosi authorized the impeachment inquiry on Sept. 24….. only to be shocked when the rough transcript was released a day later.

Per Trump:

“They came out with a whistleblower report before they saw the conversation. Had they waited one day, Nancy Pelosi wouldn’t have made a fool out of herself, and she would have been able to say what I said. Because when she saw it, she said, ‘This is not what the whistleblower said.’ ” (Trump, Oct. 7, false remarks at White House)

“Nancy Pelosi said, a day before seeing the transcript of the call with the Ukrainian President, 'We’ve got to impeach him. We’ve got to impeach him, right?’ And then she saw the call and she said to her people, ‘What the hell? Nobody ever told me this was the call.’ But she keeps going anyway because the press is fake, and they play right into their head.” (Trump, Oct. 10, more false statements at the Minneapolis campaign rally)

“Nancy Pelosi said, ‘Well, that’s what he said. Isn’t it?’ But she was angry as hell when she got to read the transcript. Because she said, ‘Wait a minute, that’s not what I was told.’ But she was stuck, she was stuck.” (Trump, Oct. 11, Lake Charles, La., campaign rally)

“It was a terrible, terrible fraudulent thing. And then Nancy Pelosi went on television. She was very angry when she read the actual call, because this was an exact — I guess stenographers, they took it down. And she was very angry because she got led — she was a day early when she started talking about impeachment.” (Trump, Oct. 12, Value Voters summit)

Trump offers no evidence for his supposed knowledge of Pelosi’s “angry as hell” closed-door conversations. Drew Hammill, a Pelosi spokesman, said Trump’s account is total fiction.

When the rough transcript was released, Pelosi’s following assessment was very tough: “The release of the notes of the call by the White House confirms that the President engaged in behavior that undermines the integrity of our elections, the dignity of the office he holds and our national security. The President has tried to make lawlessness a virtue in America and now he is exporting it abroad.”

As expected, the White House did not respond to The Post’s request for comment.

So , once again, here’s The Post’s Pinocchio Test:

The Fact Checkers are stating that they have gone well beyond irony at this point.

To make his case against impeachment, Trump argues that the whistleblower did not get his phone call correct, but key elements of the whistleblower complaint are confirmed by the rough transcript released by Trump’s own White House. The rest of the whistleblower complaint checks out as well.

Trump tries to alter the timeline to make it appear as if the release of the transcript came after Schiff’s dramatic reenactment.  This is Trump’s false effort to claim he has played “gotcha” on the Democrats.

So, in complaining that Schiff concocted the words used in the call, Trump falsely offers up a false conversation of Pelosi with her staff.   That further undercuts whatever complaint he might have about Schiff’s parody description of the conversation with Zelensky.

Therefore, as what usually happens almost every day with the president, the president has yet again, earned Four Pinocchio’s for his dealing with Adam Schiff, Nancy Pelosi and the whistleblower’s complaint.

Copyright G. Ater 2019