Sarah Sanders Admitted to the Special Counsel That She Lied About Comey

[riversedge]

Source: motherjones







2 hours ago

She says her claims about the former FBI director were a “slip of the tongue.”


We’re still making our way through a redacted version of Robert Mueller’s 448-page report on the Russia investigation, but one of the early revelations that has emerged is the extent to which President Donald Trump’s officials have lied on his behalf. White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders produced one sizable whopper in May 2017, in the aftermath of FBI Director James Comey’s firing, when she suggested that he was unpopular among the bureau’s rank and file.

After a reporter claimed that a “vast majority” of agents supported Comey, Sanders replied, “Look, we’ve heard from countless members of the FBI that say very different things.”


That response was “not founded on anything,” Mueller’s office concluded after interviewing Sanders, who told special counsel staffers she had made a “slip of the tongue.” The report also says she spoke to the president after that press conference and he told her she did a “good job and did not point out any inaccuracies in her comments.”

The lack of evidence for this sentiment didn’t stop Trump from latching on to it in an interview with Lester Holt of NBC News a day later. He said the FBI was in “virtual turmoil” under Comey.........................................

Read more: https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/04/mueller-report-sarah-sanders-lie-comey-firing/

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Sarah Huckabee Sanders admitted to Mueller that her statement to reporters about Comey wasn't 'founded on anything'

https://theweek.com/speedreads/836108/sarah-huckabee-sanders-admitted-mueller-that-statement-reporters-about-comey-wasnt-founded-anything
1:10 p.m.


White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders acknowledged a claim she once made about former FBI Director James Comey was completely false, Special Counsel Robert Mueller's report says.

Mueller's report details President Trump's firing of Comey in 2017, noting that Sanders spoke in a press briefing and insisted that the FBI had lost confidence in Comey. This, she said, was based on hearing as much from "countless members of the FBI."

But the Mueller report says that "the evidence does not support those claims" and that Trump, in fact, specifically told Comey that "the people of the FBI really like [him]." Sanders "acknowledged to investigations that her comments were not founded on anything," although she claimed this was a "slip of the tongue." She also claimed that when she repeated in a separate interview that the FBI had lost confidence in Comey, she did so "in the heat of the moment."............................

Link to tweet

Replying to @RWPUSA @PressSec

If she didn't #shill for this #IllegitimateRegime she wouldn't have a job.
Good thing Daddy's one of those snake oil salesmen who #shills for the #GOP-style God.
0 replies 1 retweet 1 like

aldamar
? @aldamar11
2h2 hours ago

Replying to @RWPUSA @PressSec

Just like the majority of what she and this administration says. NOT FOUNDED ON ANYTHING. Just attempts to obfuscate. Sickening how so many people can do so much to damage our democracy and not think twice about what that means.
1 reply 0 retweets 6 likes

New conversation
Allan Funk
? @Radar_Funk
2h2 hours ago

Replying to @RWPUSA @PressSec

It's a requirement to work in this WhiteHouse.
1 reply 1 retweet 28 likes

1 more reply

Samm Johnson
? @johnsonsamm
2h2 hours ago

Replying to @RWPUSA @PressSec

She must resign.
0 replies 3 retweets 36 likes

Link to tweet

[Thomas Hurt]

1. Christians are never above lying for the Lord.

[LanternWaste]

7. And humans are never above lying simply for self-interest.

[Thomas Hurt]

12. no difference, except those Christians who do this are using God as an excuse for their bad acts.

[ck4829]

21. And that lord is now Trump to many of these RW Evangelicals

[Funtatlaguy]

27. Her Daddy done give her a git outta hell free pass.

[Fortinbras Armstrong]

29. Actually, that shouldn't be true

One of the greatest Christian writers, Augustine of Hippo (354-430) wrote two book about lying, De Mendacio (About Lying) and Contra Mendacium (Against Lying). In the first, Augustine says that a lie is not so much a distortion of the meaning of the words as it is a lack of fidelity to another person.

When Augustine defined of lying as being untrue to others, he disagreed with most other moralists, who allow equivocation, prevarication, or evasion if at least some meaning of the words can be considered true. But Augustine believed that in the most basic sense, what one says is irrelevant in itself, apart from the intention to deceive. As he points out, one can lie by speaking the truth, or with an expression, or even by silence. Suppose you are asked if you performed some good and heroic act, and you know that silence would be taken as a modest reluctance to claim what is true -- even if it is not. Your silence will deceive the questioner. The deception was your intent, and that intention to deceive is Augustine's definition of a lie.

Equivocators would not consider silence a lie, since silence is indeterminate. It is, of itself, equivocal. You can take from it what you want. The person keeping silence, equivocators would claim, is not responsible for another's misinterpretation of the silence, any more than a speaker is responsible for the listener's selection of one from multiple interpretations of the words. For Augustine, such an argument is beside the point. If you believe that silence or equivocal words would deceive, you are lying. Even if you fail to deceive, since you intend to lie, you are lying. If you make a true statement, knowing it will not be believed, and wanting it to be disbelieved, the statement may be true but you are false.

Which brings us to Augustine's main point. Truth telling is not minimalist or legalistic, but maximalist. It is an effort to live in the truth.


Augustine's Contra Mendacium considers the specific case about whether it is morally acceptable to lie in furtherance of a good cause. He said that it was not, for three reasons. First, since God is truth itself, to lie dishonors God and also dishonors the liar. Second, lying is itself a sin, and as Paul says, "Should we continue in sin in order that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin go on living in it?" (Romans 6:1-3) Third, when the person who is lied to discovers the lie, he will doubt the goodness of the cause itself.

The basic question is, "do the ends justify the means". According to the best moralists, it does not. See, for example, the quote from Romans in the previous paragraph. Unfortunately, many people, not just many Christians, believe that it does.

[JaneQPublic]

2. So, the lesson is...

The only way to get honest answers from her during press conferences is to put her under oath first.

She'll gladly spew lies day in and day out for POTUS, but she's not willing to perjure herself and do jail time for POTUS.

[marble falls]

4. I'm all for it. But we need to remember how during the early Obama years the courts ...

ruled that Fox news was was under no obligation to be factual or truthful in delivering the news, that "fair and balanced" was a motto and not a promise.

[TexasBushwhacker]

13. Fox News also claimed it's only " entertainment"

and not obligated to be truthful.

[marble falls]

16. Glen Beck claimed be a rodeo clown. He's at least half right - I don't know if he's ever been ...

to a rodeo.

[ck4829]

22. +1

[Leghorn21]

3. I love this tidbit SO MUCH

Daddy donnie is gonna be SO MAD!!!!!

[JohnnyRingo]

5. She's a good Christian woman from a deeply Christian family.

Party, Family, and God, in that order.

There's a special place in Heaven for the Huckabees. Somebody has to cook, make beds, and do laundry or it wouldn't be Heaven for the rest of us.

[TexasBushwhacker]

17. But she's forgiven

That's my beef with Christianity. As an atheist, I'm doomed to hell no matter how good and moral I am but a Mafioso hit man can be a good, believing Christian and get into heaven.

[Fortinbras Armstrong]

30. That atheists are automatically going to hell is NOT what the Catholic Church teaches.

And being a mafioso means that you are ipso facto a sinner.

[CountAllVotes]

6. huckdiddlydee lied

and lied badly she did!

Resign now you filthy liar!

[Ohioboy]

8. Hey Sarah

The American people are accepting apologies for your White House lies. That Kelly Anne Conway line goes both ways.

[riversedge]

11. good one!!

[ck4829]

23. +1

[Marcuse]

9. We knew it all the time.

[riversedge]

10. Shocking!..........

Link to tweet

[ck4829]

24. I am shocked! Totally shocked that she lied! (/sarcasm)

[Honeycombe8]

14. And again, no repercussions for lying and destroying people's reputations. It's all good, I guess.

Very disappointing to see the mountain of wrongdoings that have occurred, and none of them have come back on the wrongdoers. It's disheartening.

[bluestarone]

15. MSM needs to remind her of THIS every time she

Answers ANY future questions!

[Evolve Dammit]

18. How about a press boycott of all White House shills lying. SHS, Kellyann, Katrina, etc.?

And challenge Faux news in court to at least drop the "News" label from their entertainment TV?

[ck4829]

25. Indeed, it's on them now

[DeminPennswoods]

28. April Ryan, on CNN, went off on her

yesterday. She said SHS has no credibility and should resign. She revealed that she has to have personal security now after SHS called her (and other media/members) "fake news".

[WVlaserguy]

19. 1st question, next news conference

Sarah, you are a known and admitted liar. Why should we believe anything you say?

[ck4829]

20. K&R

[Vinca]

26. And this morning she's doubling down on "slip of the tongue."

She's an embarrassment, a liar and should be sent back to the local cult chapter.

[Maxheader]

31. mea culpa is like a badge the wingers wear...

[Fla Dem]

32. She is a good Propagandists, much like Baghdad Bob was for Saddam Hussein

Saddam Hussein's Minister of information

[Paladin]

33. Major-league kudos to Stephen Robinson @ Wonkette.com:

For his statement that anything Sanders says is "a lie wrapped in an insult."

Talk about truer words never having been spoken.....

[Nitram]

34. That could not be considered by any stretch of the imagination a "slip of the tongue."

How about, "bald-faced lie?" Here are a few of Shakespeare's choice words about liars:

1. (S)he will lie, sir, with such volubility, that you would think truth were a fool

2. Measureless liar, thou hast made my heart too great for what contains it

3. If you will swear you have not done’t, you lie.

4. I say unto you again, you are a shallow cowardly hind, and you lie

5. An you lie, sirrah, we’ll have you whipp’d

6. Thou liest, abhorred tyrant; with my sword I’ll prove the lie thou speak’st

7. You told a lie, an odious, damned lie; Upon my soul, a lie, a wicked lie.

8. That lie shall lie so heavy on my sword, That it shall render vengeance and revenge, Till thou the lie-giver and that lie do lie, In earth as quiet as thy father’s skull

9. Thou liest, most ignorant monster

10. Thou liest, thou jesting monkey, thou

11. and as many lies as will lie in thy sheet of paper, although the sheet were big enough for the bed of Ware in England, set ’em down