falsehoods, or other media focus on falsehoods, are we just playing into the hands of the president? i worry about the new york times full page all of its list of characterizing lie. and using the word when we don t know if it was deliberate. i think it s important to get accurate information. but saying something is a lie is really put in an entirely different box. what the trump administration tends to do is move statements, when they re accused of, quote, unquote lying, by saying it actually has some basis in fact, and here it is. and moving into places where you can t confirm the falsity of the claim. the important question is did they happen at all, not how they happened. if they did happen but not by phone, i wouldn t call it a lie.
house lies. remember the emails proving that donald trump jr. was willing to collude with russia? president trump tried to help his son don jr. to explain away the meeting with a russian lawyer. jay sekulow went all over television and denied that the president was involved at all. the president wasn t involved in that. i do want to be clear, the president wasn t involved in the drafting of the statement and did not issue the statement. let s focus on what the president was aware of. nothing. those denials held up for a couple of weeks, until the washington post reported that in fact it was the president himself who dictated don jr. s misleadi ining statements. president trump s own inner circle was responsible for the story. now special counsel robert mueller s team has issued grand