On the 27th of February 2019, the republican President Donald Trump’s former personal attorney Michael Cohen testified before the US House Oversight Committee led by the Democratic Chairman Elijah Cummings where he gave us a glimpse into the soul of his boss which was a frightening revelation.
The GOP committee members did their level best to depict Mr. Cohen as an habitual convicted liar who is facing jail time without listening to Mr. Cohen’s admonition, that this is what anyone will become if they choose to get close to President Trump. No one is immune who decides to blindly follow his lead including the president’s sycophantic lawmakers who were pointing the finger at him. He portended that if they continued to do the president’s bidding, they may as well turn their fingers around to point at themselves. He was trying to warn them that they will become inveterate liars as well. Frankly, this has already been happening.
Mr. Cohen described how President Trump gives direction to those around him where the listener could easily visualize him in action. When we look back in time, it becomes obvious as we have been witnesses to the president’s behaving abnormally over 2 years.
Here is how President directs the reality show he desires by just declaring something as true even if there is ample concrete proof disputing his claims. If those around him don’t act their parts according to his truth, they will eventually be shown the exit door.
Remember how in his first week in office, he kept telling everyone one around him that his inauguration day festivities were swamped by the largest numbers of well wishers ever in US history, as far as the eye could see. This was a flat out lie but his spokesman Sean Spicer found himself in front of the world publicly compromising his once decent reputation by declaring as fact, about how there were record making crowds present at the president’s inauguration. He was caught in a lie and as of today, he’s still paying a price.
I recall early on, the president asserting over and over again, about how there was widespread voter fraud which occurred at the November 2016 elections. He explained that this was why he lost the popular vote to his Democratic Party opponent Hillary Clinton by almost 3 million votes. This hoax has cost the American taxpayers plenty. He and his GOP cronies even created a commission to address this voter fraud crisis which of course, ended abruptly around January 2018 due to lack of evidence. But GOP lawmakers are still resorting to this falsehood to restrict voting rights across numerous republican led states.
These are just 2 examples which were on full display within a week of President Trump having moved into the White House that demonstrate how he operates on a regular basis. Once this pattern is identified, you can see this record being played over and over again.
As per a 1/21/2017 AP Fact Checking report (published by FOX News), “FACT CHECK: Trump overstates crowd size at inaugural:”
“President Donald Trump’s speech Saturday at the headquarters of the Central Intelligence Agency turned into the latest battle in, as he put it, his “running war with the media.” He (complained): that the media misrepresented the size of the crowd at his inauguration.”
“TRUMP: “I made a speech. I looked out. The field was — it looked like a million, a million and a half people.”
“So we caught them,” said Trump. “And we caught them in a beauty. And I think they’re going to pay a big price.”
“THE FACTS: Trump is wrong. Photos of the National Mall from his inauguration make clear that the crowd did not extend to the Washington Monument. Large swaths of empty space are visible on the Mall.”
“Thin crowds and partially empty bleachers also dotted the inaugural parade route. Hotels across the District of Columbia reported vacancies, a rarity for an event as large as a presidential inauguration.”
“And ridership on the Washington’s Metro system didn’t match that of recent inaugurations. As of 11 a.m. that day, there were 193,000 trips taken, according to the transit service’s Twitter account. At the same hour eight years ago, there had been 513,000 trips. Four years later, there were 317,000 for Obama’s second inauguration.”
“There were 197,000 at 11 a.m. in 2005 for President George W. Bush’s second inauguration. The Metro system also posted that only two parking lots at stations were more than 60 percent full.”
But that numerous fact checking media websites disputed the president’s assertions, he persisted in his truth. As per a 9/6/2018 CNN report, “A government photographer told investigators that he intentionally cropped photos of President Donald Trump’s inauguration to remove empty space and make the audience look larger, according to newly released documents.”
The president’s claim of widespread voter fraud was widely recognized as ‘fake news.’ Statistically, someone is more likely to be struck by lightning than to commit in-person voter fraud. Law enforcement officials, election administrators from both parties and scholars based on numerous credible studies, all agree voter fraud is incredibly rare.
SEE TWEET:
Donald J. Trump
✔@realDonaldTrump
In addition to winning the Electoral College in a landslide, I won the popular vote if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally
But President Trump was NOT about to be deterred from his truth, to where he and his GOP enablers in the White House and the US Congress jumped on the band wagon to implement the president’s voting commission.
As per the 1/4/2018 Washington Post article, “The voter fraud hoax isn’t funny” by Alex Waldman, “Challenged to back up his spurious claims (of widespread voter fraud), Trump launched the voting commission. In contrast with similar earlier panels, which strove for bipartisanship, this one was chaired by Vice President Pence and guided by vice chair Kris Kobach, the secretary of state of Kansas, both Republicans. The panel was crammed with members, including Kobach, well known for spurious warnings of fraud.”
“(In January 2018), President Trump abruptly announced he was disbanding his Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity. This was the panel charged with finding proof of Trump’s absurd claim of millions of illegal voters, and it went downhill from the beginning. But while the panel has vanished, its spurious arguments remain widespread. Claims of voter fraud still form the basis of efforts to suppress the vote across the country.”
“Things only got worse. Voting rights groups, including the Brennan Center for Justice, which I lead, pelted the panel with lawsuits. Ahead of a session in New Hampshire, Kobach claimed voter fraud there because voters used out-of-state driver’s licenses as IDs. In fact, many were likely college students voting legally. By November, Maine Secretary of State Matt Dunlap, a commissioner, actually sued his own panel for violating open government rules and cutting him out of the flow of information. Perhaps the White House’s announcement was an act of mercy.”
This appears to be a tell of all the despots that President Trump admires like Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman or MBS, Russia’s President Vladimir Putin and the N Korean leader Kim Jong-Un.
When Saudi Arabia’s MBS forcefully told President Trump that he had nothing to do with the murder of the US resident and Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi. President Trump has to believe him because that is the truth/ reality according to MBS.
When Russia’s President Putin strongly denies that Russia had anything to do with interfering with 2016 US elections, President Trump has to believe him because that’s President Putin’s truth/ reality.
It follows, that when the N Korean leader Kim Jong-Un claims that he knew nothing about the murder of the American hostage Otto Warmbier, then President Trump has to believe him because that’s the Korean leader’s truth/ reality.
President Trump also expects those around him to buy into his reality/ truth even if his reality is based on an unadulterated falsehood. So, if he says the FBI’s Trump-Russia probe is a ‘witch hunt’ staffed with agents out to get him, then guess what. Those around him at better echo his reality.
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Is this not truly frightening?
Gronda Morin 
Gronda, he is on record as lying far more than he does not, but setting policy with his lies is even worse:
– he lied about the impact of ACA subsidies for poor people he cut;
– he lies about trade and immigration being the biggest reasons for lost jobs; this overlooks the far greater impact of technology and CEOs chasing cheaper labor.
– he cites climate change as varying from a hoax to not man-influenced; the rest of the world as moved forward as has cities, states and companies as he trashes the environment.
The President was well defined by Michael Cohen. People should heed his testimony. Keith
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Dear Keith,
Mr. Cohen just drove home the point that the president does act in a way that better suits the despots that he admires. This is his comfort zone. Whatever comes out of their mouths is what is truth. Whether it matches reality, facts, evidence, etc. is immaterial. These guys demand complete loyalty or those who dare to question their reality just don’t last.
Fortunately, in the US, he can’t kill them but he can do his vindictive best to make their lives miserable. Look at what’s happened to a huge percentage of folks who were in his orbit like Roger Stone, Paul Manafort, Gen. Flynn Michael Cohen and those are his friends. But look who he has tried to destroy like James Comey, Andrew McCabe, Jeff Sessions,etc.
His venom has no match.
The harm he’s doing with his lies is immeasurable. Butt he’s getting a lot of help from his GOP sycophants in the White House and the US Congress. And in the process, they are all becoming liars.
Hugs, Gronda
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