Calling out Sarah Huckabee Sanders on serial lies

Sarah Huckabee Sanders and the lying liars in the Trump White House: Have we ever seen a spokesperson this loose with the truth? 

MaineWriter: In my opinion, the practice of telling the truth left the White House and closed the door. Now, the iconic and historic backdrop of extraordinary political leadership is desecrated by the Trump administration.

New York Daily News harsh words by Gabriel Shoenfeld - speaking journalistic truth ~ (Certainly, nobody would want to have this news report as a reference in their resume. Sarah Huckabee Sanders will never override the damage she is doing to herself, by being branded as the Donald Trump echo of lies.)

Sarah Huckabee Sanders is the voice of lies ~ and echo for the liar in chief

With the release of the Nunes (aka~ Rep. Devin Nunes "Nunesburger) memo, the integrity of FBI leadership was wrongly called into question. The bureau’s top officials are being portrayed by the Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee and by President Trump himself as part of a cabal out to destroy the Trump administration by means of Robert Mueller’s Russia probe.

However, we’ve seen this movie before — an attack on the FBI leadership by Trump and his acolytes, albeit with a major variation in the plot. It doesn’t end well.

Last May, when Trump abruptly fired FBI director James Comey, one of the principal reasons he cited was mismanagement of the bureau. Trump called the FBI an agency wracked by “turmoil” and claimed that the rank and file had “lost confidence” in Comey’s leadership.

White House spokesperson Sarah Huckabee Sanders 

(aka "Morticia")

~ expanded on this charge, explaining that the President believed Comey “was not up to the task.” 

Sanders then amplified the accusation by means of evidence that (she falsely claimed!) had come to her first hand. She personally, she said, had “heard from countless members of the FBI that are grateful and thankful for the President’s decision.”

More than a few observers wondered at the time how Sanders’ claim could be true. How would someone like her, 35 years old with a career confined entirely to PACs and political campaigns, be acquainted with FBI “members,” let alone “countless” numbers of them? Why would these FBI agents flock to Sanders in particular, among all White House officials? 

And had morale in the FBI really sunk so low that rank and file personnel at the bureau were actually “grateful and thankful" for Comey's dismissal?

In fact, the answer came almost immediately from Trump himself. 

In a remarkable interview with NBC’s Lester Holt, Donald Trump freely undercut Sanders (and his own previous words), bluntly explaining that he got rid of Comey because of what he called the “Russia thing.” 

In the leaked top-secret transcript of a subsequent conversation in the White House, Trump explained to the Russian ambassador and Russian foreign minister that Comey “was crazy, a real nut job,” continuing, “I faced great pressure because of Russia.” With Comey gone, “that’s taken off.”

This apparent — and bizarre — confession to obstruction of justice would appear to settle matters. Rank and file FBI disaffection had nothing to do with Comey’s firing. 

Rather, shutting down the Russia investigation was the pith and marrow of the decision. End of story.

But, that's not the end of the story. Some loose ends still need to be tied up.

The folks over at lawfareblog, the indispensable source of information on and analysis of all things connected to the Russia probe (and many other subjects as well), hit upon the brilliant idea of filing a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request with the FBI, demanding internal documents related to Comey’s firing. Eight months and a FOIA lawsuit later, 103 pages of records have been disgorged from the bowels of the bureau.

FBI documents paint a picture of an agency shaken to its socks, not by Comey’s mismanagement but by his unexpected dismissal. Moreover, FBI agents across the country were shocked, mystified and dismayed by the abrupt sacking of a director they revered.

Typical was the reaction of the special agent in charge in Phoenix, whose email correspondence read: “We all felt the pain associated with the loss of a leader who was fully engaged and took great pride in the FBI organization and our employees. Simply stated, Director Comey will be missed."

Anyone who reads the documents that lawfareblog has assembled will come away convinced, not only beyond a reasonable doubt but to the point of absolute certainty, that "Morticia" Huckabee Sanders was lying through her mandible and maxilla when she claimed that FBI officials had contacted her in large numbers — or in any numbers at all — to express thanks and gratitude for Trump’s axing of Comey.

Of course, that the Trump administration spews falsehoods like a volcano spews ash is not exactly a revelation. In his first year in office, our pathological liar of a President has given vent to thousands in a kind of pyroclastic flow. But the particularly wicked type of fabrication that came from the lips of Sanders deserves special recognition.

The men and women at the FBI who are devoting their lives to upholding the rule of law tend to be tough-minded people, but they are nonetheless victims in this matter. 

Words have been stuffed into their mouth by the officer of the U.S. government most responsible for speaking the truth, words that they are bound legally from publicly rebutting, and words that are the diametrical opposite of what they plainly think and feel.

Sanders may not be the first White House spokesperson to disseminate falsehoods. But it bears noting that up until the Trump administration came along, purposeful lying by the person at that podium was a rare occurrence. 

Officials occupying the position in the past have worked hard to maintain their credibility for the simple reason that truthfulness is the only coin of the spokesmen’s realm.

Like Sean Spicer, ~Morticia ~has moved precisely in the opposite direction. And like Trump, her mendacious boss, she has debased the currency of truthfulness to a nullity. 

Anyone who believes that the cancer of dishonesty let loose by our lying POTUS Donald Trump will not metastasize into American society at large has not been paying attention to the way virtually everyone in his ambit already bears the stigma of the scourge.

Schoenfeld, a senior adviser to the 2012 Romney presidential campaign, is the author of, among other books, “Necessary Secrets: National Security, the Media, and the Rule of Law.”