Trump sycophant Jeffrey Lord writes in his March 18 Media Research Center column:
Words matter.
Fact: The administration of President Barack Obama surveilled the campaign associates of the President’s political opponent, Donald Trump. Then the classified information gained was leaked to the press – repeatedly. All of which furthered a liberal narrative that Trump colluded with the Russians to steal the 2016 election from Hillary Clinton.
How do we know? Because the New York Times says so.
Of course, the New York Times didn’t actually say that. As the Times itself explains, the focus of the federal government’s surveillance was Russian contacts, not Trump.
But in addition to that, Lord is also lying about how much words matter to him. A couple days later, Lord put in another appearance on CNN as its resident Trump sycophant, where he was even more sycophantic than ever. Lord actually insisted that Trump wasn’t lying when he claimed without evidence that Obama was wiretapping him. We’ll let the Washington Post take it from here:
Trump, he said, was speaking “Americanese” when he tweeted that Obama had orchestrated a “Nixon/Watergate” plot against him. The president’s supporters knew what he meant, but Washington insiders didn’t and blew it out of proportion.
Cooper and other guests seemed baffled.
“What you’re arguing then is the FBI and the Justice Department are mistaken for taking the president literally because they don’t speak Americanese?” Cooper asked.
Other guests continued to press the issue.
“The whole world had a chance to watch this unfold, and it was a direct test of his credibility. And the whole world now knows he lied about it,” former White House aide David Gergen said of Trump.
“We’ve seen it again and again,” Gergen continued. “When we have a president who is a congenital liar, it really matters.”
Lord tried to jump back in with an attack on Obama, but Cooper cut him off.
“Do you believe this president of the United States is a congenital liar,” the host asked.
“No,” Lord replied.
At that point, tensions boiled over, with the obviously frustrated guests gesticulating and talking over each other.
Again shifting gears, Lord brought up a tweet from Trump’s White House Twitter account saying the FBI and the National Security Agency had found Russia “did not influence electoral process.” Asked about the tweet, Comey said it didn’t reflect his congressional testimony. The Washington Post rated the tweet false.
Not a lie, Lord responded. The tweet, like his wiretapping allegations, had been misinterpreted.
“You’re smarter than that,” an exasperated Cooper told Lord as others chimed in. “Oh, come on Jeffrey.”
If Lord is spinning Trump’s lies as “Americanese,” that means words don’t mean a damn thing to him.