June 3, 2018

On CNN's SOTU, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) repeatedly refused to address the admission by the Trump legal team that the president lied about not writing Donald Jr's original statement to the media about the controversial Trump Tower meeting with Russians on Air Force One.

Rep. McCarthy ignored the questions completely and just complained about the length Robert Mueller special counsel's investigation.

On Saturday, The New York Times reported that Trump's legal team sent a 20 page letter to the special counsel, arguing the president cannot "illegally obstruct any aspect of the investigation into Russia’s election meddling because the Constitution empowers him to, “if he wished, terminate the inquiry, or even exercise his power to pardon.”

However, in their document they were forced to admit the truth about Trump's involvement in writing the Trump Tower meeting statement for his son.

Host Dana Bash opened by reading their statement and then played video of Trump's personal attorney and WH press secretary lying to the American people about the whole incident.

Bash said, "I want to start with the news about this letter that the president's lawyers wrote to the special counsel back in January. His legal team admits that the president himself dictated that statement on the Trump Tower meeting. This is what the letter says. 'The president dictated a short but accurate response to the "New York Times" article on behalf of his son Donald Trump jr.'

She continued, "That's a direct contradiction to what the White House said last year. Take a listen."

On July, 12th 2017 Jay Sekulow said, "That was written by Donald Trump jr. and I'm sure with consultation with his lawyer so that wasn't written by the president."

On July 16th, 207 Sekulow said, "The president didn't sign off on anything....the president was not involved in the drafting of the statement and did not issue the statement. It came from Donald Trump jr."

On August 1st, 2017, Sarah Huckabee Sanders said, "He didn't dictate. but you know, he weighed in, offered suggestion like any father would do."

Bash continued, "Are you bothered by the fact that the White House lied about the president's involvement here?"

McCarthy thanked Bash for being on TV and then proceeded to gaslight her question.

McCarthy said, "Look, the one thing I have found, this has gone on for more than a year. Millions of dollars has been spent. The White House has been cooperating all the way through. This was all based upon was there collusion involved in the election. Everyone looked at this and said there is no collusion going forward."

Bash correctly replied, "Those are the talking points. This is a specific question. Are you concerned that the White House -- you heard the sound bytes and saw the statement from his own lawyers. They lied. Does that concern you?"

It's a fairly simple and straightforward question, but once again McCarthy refused to answer, à la Kellyanne Conway, making believe Dana Bash asked about Mueller's inquiries instead.

"They can go on with the investigation. What I am concerned most about was there any collusion? There was no collusion. This has gone on for more than a year and investigated in so many different manners..."

Apparently, the prima facie case of collusion made by the fact that Trump wrote the false alibi of Don Jr.'s meeting with Russians in an attempt to get "dirt" on Hillary rather than Russian adoptions (as Trump claimed) eludes McCarthy. Which is ironic since McCarthy is the one who openly acknowledged Trump's "special" relationship with Putin before the election.

Bash replied, "You don't want to answer the question about the lies."

Dana did a good job and gets some real credit here because first, she didn't frame her questions as the WH misconstrued a statement but clearly stated the White House lied many times over.

And it exposed Rep. McCarthy as a coward and the typical Trump surrogate; meaning they can never address the facts honestly.

Jay Sekulow lied to every news outlet he appeared on in 2017 when asked about the Trump Tower meeting and the subsequent statement.

Lies do matter, except of course if you were a Republican politician. This proves that nothing that comes out of the White House valid.

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