As an Independent and former GOP voter, it concerns me when I see defenders of the president obviously lying in interviews. Today, Pam Bondi echoed an unchecked lie used by the president’s son last week on CBS Morning News. The lie is Republicans were not present for closed door committee testimony, when about half of committee is Republican. This is intentional disinformation and should be corrected by the interviewer.
What further troubles me is when Congresspeople say obvious untruths, either in interviews or in opening testimony. I left a message with Devin Nunes asking him to be more truthful. And, yet again last night, I saw a ranking minority member of the Judiciary Committee be loose with the truth.
It concerns me that resorting to untruthful statements is a line of defense. Organizations take on the personality of their leader. So, when your leader is untruthful, the sycophants must fall in line or be bullied. But, it is equally concerning when these speakers feel they can get away with misinformation and disinformation. A key clue to dig further is the speaker’s smugness and history with the truth.
I have many concerns about the president’s modus operandi of untruthfulness, bullying and obstruction. We are also dealing with alleged abuse of power. Two questions – if the president is so concerned about a fair hearing, why is he stopping key people on his staff from testifying? You can’t have it both ways.
The other is why is he running a shadow diplomacy through Rudy Guiliani, who has not been vetted by the Senate? This should get more airplay. Guiliani’s role is and has been a major concern of the diplomats who havr testified.
I have shared with lawmakers that I support the impeachment hearings. Regardless of party, we cannot have a president act the way the president acts and who appears to have abused his power on top of confirmed lying, bullying and obstruction. Our country deserves better than this.
musingsofanoldfart 
The danger here is Keith as long as 50,000,000+ people are in denial and would have anyone but a democrat .
Roger, that shows it an uphill climb. 50 million don’t realize how untruthful and corrupt the master tweeter is. Keith
I fear Keith, there is the one aspect which many folk feel ill at-ease in discussing. 50,000,000+ white voters horrified that ‘one of those people’ was elected twice into the Whitehouse. No doubt there a few million who make no bones about it.
From the outside it is so obvious.
Roger, I believe it would be unfair to label all 50 million that way. There is a small percentage that represent an ugly extreme vantage point. But, many are tribal in support of a person who sold an ointment for fears he inflated. The cognitive dissonance is harder to crack when the information source to calm their dissonance is the one lying. Keith
You’re damn right Keith. We deserve so much better. Excellent post.
Thanks Jeff. We do. I keep waiting for the Republican lawmskers to actually listen to the testimony from reputable people rather than tweets from one who is not. Keith
Jeff, it tickles me how the Teflon Don attempts to say he is exonerated. Everyone is ordered to work with Rudy. No one wants to, but they follow the president’s orders. So, Rudy is rightfully presumed to speak for the president. The you-no-what hits the fan and the president distances himself saying you did not hear me order it. There are many derogatory terms that identify this kind of behavior, none of which is very flattering. The one I would use to define such behavior is “weasel-like.” Keith
Amen!
Roger, Jeff, now that Messers. Pompeo and Pence are in denial mode after Gordon Sondland said everyone was in the loop with emails to back up some of his assertions. Yet, we should fail to remember Mick Mulvaney’s blurting out at a press conference, “Of course, there was quid pro quo, get over it.”
A key question for the Republican guard dogs is why is the president preventing Mulvaney, Pompeo, Bolton et al from testifying and releasing documents? Keith
Note to Readers: Testimony by DOD Asst Secretary Laura Cooper late this afternoon blew a hole when Ukraine knew of security hold:
Per Reuters, “Cooper said that her staff had received an email on July 25 from the State Department saying that Ukraine’s embassy and the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee were asking about security assistance.
‘On July 25 a member of my staff got a question from a Ukrainian Embassy contact asking what was going on with U.S. security assistance,’ Cooper told the House Intelligence Committee at the impeachment hearing.”
To me, it reveals Ukraine knew what was going down. It also reveals they are scared of Trump cutting assistance. They are not unlike Republican legislators in that regard.
Great post, Keith! It seems to me that all the lying is evidence that the republicans who are trying so hard to defend the indefensible don’t have any actual facts that support their position, so they are grasping at straws. Perhaps they can use those straws to get air from the surface as they sink deeper and deeper into the muck.
Jill, so true. To discredit Dr. Hill, Devin Nunes cited a partisan report that GOP Senator Richard Burr went to Speaker Paul Ryan to suppress because his Intelligence committee did not agree with its conclusions. Keith
Sigh.