Last updated on July 17th, 2023 at 09:14 pm
Kurt Eichenwald dropped a bombshell on Donald Trump’s campaign when he demonstrated that Trump either lied at the Republican debate when Jeb Bush said Trump tried to get casino gambling in Florida, or in a 2007 deposition as part of a lawsuit surrounding his attempt to bring casino gambling to Florida.
“Donald Trump committed perjury. Or he looked into the faces of the Republican faithful and knowingly lied. There is no third option.”
That’s right. Trump either lied under oath as part of a lawsuit against “Richard Fields, whom Trump had hired to manage the expansion of his casino business into Florida,” or he lied to Republicans at the CNN GOP debate.
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And for the record, PolitiFact ruled in Jeb’s favor almost exactly a year ago, as did CBS News.
Trump either lied and broke the law, or he lied.
“Here is reality,” tweeted Eichenwald. “Trump committed perjury or lied to Republicans while standing in the Ronald Reagan Library.”
So sad!
Eichenwald explains that,
“The deposition was part of a lawsuit he’d filed against Richard Fields, whom Trump had hired to manage the expansion of his casino business into Florida. In the suit, Trump claimed that Fields had quit and taken all of the information he obtained while working for Trump to another company. Under oath, Trump said he did want to get into casino gambling in Florida but didn’t because he had been cheated by Fields.”
Of course, you all remember Trump’s back and forth with Jeb Bush at the Republican debate when Trump said if he’d wanted casino gambling in Florida he’d have gotten it:
“The one guy that had some special interests that I know of that tried to get me to change my views on something—that was generous and gave me money—was Donald Trump,†Bush said. “He wanted casino gambling in Florida.”
Trump interrupted Bush:
Trump: I didn’t—
Bush: Yes, you did.
Trump: Totally false.
Bush: You wanted it, and you didn’t get it, because I was opposed to—
Trump: I would have gotten it.
Bush: Casino gambling before—
Trump: I promise, I would have gotten it.
Bush: During and after. I’m not going to be bought by anybody.
Trump: I promise, if I wanted it, I would have gotten it.
Bush: No way. Believe me.
Trump: I know my people.
Bush: Not even possible.
Trump: I know my people.
Here is Trump’s other version of events, told under oath:
Lawyer: You knew that Governor Bush, Jeb Bush at that time, was opposed to expansion of gaming in Florida, didn’t you?
Trump: I thought that he could be convinced otherwise.
Lawyer: But you didn’t change his mind about his anti-gaming stance, did you?
Trump: Well, I never really had that much of an opportunity because Fields resigned, telling me you could never get what we wanted done, only to do it for another company.
In other words, Trump did not fail to get casino gambling because he really did not want it, but because he was unable to get it as a result of the actions of Richard Fields.
Eichenwald said in a tweet, “This story proves that if Trump loses, he will scream fraud. Because he cannot psychologically admit to losing.” As he explains in Newsweek,
“If Trump was telling the truth that night, so be it. But if he was lying, what was his purpose? His “If I wanted it, I would have gotten it,†line may be a hint. Contrary to his many vague stories on the campaign trail about being a cash-doling political puppet master, this story has a name, a specific goal and ends in failure. If Bush was telling the truth, then Trump would have had to admit he lost a round and, as he assured the audience, that would not have happened. When he wants something, he gets it.”
Donald Trump either lied under oath in a deposition, or he lied to America in a debate. Either way, he lied. It is just a matter of determining which utterance is a lie.
As Eichenwald puts it, Trump “regularly peddles ‘facts’ that aren’t true, describes events that never happened or denies engaging in actions that everyone saw him do.” The Clinton campaign just released a staggering 19 pages of fact-checked Trump lies.
Trump lied. And never more publicly or explosively than here, where he is either exposed as a man who lies under oath, or someone who lies to the people he wants to vote for him – and worse, based on the myths he has created of himself – failed to get what he wanted.
Hrafnkell Haraldsson, a social liberal with leanings toward centrist politics has degrees in history and philosophy. His interests include, besides history and philosophy, human rights issues, freedom of choice, religion, and the precarious dichotomy of freedom of speech and intolerance. He brings a slightly different perspective to his writing, being that he is neither a follower of an Abrahamic faith nor an atheist but a polytheist, a modern-day Heathen who follows the customs and traditions of his Norse ancestors. He maintains his own blog, A Heathen’s Day, which deals with Heathen and Pagan matters, and Mos Maiorum Foundation www.mosmaiorum.org, dedicated to ethnic religion. He has also contributed to NewsJunkiePost, GodsOwnParty and Pagan+Politics.
