GOP Ethics Lawyer Proposes Using Lie Detectors During White House Press Briefings

Last updated on May 25th, 2018 at 08:25 am

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If this isn’t an idea we can all get behind, then I’m not sure what is.

On Saturday, former George W. Bush ethics lawyer Richard Painter made a suggestion so simple, it’s hard to understand why it wasn’t proposed sooner in the age of Trump.

In an interview on MSNBC‘s AM Joy, Painter said it’s time to rig up the podium in the press briefing room with a lie detector.

Video:

Painter said:

They are trying to cover things up, and now they’re talking about bringing lie detectors into the White House – at least Kellyanne Conway was talking about that. I suggest they put one in the press podium right there. The place would light up like a disco. I mean this – it’s crazy.

The ex-Bush ethics lawyer made similar comments on Twitter late Friday:

Painter’s jab at the unending stream of lies that pour out of the White House came after White House counselor and alternative-fact peddler Kellyanne Conway suggested Friday that the Department of Justice may start using polygraph tests to determine who’s been leaking information to the press.

“They may, they may not,” Conway told Fox News. “There are many different ways to discover who is leaking.”

In other words, the administration isn’t happy when actual truth just so happens to creep out of the White House, so they’re going to use polygraph testing to put a stop to it.

Of course, if the technology was used in the briefing room since the start of the administration, it would have lit up like a disco, as Painter said, on day one during the infamous Sean Spicer lie about Trump‘s inauguration crowd.

In a White House where lying is second nature, it’s ironic that anybody in the building would float the idea of subjecting administration officials to a lie detector test.

If fully implemented, there’d likely be nobody left in the White House.

Sean Colarossi

Sean Colarossi currently resides in Cleveland, Ohio. He earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in Journalism from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and was an organizing fellow for both of President Obama’s presidential campaigns. He also worked with Planned Parenthood as an Affordable Care Act Outreach Organizer in 2014, helping northeast Ohio residents obtain health insurance coverage.