Greg Sargent: Trump's latest lies about the Ukraine scandal are imploding fast

[Dennis Donovan]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/10/07/trumps-latest-lies-about-ukraine-scandal-are-imploding-fast/

By Greg Sargent Opinion writer

Oct. 7, 2019 at 10:34 a.m. EDT

In the past 48 hours or so, President Trump and his allies have debuted a new set of absurdities designed to defend him amid the worsening Ukraine scandal. Let’s sum up the emerging set of positions:

Trump didn’t really pressure the Ukrainian president to investigate Joe Biden. Fake News!

The whistleblower was lying when he claimed Trump pressured the Ukrainian president to investigate Joe Biden. Deep State!

Democrats are perpetrating a massive fraud on the American people in claiming Trump pressured the Ukrainian president to investigate Joe Biden. Drain the Swamp!

When Trump pressured the Ukrainian president to investigate Joe Biden, it was absolutely the right thing to do. The Fake News and the Deep State are telling you otherwise because Trump is successfully DRAINING THE SWAMP!

The careful reader will discern the problem here. Trumpworld is suggesting he didn’t actually pressure Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to help him rig the election by manufacturing smears of his potential general-election opponent — while simultaneously claiming he did the right thing in doing so.

This set of inanities illustrates just how untenable Trump’s standing in this whole scandal has become. It also points to how Trump and his allies hope to lay down a covering fog of disinformation as the facts become more and more inarguable.

Ron Johnson’s howler
The first of these absurdities comes from Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.). On “Meet the Press,” Johnson sprayed a bunch of conspiracy theories about the genesis of the Russia investigation, then claimed that Trump’s only goal is to get to the bottom of that.

“Unlike the narrative of the press that President Trump wants to dig up dirt on his 2020 opponent, what he wants is an accounting of what happened in 2016,” Johnson claimed. Trump quickly hailed Johnson for supposedly routing “Sleepy Eyes Chuck Todd.”

Of course, the rough White House transcript of Trump’s call itself unequivocally shows that Trump did pressure Zelensky to “dig up dirt on his 2020 opponent.” Trump told Zelensky that Biden “stopped the prosecution” of his son, which is a lie, and prodded Zelensky to “look into it,” thus pressing him to manufacture a smear of Biden.

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Good read!

[blm]

1. Seriously - one crime after another

[malaise]

2. Off to the greatest page

Rec

[jberryhill]

3. The defenses are aimed at different audiences

He's done this sort of thing before. While, sure, it's easy to say, "But he just contradicted himself" there is a fascinating thing that humans appear to do when faced with that sort of contradiction, and it's not a particularly "right" or "left" phenomenon.

Basically, it invites people to pick one or the other of these:

"He didn't attempt to extort Ukraine for political purposes, but it would have been okay even if he did."

or

"He did extort Ukraine for political purposes, and it was a fine thing to do, but the other side isn't entitled to the truth because they are corrupt and just want to use it as an excuse for an investigation."

You see that kind of thing frequently with conspiracy theories. Counterfactual information simply introduces another wrinkle into the fabric of the conspiracy. Once you have a band of supporters, it's pretty easy to talk out of both sides of your mouth, because any subset of those supporters will simply weave a rationalization around the version of your story which they don't believe, and accept the one you do believe.

[RAB910]

4. Age will diminish a liar's skills