Trump told four lies about the DoJ's IG report in one short Fox News interview.

Vox.com's Zach Beauchamp spots four lies that President Trump told, just within one short news segment on Fox News.   This was about the long-awaited Inspector
General's (IG) report on the Department of Justice and FBI's handling of the investigation into Hillary Clinton's email case.

Lie #1.    Trump says the FBI was working against him during the campaign.  "They were plotting against my election."

   Report:   "We did not find . . . evidence that improper considerations, including political bias, directly affected the specific investigative decisions we reviewed."  When confronted with this by the interviewer, Trump simply claimed that the "no bias conclusion" was irresponsible.

Lie #2:   Trump claims that the IG "blew it" by concluding the FBI wasn't biased.

   Report:  The question of FBI bias is thoroughly examined in depth and repeated throughout the report.   This included examples of anti-Trump text messages sent by one FBI official to a friend.   But, after looking carefully, there is no evidence that this affected the decisions or actions of this same official in the investigation.  This was a conclusion reached after a examining a tremendous amount of evidence.  In fact, at one point, this same official recommended an even more rigorous examination of the Clinton email case than others did.

Lie #3:   Trump claims that the IG report "completely exonerates" him.  "I did nothing wrong . . . no collusion, no obstruction. . . . I think the Mueller investigation has been totally discredited."

   Report:   The IG report did not present any conclusions about the Trump-Russia ties.   That was not it's focus.  It covered only the appropriateness of the FBI's conduct in 2016.   It couldn't conclude anything about obstruction of justice because it doesn't cover the time Trump has been in office.   For the same reason, it couldn't discredit Mueller's investigation, which didn't begin until May 2017.

Lie $#4:   Trump said that James Comey is a criminal.  "What he did was criminal . . . so bad in terms of the Constitution, in terms of the well-being of our country."  [An aside:   When before has Donald Trump ever been concerned with the Constitution?   Certainly not when he's acting on his own instincts.] 

   Report:  Inspector General Horowitz, an eminently respected, senior officer of the Justice Department, was harshly critical of some of Comey's actions as FBI director.  "In key moments, . . . [he] chose to deviate from the FBI's and the Department's established procedures and norms and instead engaged in his own subjective, ad hoc decision-making."   But there is no evidence in the report that Comey violated any kind of criminal statute, let alone acted unconstitutionally.

In fact, the report concludes that Comey's decisions during the Clinton email investigation,"while questionable, came from his professional judgment and were not the result of any malign intent."    The report further said that Comey's decision not to recommend prosecution of Clinton was the result of the evidence and his understanding of the proof required to pursue prosecution under the relevant statutes."

The criticism of Comey has largely come as the result of the way he handled the public statements about the closing -- and then the reopening -- of the case shortly before the election;   not about the conduct of the investigation itself.

In a New York Times article, reporter Peter Baker sums up this aspect of the report:  "To the extent that the F.B.I. and its director at the time, James B. Comey, did anything wrong in 2016 . . .  it was to the disadvantage of Mr. Trump's opponent, Hillary Clinton."

Of course, what's really at play here with Trump is that he is trying to use this to his advantage politically.   Whether he is factually correct is of no concern to him.   It's the public image and message that is all-important -- specifically, the message to his base voters.   The fact that a majority of Americans now see him as a chronic liar does not seem to bother him at all.  It's all just a-historical, transactional tactics to gain your aim of the moment.

In fact, he made an astonishing admission just a couple of days ago.   When confronted with one of his lies by a reporter, his defense was that, well, it wasn't like it was sworn testimony.   In other words, the president is admitting that we shouldn't necessarily take what he says as the truth.   Many legal observers differ with that.   When the president of the United States says something to the public, in public, we should be able to assume he's not lying -- unless it's to conceal some matter of national security.

Stop just a minute though.   Contemplate what it means to have a president about whom one would need to write this blog post.   And that's true of almost every day and every issue.

Our allies -- and our adversaries -- know this too.   We can be sure that the adversaries will take advantage of it.

Ralph