The man who directed the White House press office during Bill Clinton’s impeachment is telling lies this week about Congress’ similar proceedings against President Trump.
Crazy, right?
Joe Lockhart, who now hosts a podcast and appears on CNN as a contributor, tweeted this week, “Overheard convo between two Republican Senators who only watch Fox News. ‘Is this stuff real? I haven’t heard any of this before. I thought it was all about a server. If half the stuff Schiff is saying is true, we’re up shit’s creek. Hope the White House has exculpatory evidence.”
This is a lie. The supposed overheard conversation obviously never happened. But Lockhart’s tweet went viral anyway because people will believe anything they hear so long as it confirms their priors. As of this writing, more than 10,000 social media users have shared Lockhart’s “scoop.” Later, after his note was already widely disseminated, he wrote, “Ok maybe I made up the convo, but you know that’s exactly what they’re thinking.”
“Everyone relax,” Lockhart added. “This is satire. Satire to make the point that Senators that are deciding the President’s fate who only watch Fox News have never heard this stuff before. Because Fox is part of the coverup.”
By Thursday, he was still defending the original tweet, which many users obviously took for a genuine piece of news.
“I have to say getting lectured by the Trump campaign and Breibart on the virtue of honesty is perhaps the funniest thing I’ve ever experienced,” Lockhart wrote, ignoring that even the most ardent liberals have called on him to delete his supposed “satire.”
I would like to pause here to point out that Lockhart’s podcast motto is: “Dedicated to truth, facts and objective reality.”
If this former Clinton White House flunky’s seemingly proud embrace of dishonesty surprises you, it shouldn’t. Lockhart, who served as a spokesman for Bill Clinton’s 1996 reelection campaign before leading the White House press office during Clinton’s impeachment, is no stranger to defending lies and the people who tell them. Indeed, it was once Lockhart’s job to run interference for a president who perjured himself over an extramarital affair with a 22-year-old intern. In fact, according to a 1998 Washington Post report, Lockhart worked harder than most to run defense for Bill Clinton during the Monica Lewinsky investigation.
The report reads:
[…]
When the White House was accused of delaying the Lewinsky probe through yet another legal appeal, Lockhart whispered to [outgoing Clinton press secretary Mike McCurry] that it was Day 1,400 of the Kenneth Starr investigation — and that became the sound bite on all the networks.
“He’s fed me a lot of lines that I’ve gotten credit for,” McCurry confesses.
[…]
Pressed further about Clinton’s lie, Lockhart turns opaque, saying, “I’m trying as hard as I can not to be quotable.”
Lockhart’s challenge is to be a body blocker for a president facing possible impeachment while satisfying the minimum dietary requirements of voracious reporters — and their bosses.
[…]
Lockhart became Clinton’s chief scandal flack after the Lewinsky saga erupted, chiding reporters for what he described as shoddy stories or demanding that they investigate leaks by Starr’s office.
There is exactly nothing surprising about Lockhart’s bogus tweets this week. Presenting fiction as truth during a time of impeachment is sort of his specialty.
