January 23, 2020

How Many Impeachment Lies Can You Find in This Trump Tweet?

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After setting a personal record for most tweets in a single day, President Donald Trump was back on his favorite social media platform Thursday morning, tearing into Democrats, the impeachment trial, and billionaire presidential candidate Mike Bloomberg. 

But one tweet stood out, because it was packed with so many brazen lies:

Let’s break these down one-by-one.

  1. Trump lie: Democrats are now demanding “witnesses that the House never sought.” Earlier this week, Senate Democrats attempted to subpoena four Trump administration officials, including former national security adviser John Bolton and White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney. Senate Republicans blocked those efforts on party-line votes. House Democrats had requested testimony from all four of those officials during last year’s impeachment hearings, and all four refused to comply after the White House ordered them not to cooperate.
  2. Trump lie: House Democrats wouldn’t give us witnesses. The House called four witnesses that Republicans lawmakers—who were working in close coordination with the White House—requested: Kurt Volker, Tim Morrison, David Hale, and Jonathan Turley. 
  3. Trump lie: House Democrats “would not give us lawyers.” In fact, the House Judiciary Committee invited both Trump and his legal defense team to participate in the proceedings but, surprise, they rejected the offer. “House Democrats have wasted enough of America’s time with this charade. You should end this inquiry now and not waste even more time with additional hearings,” White House counsel Pat Cipollone wrote in a December letter declining the invitation.

Trump’s Thursday morning tweet isn’t exactly a surprise. After all, his lawyers rattled off a host of lies during their appearances on the first day of the Senate impeachment trial. But it demonstrates the misinformation echo chamber both Trump and his allies are relying on to help them survive this historic trial.

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WE'LL BE BLUNT.

We have a considerable $390,000 gap in our online fundraising budget that we have to close by June 30. There is no wiggle room, we've already cut everything we can, and we urgently need more readers to pitch in—especially from this specific blurb you're reading right now.

We'll also be quite transparent and level-headed with you about this.

In "News Never Pays," our fearless CEO, Monika Bauerlein, connects the dots on several concerning media trends that, taken together, expose the fallacy behind the tragic state of journalism right now: That the marketplace will take care of providing the free and independent press citizens in a democracy need, and the Next New Thing to invest millions in will fix the problem. Bottom line: Journalism that serves the people needs the support of the people. That's the Next New Thing.

And it's what MoJo and our community of readers have been doing for 47 years now.

But staying afloat is harder than ever.

In "This Is Not a Crisis. It's The New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, why this moment is particularly urgent, and how we can best communicate that without screaming OMG PLEASE HELP over and over. We also touch on our history and how our nonprofit model makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there: Letting us go deep, focus on underreported beats, and bring unique perspectives to the day's news.

You're here for reporting like that, not fundraising, but one cannot exist without the other, and it's vitally important that we hit our intimidating $390,000 number in online donations by June 30.

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