We told you James Mattis and John Kelly didn’t write those “statements” about the Bob Woodward Book
When Donald Trump tweeted out a pair of supposed statements from Secretary of Defense James Mattis and White House Chief of Staff John Kelly, Palmer Report spelled out the numerous reasons why we doubted that the statements actually came from them. We were hoping a major news outlet would confront Trump about the authenticity of these statements today, and sure enough, Trump ended up having to address the matter twice today. Suffice it to say that we now have a whole new way of looking at these statements.
This afternoon, Donald Trump told a group of reporters that he had no idea Mattis and Kelly had even written statements supporting him against the accusations made in Bob Woodward’s book. Trump said “I was every honored when, without my even knowing about it, statements were put out by General Kelly, by General Mattis.” Again, these two statements were first issued to the public when Trump tweeted them from his account. So much for the idea that he didn’t know about it. But it was his second quote that gave the whole thing away.
A couple hours after Trump made the above statement, he told a different story to a group of reporters. Trump claimed that James Mattis had come to him and said “I’d like to write a statement.” So now Trump is claiming that he didn’t know Mattis was going to write a statement, to claiming that Mattis personally told him he was going to write a statement.
In light of these two conflicting claims from Donald Trump, both of which are surely lies, does anyone still believe there’s any chance that these supposed statements from James Mattis and John Kelly were on the up and up? The jig was up when Trump tweeted the statements instead of having Mattis and Kelly release them to the media themselves. But now there’s no doubt whatsoever. We told you Mattis and Kelly didn’t write these statements.
