A Memory Trick for My President That Will Solve the Perjury Trap


 

Donald Trump is a forgetful guy. I can relate.

I’m always leaving my glasses in odd places. I have to think a little harder to remember names I’ve known pretty much forever.

My President is in his 70s now, and I’m close behind. The old joke is that when memory fades, we can save money on books. We can read the same mysteries over again and still be surprised by the ending.

In my case, lets update that to include videos from old television shows. I’ve been watching some programs from The West Wing. Remember that?

In one episode, a shooting nearly takes away some favorite characters. We watch scenes from their past as we wait to see whether they will survive. One character is an important advisor to the President: Toby Ziegler. We’re taken back to his experience as a minor political operative. He describes his success rate to a young lady he meets in a bar. She asks how many campaigns he has won.

Including city council, two Congressional races, a Senate race, a Gubernatorial campaign, and a national campaign…

He has to think for a moment.

…None.

None of them?

You gotta be impressed with my consistency.

He is questioned by an angry campaign official who is about to get him fired.

Do you enjoy losing?

Not that much, no. But then I haven’t had much to compare it to so…

He’s about to be fired because he gave the candidate, the candidate who would later become the President, a piece of simple advice. He is not fired after all, and that disastrous advice turns out to be an important reason the candidate goes on to win.

Toby’s perfect record of losing is broken.

I can’t say I learned much from that show, except there can be hope. I did hear a formula that I learned as a kid. When I have followed it, the most important memory issues have lessened, and sometimes even disappeared. I recommend it to my President now.

His problems with memory are getting some attention these days.

He had forgotten that it was his own Attorney General who had announced the decision. And that it was at the President’s direction.

If you are smuggling a child, then we will prosecute you. And that child may be separated from you as required by law.

Jeff Sessions, May 7, 2018

Actually, the law does not require any such thing. Children had been kept with parents wherever possible prior to the new Trump-Sessions policy. One largely unknown part of the policy, a very harsh part of it – heartless, really – is that the targets include those who do not arrive illegally, who lawfully apply for asylum. Their children are also being taken from them.

My President is now criticized for a memory lapse. Can you imagine that? He had forgotten that he had ordered the new policy and that it is not required by law.

This is not totally a matter of age.

Years ago, in younger days, one of the bosses called me into the office kitchen to point out my coffee cup. Left it in the kitchen. Well, actually in the refrigerator.

Same thing with President Trump, back when he was just Mister Trump.

In 1999, he was pro-choice.

I am pro-choice in every respect.

Meet the Press, October 24, 1999

I’m totally pro-choice.

Fox News with Tony Snow, October 31, 1999

By 2016, he was pro-life.

Do you believe in punishment for abortion, yes or no, as a principle?

The answer is…that…

…pause…

…there has to be some form of punishment.

For the woman?

Yes. There has to be some form.

Sometimes the man in a relationship will participate in that decision.

Is he responsible under the law for these abortions? Or is he not responsible for an abortion decision?

Different people, different feelings. Ah … I would say no.

Really?

Okay, that might mean he changed his mind about abortion rights. Right?

But the same day as the punish-the-woman-not-the-man interview, that same day, he kept forgetting what he believed. He adopted 3 different positions that afternoon, between 2:30 and 6:30. Three positions on abortion rights between 2:30 and 6:30 on March 30, 2016.

A few months before, on camera at CNN, Chris Cuomo asked him for his position on abortion rights:

I’m pro-choice.

You’re pro-choice or pro-life?

I’m pro-life, I’m sorry.

That’s a bit of forgetfulness.

In 2011 he was very angry at President Obama. Muammar Gaddafi had his thugs pounding in doors to kill whole families in neighborhoods that he thought were against him. He had to be stopped. Donald Trump made a video tape about it.

Gaddafi in Libya is killing thousands of people. Nobody knows how bad it is. And we’re sitting around. We have soldiers all over the Middle East, and we’re not bringing them in to stop this horrible carnage.

Obama needed to act.

We should go in, we should stop this guy, which would be very easy and very quick.

Obama did act. He had been quietly organizing behind the scenes with allies to get the dictator out without providing a new home for terrorists.

Five years later, the video had slipped Donald Trump’s mind. He had forgotten ever being in favor of getting Muammar Gaddafi out of Libya.

I was in favor of Libya? I never discussed that subject. I was in favor of Libya?

We would be so much better off if Gaddafi were in charge right now.

Republican Debate, February 25, 2016

I sense a memory pattern here.

In 2000, Donald Trump saw a problem with Ross Perot’s independent campaign:

Well, you’ve got David Duke just joined — a bigot, a racist, a problem. I mean, this is not exactly the people you want in your party.

with Matt Lauer, NBC, February 14, 2000

Anyone can forget an interview if he gives a lot of them. But how could he forget knowing that David Duke is a racist? How can he even forget knowing the name?

I don’t know anything about David Duke, okay? I don’t know what you’re even talking about with white supremacy or white supremacist.

CNN with Jake Tapper, February 28, 2016

Definitely a memory problem.

This sort of memory issue has overlapped into other serious areas. When President Trump fired his FBI Director, James Comey, it was to stop the FBI investigation into whether members of the Trump campaign had illegally worked with the Russian government to undermine American democracy. Interfering with that investigation pretty much fits the lay definition of obstruction of justice.

We know this happened because of what he said to Russian intelligence officials, including the Russian Ambassador to the United States, in a meeting held in the Oval Office soon after. Here is the quote:

I faced great pressure because of Russia. That’s taken off. I’m not under investigation.

MSNBC, May 19, 2017

It is true that some Trump representatives denied that he had said any such thing, but he soon went on television and set us all straight. Lester Holt asked him why he had fired James Comey.

When I decided to just do it, I said to myself, I said: You know, this Russia thing with Trump and Russia is a made-up story.

May 19, 2017

So everyone was surprised a year later when he forgot all that. He forgot what he said to Lester Holt and the American people. He forgot what he said to the Russian Ambassador and his small contingent of Russian spies.

He forgot the reason he had fired his FBI Director. He forgot that he had wanted to interfere with the investigation into those who conspired with the Russian government to undermine American democracy.

His memory issues turn out to be a possible legal problem. The Trump folks want to see all the evidence investigators have before President Trump agrees to talk with them under oath.

I mean the reality is we’re not gonna sit him down if this is a trap for perjury…

Rudy Giuliani, May 27, 2018

The idea is that, since President Trump’s memory keeps shifting, FBI documents will prove that what he says is false. So he wants to know in advance what all the evidence says so he can adjust his memory to the facts that have been discovered so far, and not be accused of perjury.

Here is where I can help him out. And I’m happy to do it.

It’s a little memory trick I learned as a kid. And my life has been a lot easier when I use it.

I confess it doesn’t help with the small stuff, like lost keys and names I can’t quite remember. But it does keep me out of trouble.

The fictional character in my television show says it as well as I can. So here’s what Toby Ziegler describes his advice to the candidate who one day becomes President.

I said then if he’s asked about it tonight he should, if only because it’s the easiest thing to remember, tell the truth.

So there you are, Mr. President. Forget about looking at the documents to see what investigators already know. Forget about trying to keep your story straight. You won’t have a memory issue or a perjury problem if you just use my little memory trick.

… if only because it’s the easiest thing to remember, tell the truth.

The truth, Mr. President. Just tell the truth.


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3 thoughts on “A Memory Trick for My President That Will Solve the Perjury Trap”

  1. Maybe our feeble minds are simply incapable of understanding the profound thinking of a stable genius?

    Trump has no reason to remember or speak the truth, just as he has no need for compassion and decency. Hate and lies have been his MO and path to power.

    And as he who lives by the sword…

  2. The only similarity between “Telling The Truth” and “Trump” is that all the letters begin with “T”.

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