Top Ten Presidential Lies of All Time

Let me state a clear and obvious fact.

Even Presidents lie. Now, just to be clear, being wrong about the details, or misremembering something is not necessarily the same as lying (by my definition anyway). I tend to think of lies as being deliberate attempts to deceive, or stating something that the speaker knows full well is not true. So with those criteria in mind, here is my list of the biggest presidential lies of all time.

10. Donald Trump and a multitude of exaggerations. So, I’m already going against my original definition, but if I don’t put him on the list the Liberals will cry foul. Although the mainstream media (and a ton of Democrats) call him a liar on a daily basis, rarely do they make any attempt to provide any specific examples. When they do, the so-called lies are often nothing more than ego-driven bragging and less actual lies. Insisting that the crowd at his inauguration was the largest ever may not be factually correct, but it’s hardly a deliberate attempt to deceive (again, bragging to make himself look good). Every speech he delivers is followed by a list of alleged lies told, but many of the fact-checkers on TV could use a refresher course on the difference between FACT and OPINION. Often the lies reported are nothing more than differing political viewpoints. If the President says there is a crisis on the border and you disagree, that doesn’t make the statement a lie. (Just makes you wrong IMHO, but oh well.)

9. Barack Obama blames Bush for the Fast and Furious scandal. On repeated occasions, the President either implied or stated directly that the operation that cost the lives of several Americans was begun under the previous administration. In truth, the Bush administration had nothing to do with the plan developed and put in place by Eric Holder, Obama’s Attorney General (and apparently approved by FBI Director Robert Mueller). Actually, this entire list could be filled by the numerous attempts to blame the economy, foreign policy, and a variety of major scandals on the previous administration. And efforts to take credit for the accomplishments of the current administration. (Sorry, Barry, you didn’t build that.)

8. James Polk (1845), William McKinley (1898), Franklin Roosevelt (1940), Lyndon Johnson (1964) – All of these Presidents lied about going into various wars. Polk provoked a skirmish on the border, claimed Mexico started it, and got us into the Mexican-American War as a way to grab some land, California and New Mexico to be exact. McKinley blamed the sinking of the U.S.S. Maine on Spain causing the Spanish-American War. Later investigations showed that the explosion that sank the ship was caused by an accidental fire. FDR was actively campaigning for a third term while telling the American people, "Your boys are not going to be sent into any foreign wars." Most believe he was already planning our entry into WWII. Johnson announced to the American people that two U.S. ships had been attacked in Vietnam’s Gulf of Tonkin and promised a swift and aggressive response. In reality, LBJ had been planning to invade North Vietnam all along. The unprovoked attack on the U.S. ships never happened. (Many would include George W. Bush’s reports of Saddam Hussein and his WMDs here, but truthfully, chemical weapons were eventually found in Iraq, so not exactly a lie after all.)

7. Hillary Clinton (the People’s President) – Take your pick! Seriously almost anything in response to her email controversy would work here. I’m particularly appalled by her casual relationship with the truth when it comes to her answer about wiping the hard drive on her server (after it had been subpoenaed). “Like with a cloth?” Seriously? Of course, she told repeated lies about the content of the emails as well, claiming there were no classified materials (and claiming not to know or understand how such documents were marked). And who knows what was in the deleted emails that she and her staff determined were just personal stuff. Nothing to see here, folks, move along.

More outrageous by far were the lies told by Hillary, Obama, and others in his administration who lied repeatedly about the causes of the Benghazi attack that resulted in the deaths of four Americans. Despite clear (and early) evidence that it was a planned terrorist attack, they continued to state publically that it was a spontaneous reaction to a YouTube video.

6. Barack Obama – When asked in a televised interview when he learned about Hillary Clinton’s use of an unsecured email server, the President said, “The same time everybody else learned it, through news reports.” Later, the Inspector general’s report showed that he had been one of the 13 top government officials who had communicated with her through this private email server. Apparently, he had even used an alias to disguise himself. So much for the lie that he was not aware all along that she was using something other than the official email for her position.

5. Ronald Reagan, "We did not, I repeat, did not trade weapons or anything else (to Iran) for hostages, nor will we." It was later determined that we had indeed made such arrangements. You can debate all you want about ethical considerations, but in hindsight, we clearly made a deal to free our people and apparently, everyone involved knew we were doing exactly what we had said we wouldn't do. Still my favorite President of all time, Reagan was an effective leader who accomplished great things while in office, but this lie was a big one.

4. George H. W. Bush, “Read my lips. No new taxes.” And yet, he eventually signed bills that raised taxes. Imagine that! In all fairness, at the time of the statement, he may have been as honest as he could be regarding his intentions. Nevertheless, when you proclaim something so clearly and directly, (and probably get elected because of the promise), not following through makes the statement sound like a huge lie. It also made it virtually impossible to win re-election. If you don’t care for the Clinton Crime Family, it is generally conceded that the effect of this big lie, led directly to the election of Bill as President.

3. Richard Nixon, “I am not a crook.” For many years, I held a great fascination with all things related to the Watergate scandal. While I have never believed that he knew about the specific acts beforehand, I have no doubts that the President was actively involved in the cover-up. You can argue about the use of the term crook and whether or not it applies in this case, but he more than likely broke a few laws in the process, and he certainly knew what he had done when he made the public statement declaring himself to be innocent.

2. Barack Obama, "If you like your doctor, you'll be able to keep your doctor, if you like your health care plan, you'll be able to keep your health care plan." Based on multiple sources, including one of the original architects of the Affordable Care Act, the President and pretty much everyone else in the administration knew all along that many people would be forced to change their plan and lose their doctor. (A separate, but related lie was the insistence that health insurance premiums would be lowered.) Despite the obvious facts, the President repeated this huge lie over and over again while attempting to sell his plan to the American people.

And the biggest lie ever told by a US President -

1. Bill Clinton, “I did not have sexual relations with that woman.” When a sitting US President goes on national TV, looks directly into the camera, and makes a bold, declarative statement such as this, it is pretty disconcerting to find out later that he was lying through his teeth. For those of us who saw this performance live, he was fairly convincing. Whether you believed him or not, he was very direct and didn’t dance around the issue, like later when he tried to say it depended on the definition of the word is. Of course, by this point in his political career, he had spent decades perfecting his denials of sexual encounters. Even if you don’t believe the matter was an important one, this one still tops my list for sheer gall on display. And I’m sorry, but it still offends me that the President was carrying on his affairs in the Oval Office!