September 16, 2016 | No Comments
Former President Barack Obama speechwriter Jon Favreau on Friday accused Ari Fleischer of knowingly lying about Hillary Clinton’s role in starting the birther conspiracy movement.
“You’re lying, Ari — and you’re smart enough to know you’re lying, which makes it even worse,” Favreau tweeted at Fleischer, a former press secretary to former President George W. Bush.
Favreau was responding to a Fleischer tweet in which the Republican asked if Clinton would apologize for “her staff spreading that rumor when she ran vs Obama in ’08?”
Trump accused Clinton of starting the rumor in a speech Friday. The speech also marked the first time that Trump personally stated that he believed Obama was born in the U.S.
Multiple fact-checkers have found no connection between Clinton’s campaign and the birther movement, saying instead that some Clinton supporters furthered those claims while Clinton was losing to Obama in the primary.
.@AriFleischer I was there, and you weren’t, so I know it’s not true. And every fact-checker and journalist in America says it’s not true.
— Jon Favreau (@jonfavs) September 16, 2016
Trump had spent years suggesting otherwise, leading a “birther” movement that falsely claimed Obama is ineligible for the White House.