This headline appeared on a National Public Radio story about Paul Manafort, Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign chairman: “Manafort intentionally lied so special counsel, judge says.”
It made me crack open by trusty American Heritage Dictionary. I looked up the word “lie.” It says a lie is “a false statement deliberately presented as true.”
The key word here is “deliberately.” Which begs the question: How does someone lie by accident, or without intending to lie?
The judge has slammed Manafort hard, saying the president’s former campaign chairman lied to special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe into “The Russia Thing.”
Manafort lied. He did it on purpose. Which is precisely what a lie is defined as being.
I am wondering now about this notion that somehow it is news that Manafort “intentionally” lied to Mueller.
A false statement presented as true by accident is a “misstatement”; it’s a mistake, a verbal gaffe. Manafort has taken a page from his former boss. He lied.