Trump lied 60 times in 2006 deposition — but now the stakes are 'so much higher': WaPo reporter
Former president Donald Trump fares poorly in depositions because he can be fact-checked in real time, according to Washington Post reporter David Fahrenthold.
This week, a New York judge ruled that Trump and two of his adult children, Don Jr. and Ivanka, must sit for depositions as part of state Attorney General Letitia James' civil investigation into his company's business practices.
Fahrenthold told MSNBC on Saturday that if Trump chooses to answer questions during his deposition, he could be in trouble.
"Here's what's interesting about a deposition, and why Trump has done poorly in depositions before," Fahrenthold said. "His whole MO, the reason he keeps so many secrets about himself, is that he wants himself to be the only arbiter of truth about himself. He wants there to be so little known that when he makes claims of —'I'm worth $10 billion. I've done this or that. I'm the greatest golfer ever' — nobody else has the information to fact-check him in real time. That's not what a deposition is like. A deposition is the opposite. You go in with questioners who know you better than you do, and every question that he's asked by the attorney general, they're going to already know the answer, and they'll know if you're lying."
"In one great example, in 2006 Trump was in a deposition in a civil lawsuit, when he heard he got caught lying 60 different times just in one deposition because the lawyers knew enough to challenge him right there," Fahrenthold said. "In that case, the stakes were just a civil lawsuit. In this case, if he chooses to engage and gets caught lying, the stakes are so much higher, because we're talking about a deposition in a civil lawsuit that could be used potentially in a criminal case."
Watch below.
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