'He’s a pathological liar': Trump's 'absurd' claim shredded in new op-ed

Former President Donald Trump made an extraordinary claim in a Fox & Friends interview over the weekend: He never actually called for former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to be locked up. “I didn’t say ‘lock her up,’ but the people said, ‘lock her up, lock her up.’ Then, we won. And I say — and I said pretty openly — I said, ‘all right, come on, just relax, let’s go, we’ve got to make our country great,’” said Trump.

This is "absurd," wrote Bess Levin for Vanity Fair — and there are countless examples of Trump doing just that.

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"In fact, Trump called for Clinton to be imprisoned numerous times on the 2016 campaign trail, a small sampling of which includes: Saying during a July 2016 rally, 'Every time I mention her, everyone screams, ‘Lock her up, lock her up.’ 'You know what? I’m starting to agree with you.' Writing on X, then Twitter, 'Hillary Clinton should have been prosecuted and should be in jail. Instead she is running for president in what looks like a rigged election.' Declaring during a June 2016 rally that Clinton 'has to go to jail.' Telling Clinton during an October 2016 presidential debate: 'If I win, I am going to instruct my attorney general to get a special prosecutor to look into your situation,' and saying if he were in charge of the law she’d 'be in jail,'" wrote Levin.

At the time, Clinton was being hounded by the press over her use of a personal email server for State Department work, which may at some point have been sent information from classified documents. Then-FBI Director James Comey made clear after an extensive investigation that this was against policy and careless but not a crime.

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Ironically, Trump is now himself facing federal charges for stealing and hiding highly classified national defense information at his Mar-a-Lago resort in South Florida.

"Why is Trump trying to rewrite history here?" wrote Levin. "For one thing, he’s a pathological liar, and lying is his thing. But it also seems more than a little likely that he’s worried his many demands for Clinton — who was never even charged with a crime—to be sent to prison are going to come back to haunt him when he’s sentenced on July 11. While it’s possible the ex-president will get no time behind bars, four years in lockup are also on the table."