Joe Lockhart, CNN analyst and former White House Press Secretary under Bill Clinton, admitted fabricating a conversation between two GOP senators supposedly shocked at learning what President Trump had done during the impeachment trial.
Lockhart on Wednesday tweeted that he had “overheard” a discussion between two Republican lawmakers who had supposedly become enlightened by the facts after remaining in the dark because they “only watch Fox News.”
“[I]s this stuff real? I haven’t heard any of this before. I thought it was all about a server,” he wrote. “If half the stuff Schiff is saying is true, we’re up shit’s creek. Hope the White House has exculpatory evidence.”
Those were words he shared in the public domain using quotations.
Of course, a majority of the ‘stuff’ Democrat Impeachment Manager Adam Schiff is saying is untrue.
And, it turns out, Lockhart took a page from Schiff, who had fabricated a conversation between President Trump and Ukraine’s president at the onset of the impeachment effort.
Lockhart would later tweet that he “made up the convo.”
Ok maybe I made up the convo, but you know that’s exactly what they’re thinking.
— Joe Lockhart (@joelockhart) January 22, 2020
Just Satire
When you have ‘CNN Political Analyst’ in your bio, and your network has been successfully sued for creating fake news, it might not be the best idea to engage in satire.
Yet, here we are.
Lockhart’s original post about the completely made-up conversation earned over 8,000 retweets and 32,000 likes. His follow-up saying he was just kidding? Just over 800 retweets and 9,000 likes.
Media bias 101.
Lockhart then gave the standard ‘sorry you people were too stupid to get the joke’ apology.
“Sorry people thought this was real. Satire and sarcasm do help make these points though,” he tweeted.
Later, he doubled down and blasted people for coming after his fake news story.
“Seems like I poked the bear today. The purveyors of Pizzagate and the Seth Rich conspiracy are lecturing me on honesty,” Lockhart complained. “I told a joke, you guys are a destructive joke that is killing our democracy.”
In a separate conversation, having just completely made stuff up, the CNN analyst had the gall to write, “You can’t make this stuff up.”
Satirical news site the ‘Babylon Bee’ poked fun at Lockhart.
Leave the satire to us; we’ll leave the fake news to you.
— The Babylon Bee (@TheBabylonBee) January 22, 2020
RELATED: Nancy Pelosi On Schiff’s Made Up Trump Phone Call: ‘He Did Not Make It Up’
Just Emulating His Hero
Lockhart can hardly be blamed. Perhaps he was just trying to emulate his muse in House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff.
Schiff undeniably fabricated an entire mob-like conversation between President’s Trump and Zelensky during a congressional whistleblower hearing in early October.
Democrat Adam Schiff is blatantly fabricating quotes from the transcript of Trump’s Ukraine phone call pic.twitter.com/rlFfQHmTNZ
— Ryan Saavedra (@RealSaavedra) September 26, 2019
Lockhart, apparently smitten with Schiff, decided to fabricate his own conversation which he too defended by claiming it was just a joke.
During the Senate’s impeachment trial proceedings, Lockhart tweeted that “[Schiff] is a national treasure.”
The only jokes here are Lockhart, Schiff, and the network who puts both individuals on their airwaves to consistently lie to the American people.