WaPo reluctantly reports Terry McAuliffe's bald-faced debate lie.

It’s bad when the Washington Post can’t come up with a way to excuse a Virginia Democrat:

In the most obvious misstatement of the debate, [Democrat Terry] McAuliffe attacked [Republican Virginia Attorney General Ken] Cuccinelli over the findings of a Richmond prosecutor who had been tasked with investigating Cuccinelli’s financial disclosures.

“If you read the whole report, which I have, it says in here that the attorney general should have been prosecuted,” McAuliffe said, over Cuccinelli’s failure to disclose his stock holdings in Star Scientific and gifts from Williams. McAuliffe also said that because of Cuccinelli’s ties to Williams and Star, which filed a civil tax case against the state, “a judge took the case away from him because of a conflict of interest.”

Richmond Commonwealth’s Attorney Michael Herring said in a report last week that he found no evidence that Cuccinelli had violated the law. And it was Cuccinelli’s office that requested recusal from the civil tax case.

“So much is inaccurate,” Cuccinelli said when asked in the debate to respond, “I’ll let the fact checkers take care of it. That one’s gonna get sliced up.”

After the debate, McAuliffe sought to clarify his comment. “On the report — the attorney general could have been prosecuted if we had stronger disclosure laws in Virginia,” McAuliffe said, although Herring’s report did not make that assertion.

Advertisement

Via Ben Domenech; he calls it a blatant lie, I call it a bald-faced one.  Doesn’t really matter which one of us is more correct; what matters is that McAuliffe stepped in it sufficiently that a staffer had to intercept him before McAuliffe did the post-debate press gaggle.  Embarrassing, but not as embarrassing as having to come up with an off-the-cuff explanation as to why Terry McAuliffe uttered such a stupid, easily checked lie like that.  Goodness knows that the real reason – he’s Terry McAuliffe, and simply not very good at campaigning – is something that can never, ever be admitted to…

Moe Lane (crosspost)

Recommended

Join the conversation as a VIP Member

Trending on RedState Videos