President Donald Trump came under fire this week over allegations in a recent article by The Atlantic that he used disparaging terms to describe active members and veterans of the U.S. military.
Several current and former officials, however, have since come forward with their own accounts in an effort to cast doubt on the veracity of those claims, as reported by Breitbart.
“Plain and simple”
The bombshell article published on Thursday included accounts from multiple anonymous sources who claim, among other things, that the president used derogatory language during a 2018 trip to the World War I Aisne-Marne American Cemetery in France.
Trump allegedly told aides that he did not want to make the trip out of fear that the rain would mess up his hair. The article includes claims that he also referred to U.S. service members — including those buried in that cemetery — as “suckers” and “losers.”
More than a dozen individuals who were reportedly part of that trip are now disputing the characterization presented in Jeffrey Goldberg’s latest piece. Former Trump aide Jordan Karem was among those who spoke out in the president’s defense via Twitter.
“This is not even close to being factually accurate,” he tweeted. “Plain and simple, it just never happened.”
Karem went on to say that he was “next to the president the whole day” and claimed that Trump “was greatly disappointed when told we couldn’t fly” to the cemetery.
“I didn’t hear that”
Former deputy White House press secretary Hogan Gidley echoed that denial, asserting in his own tweet on the matter that he was “there in Paris and the President never said those things.”
One particularly notable comment came from former National Security Advisor John Bolton, who has not been shy in his criticism of the president since leaving the administration.
“I was there,” Bolton confirmed. “I didn’t hear that.”
Even first lady Melania Trump has joined in the chorus of backlash against Goldberg’s article, insisting that it “is not true” and serves as evidence of “a very dangerous time when anonymous sources are believed above all else, & no one knows their motivation.”
No matter how many people come out on the record to deny the claims, however, Trump’s political rivals are sure to accept them at face value.
The post Former Trump admin officials dispute derogatory quotes attributed to president in article first appeared on Conservative Institute.
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