September 16, 2016

Donald Trump Can’t Stop Lying About His Birther Past

Trump shows that Clinton didn’t start the birther movement he made famous.

Tom Williams/ZUMA

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When Donald Trump tried to pin the birther movement on Hillary Clinton during his Friday announcement, the media jumped in to factcheck, pointing out that he was rewriting history. Late Friday afternoon, the Trump campaign sent a press release to reporters in an attempt to back up its claims—but instead it only contradicted the GOP candidate’s entire argument.

Trump’s “evidence” was laughably lackluster. The campaign pointed to a Friday CNN interview with Clinton’s 2008 campaign manager, Patti Solis Doyle, in which she said when a low-level volunteer coordinator with the campaign sent an email advancing the birther conspiracy, the Clinton campaign immediately fired the person. Solis Doyle couldn’t even recall if the person, a volunteer-coordinator, was a paid staffer or a volunteer.

So basically, Clinton fired someone who spread the birther conspiracy, therefore, in Trump’s mind, it’s all Hillary’s fault. Meanwhile, Trump himself spent years claiming the first African-American president was illegitimate and Obama was lying about his place of birth. And once Obama did release his long–form birth certificate in 2011, it still didn’t satisfy Trump. He spent the subsequent years calling it a fake—making vague suggestions that Obama might have even killed elected officials to hide a cover up. “A lot of people don’t agree with that birth certificate,” Trump said in 2012. “A lot of people do not think it’s authentic.”

 

 

 

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

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