Hillary Clinton caught in yet another contemptible campaign lie
The Democratic nominee makes her own truth.
Hillary Clinton has been caught lying on the campaign trail. Again.
According to a report from Mother Jones, Clinton — for years — has exaggerated a story about her bipartisan work on the Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997 (ASFA). The act compelled states to speed up the termination of parental rights of people whose children ended up in foster care so the children could be put up for adoption.
Clinton has repeatedly claimed that she was able to work across the aisle with former Republican Rep. Tom Delay, who at the time was the House majority whip, to get the bill passed.
But Delay disputes her account, going so far as to say, “I don’t remember ever working with her”:
As the story goes, Clinton, as first lady, set aside partisan differences to find common ground with DeLay even as he was mercilessly attacking her husband and obstructing his agenda. By the campaign’s telling, the pair first worked together on an adoption bill that became law in 1997 and helped thousands of foster children find loving homes. Clinton has been telling the story on the stump for more than a decade now, but it’s been especially prominent during this presidential campaign, emphasized repeatedly by the candidate and her surrogates, most notably by her husband Bill, who brought it to prime-time TV during his Democratic National Convention speech last month.
There’s just one problem with the story: It isn’t accurate. Over the years, the tale of Tom and Hillary has grown in mythic proportions, as Bill and others have conflated dates and confused events in a way that makes a better story but vastly overstates the relationship between DeLay and Hillary Clinton. “I don’t remember ever working with her” on that bill, DeLay told Mother Jones. DeLay is no Hillary Clinton fan—earlier this year, he gleefully predicted that she would soon be indicted over her email problems—but his recollection about the foster care work is backed up by legislative and White House records, video archives, and confirmed by several people involved with the bill.
Delay’s account of events is corroborated by several sources from both major parties who had either worked on the bill or were advocates for child welfare at the time and had knowledge of the bill’s details and progress. They were all certain that Clinton and Delay never worked together on the act.
This is far, far from the first time Hillary Clinton has lied on the stump. In her DNC acceptance speech, Clinton made a false claim about handicapped kids being unable to attend school in New Bedford, Mass. in the 1970s. And then there are, of course the numerous egregious lies Clinton has told about her use of a private email server while at the State Department — lies serious enough to evoke accusations of perjury from House Republicans.
And this is sure not to be the last lie Clinton will tell before November. Or after.
Source: Hillary Clinton caught in yet another contemptible campaign lie
