Carol, John, and Ellen are reporters with the Washington Post. They have an article in today’s paper, “Trump lawyer says president knew Flynn had given FBI the same account he gave to vice president”, filling us in on what John Dowd, President Trump’s lawyer—or one of them, at least—has to say about the president’s latest tweet. The article included the following paragraph:
“Dowd confirmed Sunday that he had drafted the tweet for Trump and acknowledged that it was sloppily worded. He said it was inaccurate to say the president was told that Flynn had lied to the FBI. Dowd said Sunday that Trump knew only what acting attorney general Sally Yates had told the White House counsel: that Flynn’s accounts to the agents interviewing him were the same as those Flynn gave Pence, and “that the [Justice] Department was not accusing him of lying.”
Here is a reworking of that first sentence: “Dowd claimed Sunday that he had drafted the tweet for Trump and insisted that it was sloppily worded, so that what Dowd meant to have the president say was not as incriminating as what the tweet that he wrote himself actually said.”
How can Carol, John, and Ellen claim that Dowd “confirmed” to them that he had written the tweet? The only way they can know that he wrote it is if they watched him do it. Otherwise, they are simply relying on hearsay from people who have every reason to lie. “Confirm” does not mean “repeat”. At least, it shouldn’t.
Why, furthermore, do they say he “acknowledged” that it was sloppily worded? Can it be demonstrated in some objective manner that it’s “sloppily worded”? Did they say to him ‘Isn’t it true the tweet is sloppily worded’? I doubt it. Why do they let Dowd put words in their mouths? Maybe it’s impeccably worded. Maybe it just states (impeccably) a truth that Mr. Dowd doesn’t want it to state.
It’s true that my rewrite is rather “aggressive,” but here’s what C, J, & E could have written:
Dowd said on Sunday that he had drafted the tweet for Trump. He added that the tweet was unfortunately worded and should not have implied that the president had been told that Flynn lied to the FBI.
