Former ABC News anchor Sam Donaldson took aim at White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders on Friday, arguing that she is frequently dishonest with reporters while taking questions from the press.
In an interview with CNN, Donaldson quipped that Sanders’s falsehoods earned her a “lifetime achievement Oscar for lying.”
{mosads}”Except for Ron Ziegler, who lied for [former President] Richard Nixon, I’ve never seen anything like this with Sarah Sanders,” Donaldson said. “And there’s a difference. Ziegler lied about one thing. … Sarah Sanders simply lies about everything.”
“She’s had a lifetime achievement Oscar for lying,” Donaldson continued. “Let’s face it. I don’t know her. I feel a little sorry for her because it’s the boss who does it. She takes the cue from him.”
Sanders made headlines earlier this month after she addressed a false statement outlined in special counsel Robert Mueller’s report with Fox’s Sean Hannity. Sanders admitted to having a “a slip of the tongue” when referring to “countless” FBI agents who allegedly agreed with President Trump’s decision to fire former FBI Director James Comey.
“I acknowledge that I had a slip of the tongue when I used the word ‘countless,’ but it’s not untrue … that a number of both current and former FBI agents agreed with the president,” Sanders said earlier this month.
Mueller’s special counsel team wrote in its final report that Sanders’s assertion at the time was not based on facts.
“Sanders told this Office that her reference to hearing from ‘countless members of the FBI’ was a ‘slip of the tongue.’ She also recalled that her statement in a separate press interview that rank-and-file FBI agents had lost confidence in Comey was a comment she made ‘in the heat of the moment’ that was not founded on anything,” the report said.
Sanders told reporters at the May 10, 2017, briefing that the president and FBI employees lost confidence in Comey.
When a reporter noted that an FBI agent said they were disappointed by the firing, Sanders said, “We’ve heard from countless members of the FBI that say very different things.”