Sanders says Trump stated 'facts' when he mocked Ford. That's a lie.

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders repeatedly insisted during a Wednesday press briefing that Trump’s vicious mockery of Dr. Christine Blasey Ford wasn’t mockery at all — he was just “stating facts.”

“Isn’t there something wrong with the president of the United States mocking someone who said she was sexually assaulted?” asked CNN’s Jim Acosta.

“It seemed to me that he was stating facts that Dr. Ford it herself laid out in her testimony,” Sanders replied.

On one level, it’s ridiculous that Sanders would deny that Trump was mocking Ford.

Trump’s mockery of Ford, who bravely testified in public about being sexually assaulted by Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, was obvious. And it was so cruel, childish, and indefensible that even Fox News and die-hard Kavanaugh fans like Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) couldn’t defend it.

But Trump wasn’t just being crass — he was also brazenly lying about what Ford said in her testimony.

And Sanders is brazenly lying when she labels Trump’s disgusting comments as “facts.”

On Twitter, NBC senior political editor Mark Murray methodically broke down each of Trump’s mocking statements, showing how they obviously contradicted what Ford actually said under oath.

“What neighborhood was it in? I don’t know,” Trump said, mimicking Ford to the laughter and delight of rally attendees. “Where’s the house? I don’t know. Upstairs, downstairs, where I was. I don’t know. But I had one beer. That’s the only thing I remember. … How many years ago was it? I don’t know! I don’t know! I don’t know!”

Actually, Murray pointed out, Ford remembers both the year and the neighborhood.

Ford said she had one beer, but that was far from the “only thing” she remembered; she also said she was “100 percent” certain it was Kavanaugh who assaulted her.

And as for “upstairs” versus “downstairs,” Ford vividly remembers, and laid out in painful detail, where she was and what the layout of the house was like when she was sexually assaulted in an upstairs bedroom.

NBC chief White House correspondent Hallie Jackson also laid out all the full quotes from Murray’s thread in one place:

These are the real facts — and no amount of mockery from Trump, or spin from Sanders, will change them.

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.