The reaction of Ron Paul to a question by Jake Tapper on ABC’s This Week about whether he believes that President Bush knew ahead of time about the 9/11 attacks was indignant:
Ron Paul strongly rebuffed ABC News’s Jake Tapper on Sunday’s This Week, when he had brought up a quote by former senior campaign aide Eric Dondero, that claimed the Republican presidential candidate had engaged in 9/11 conspiracy theories. “Now, wait, wait, wait! Don’t go any further on that. That’s complete nonsense!” Paul exclaimed.
“It’s nonsense? It’s not true?” Tapper asked.
“No, I never bought into that stuff, never talked about it. About the conspiracy of Bush — of Bush knowing about this?” Paul responded incredulously. “No, no, come on! Come on! Let’s be reasonable! That’s just off-the-wall!
Did Paul buy in to 9/11 conspiracy theories? His supporters will no doubt look at the following evidence and, just as Paul intends, spin the information using the most favorable interpretation possible.
But any fair minded person would have to conclude, based on the following, that Paul is a full blown 9/11 truther and despite his denials, is one of the heroes of the Truther movement.
This video from 2007 was taken at a reception for Paul at a private residence where the congressman became engaged in conversation with a man from the organization Student Scholars for 9/11 Truth:
Michelle Malkin got a hold of the transcript. Here are the relevant portions:
Student: …we’ve heard that you have questioned the government’s official account.
Paul: Well, I never automatically trust anything the government does when they do an investigation because too often I think there’s an area that the government covered up, whether it’s the Kennedy assassination or whatever.
Sure. He just wants answers to some “questions.”
Student: So I just wanted to say, you know, we’ve talked to Dennis Kucinich and he says that he’s willing to, you know, investigate it. He would advocate for a new investigation.
Paul: Into 9/11?
Student: Yeah, into 9/11. I mean, if it was Dennis Kucinich and you, there’d be congressional support. You know what I mean? So you wouldn’t be the only one.
Paul: It’d be bipartisan, too. And I’ve worked with Dennis a lot on a lot of these issues
Student: So I mean, would you advocate for a new investigation into 9/11?
Paul: Yes, I think we have to look at the details of it.
There appears to be some differing opinions on just what Paul said next.
Malkin:
At this point in the video, Student Scholars for Truth transcribes Paul’s next sentence this way:
“…the investigation was an investigation in which there were government cover-ups?”
Did Paul really say that? Listen to the video closely. It’s hard to tell. If this isn’t what Paul says, he should clarify publicly what exactly it is he said. If the Student Scholars for Truth group is lying about what Paul said, it should own up.
Paul has already made it clear that he thinks the government covers up “[w]hether it’s the Kennedy assassination or whatever.” It is not beyond reason to think that the Truther group accurately transcribed Paul’s words and that he believes that there was a government cover-up about 9/11.
This is 9/11 Trutherism writ large. Rejecting the official 9/11 Commission Report in order to conduct another investigation is what the Truther movement is all about. This time, they’d want to know about the super thermite that was placed in the WTC supporting columns without anyone knowing about it; they’d want to know how the military got the passengers off the planes before the empty aircraft were remotely piloted into the towers; they’d want to know how those fake phone calls from the doomed aircraft were so cleverly crafted that the voices fooled wives, husbands, fathers, and mothers into thinking it was actually their loved one calling them to say goodbye.
Former Paul staffer Eric Dondero, writing at Jeff Dunetz’s site The Lid:
What Tapper should have followed up with, was simply asking Paul if he ever posited the theory that Bush “may” have known about the attacks ahead of time. Notice how Paul adds the caveat “About the conspiracy – of Bush [definitively] knowing about this.” That’s not how it went down in Ron’s offices in the 9/11 immediate aftermath. It was Ron often couching his terms with “might have known,” or playing devil’s advocate as in the case of “what if.” This of course, gave him just enough wiggle room to claim that he never said that’s exactly what happened back then, or as he is doing presently.
I maintain, as I have from the beginning of this, that it was Ron Paul’s immediate reaction after 9/11 that is the largest of the scandals. The media has yet to press him on this.
Responding narrowly to Tapper’s question about whether Bush had prior knowledge of the attacks, Paul rightly called such a notion “nonsense.”
But his previous comments on the attacks and the investigation make it clear that Ron Paul is indeed a conspiracy minded 9/11 truther and unfit to hold the office of president.
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