Mendacity

• 1973: Trump brazenly lied when federal regulators sued his company for racial discrimination, claiming prosecutors had not contacted him before notifying the press of the charges against him, despite evidence that prosecutors had in fact called Trump before contacting the press. "The family's attempts to slow down the federal case were at times nonsensical. Trump submitted an affidavit contending that the government had engaged in some unspecified wrongdoing by releasing statements to the press on the day it brought the case without first having any "formal communications" with him; he contended that he'd learned of the complaint only while listening to his car radio that morning. But Trump's sworn statement was a lie. Court records show that the government had filed its complaint at 10 a.m. and phoned him almost immediately afterward. The government later notified the media with a press release. Prosecutors responded to Trump's affidavit by showing he had fudged his claim by using the term "formal communication"—an acknowledgment, they said, that he had received what only he would characterize as an informal notification—which they described as an intentional effort to mislead the court and the public. But the allegation slowed the case; it required government lawyers to appear in court to shoot down Trump's false charge." (Newsweek, October 31, 2016)
• In a deposition, Trump once argued that claims in promotional literature that he was "developing" a building didn't mean that he was in fact the "developer" of those buildings. “In one lawsuit -- filed against him by condo owners who wanted their money back for a Fort Lauderdale condo that was never built -- he testified in a sworn deposition, ‘Well, the word 'developing,' it doesn't mean that we're the developers.’” (USA Today, June 2, 2016)
• In another deposition, Trump defended marketing literature that claimed he personally "handpicked" instructors for Trump University, even though he had no role in selecting them. “In lawsuits over his Trump University, he testified that he had never met instructors who were described in the university's promotional materials as being ‘handpicked’ by him. ‘It depends on the definition of what that means, handpicked,’ Trump said during an exchange with a lawyer in a sworn deposition last December.” (USA Today, June 2, 2016)