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Did Katie Britt blatantly lie in State in the Union GOP response in story about sex trafficking?

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Did Republican Alabama Senator Katie Britt blatantly lie in her Republican response to President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address?

Using the standards of traditional journalism you’d have to say: it seems that way.

But by the way she inserted a 20 year-old trafficking horror story that occurred in Mexico when George W. Bush was President, making it seem as if she was talking about a current horror story that happened in the U.S. under Biden, you’d have to say: she blatantly lied to make a political point.

This has not been a stellar week for the youngest Republican ever elected to the Senate who reportedly has been respected on both sides of the aisle. She was one of the GOP Senators working on the bipartisan compromise border security plan – the plan that seemed poised to pass until former Donald Trump made it clear he didn’t want it to pass because he wanted immigration to be an issue he could use against Biden. As quick as a light switch is turned off, GOPers jettisoned their previous positions of support. Britt voted against her own bill. The compromise bill died. Trump got his issue.

Before she made her speech Britt was considered a possible choice for the Vice President spot on a Trump ticket. However, her performance was widely panned by the media, Democrats and Republicans. Even Republican dirty trickster and Trump ally Roger Stone said: “I guess Katie Britt just failed her vice presidential audition. Godawful.”

Britt was lambasted on social media for a performance that reminded people of a middle school play performance, pornography, someone over coached by a drama instructor, A Maiden’s tale, someone talking to toddlers and seemly doing an SNL skit and most assuredly giving SNL material for a skit. The fact that she delivered it from her kitchen was also blasted.

And. She. Was. Particularly. Ridiculed. For. The. Way. She. Punched. Every. Single Word. For. Emphasis.

The Washington Post’s fact checker gave Britt’s rebuttal four Pinocchio’s: i.e. she lied. Here’s part of the Posts’ story which starts out with how Britt framed it:

“We know that President Biden didn’t just create this border crisis. He invited it with 94 executive actions in his first 100 days. When I took office, I took a different approach. I traveled to the Del Rio sector of Texas. That’s where I spoke to a woman who shared her story with me. She had been sex trafficked by the cartels starting at the age of 12. She told me not just that she was raped every day, but how many times a day she was raped. The cartels put her on a mattress in a shoe box of a room, and they sent men through that door over and over again for hours and hours on end. We wouldn’t be okay with this happening in a Third World country. This is the United States of America, and it is past time, in my opinion, that we start acting like it. President Biden’s border policies are a disgrace.”


And:

If you were watching Britt’s speech on Thursday night, you likely would have thought she was talking about a recent victim of sex trafficking who was abused in the United States and suffered because of President Biden’s policies.
If you did, you would have been wrong. Sean Ross, Britt’s communications director, confirmed that she was talking about Karla Jacinto Romero — who has testified before Congress about being forced to work in Mexican brothels from 2004 to 2008. (A viral TikTok by journalist Jonathan Katz first revealed that Britt was speaking about Romero.) In a phone conversation and a statement, Ross disputed that Britt’s language was misleading.

We disagree. Let’s take a look.

The Facts
Britt’s account of Romero’s experience was a centerpiece of her rebuttal to Biden’s address. The way Britt sets up the story, there is no indication that she is talking about a woman who was working in brothels in Mexico during the George W. Bush administration. This is how the passage unfolds.

  • She first blames Biden for the surge of migrants at the border.
  • Then she says she visited the border shortly after she took office. That would be 2023.
  • At length, she details the story of an unnamed victim that she says she met on her trip. The implication is that the woman recently crossed the border — because of “sex trafficking by the cartels.”
  • She strongly suggests that her abuse took place in the United States: “We wouldn’t be okay with this happening in a Third World country. This is the United States of America, and it is past time, in my opinion, that we start acting like it.”
  • She ends by reinforcing that such alleged trafficking is Biden’s fault: “President Biden’s border policies are a disgrace.”

    • But Biden has nothing to do with Romero’s story.

    The story about Britt’s fib was broken by independent journalist and ex AP newsman Jonathan Katz. Katz has a highly distinguished journalism career.

    But reporter Jonathan Katz, in a lengthy video posted to social media, connects the dots on the story, and it appears Britt lied: The woman has told her story many times publicly, including to Congress; the events didn’t occur in the United States; and they happened during George W. Bush’s presidency.

    ..Katz, however, says he has proof that the events didn’t occur in the U.S., and that — according to the victim — they happened between 2004 and 2008, when George W. Bush was president.

    AL.Com Pulitzer Prize columnist John Archibald wrote a withering opinion piece on Britt’s speech. Here’s part of it:

    All eyes were on her Thursday night as she stepped onto a vast stage from that unnaturally empty kitchen to respond to President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address. The country was watching as she began to read her predictable script, to audition for the role of her lifetime.

    America was looking for proof of normalcy.

    And it got “The Three Faces of Eve.”

    Which is sort of appropriate, I suppose, since Britt has had to use a slew of personalities to pretend to be everything to everyone in her own state’s GOP.

    …All she had to do was read her script on a teleprompter, catch the bouquet, take her bow and take her place as a politician to be both respected and reckoned with.

    And then…

    And then she started to talk. And by the third paragraph of her prepared speech it was clear she was no longer auditioning for the role of vice president, or for the role of respected politician, or the role of likable mom or genuine human.

    She was Faye Dunaway in “Mommie Dearest” shrieking “No wire hangers!”

    She was Nicolas Cage in anything. She was William Shatner in “The Wrath of Katie.” She was over-the-top and anything and everything but reasonable.

    She wasn’t trying out for VP. She was trying out for the cold open of “Saturday Night Live.” As the punchline and the punching bag.

    Katie Britt was supposed to be the smart one, the reasonable one, the regular one.

    She was supposed to be the one who would make Alabamians proud — or less embarrassed than they too often are.

    Unfortunately, she will be remembered another way.

    As a joke.

    Which is too bad. Because she seems to come off pretty well when she only pretends to be herself.

    Between her widely panned and mocked speech and her pants on fire moment, consider Britt the latest victim of the State of the Union rebuttal curse which has short-circuited or diminished many of those who’ve delivered it.

    Her consolation prize: one of Marco Rubio’s water bottles.

    For more discussion on this story GO HERE.

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