Watch The Backstory | How Pompeo Turned Trump’s Most Loyal Soldier | The New Yorker Video

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Mike Pompeo is the final survivor, if you’ll,

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in Donald Trump’s Cupboard

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from his unique nationwide safety staff.

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He is the Secretary of State.

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He was the CIA director.

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How did this obscure congressman

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from Wichita, Kansas, of all locations,

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turn into probably the most influential particular person,

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other than Trump himself

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in relation to American international coverage

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at this disruptive and unsettling second,

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and what do we actually find out about him?

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What I discovered as I began kind of digging

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into Mike Pompeo extra

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was that this was type of a casualty

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of the accountability reporting

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about senior figures within the U.S. authorities

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again after we had extra time to do these issues

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and we did not have a president

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who was such an all-consuming scandal himself.

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The piece begins out with then-Congressman Mike Pompeo

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It is March fifth, 2016,

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and that is the date of the Kansas presidential caucuses.

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Donald Trump was rolling in the direction of the Republican nomination,

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however he hadn’t fairly locked it up but.

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Mike Pompeo had endorsed Marco Rubio,

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as did a variety of different Republican members of Congress.

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Pompeo will get up there

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and he provides this speech attacking Donald Trump.

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[audience applauding]

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You understand, Donald Trump, the opposite day stated

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that quote, if he tells a soldier to commit a struggle crime,

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the soldier will simply go do it.

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He stated, They will do as I inform them to do.

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We have spent 7 half of years with an authoritarian president

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who ignored our Structure.

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We do not want 4 extra years of that.

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I spotted, listening to the speech of Mike Pompeo

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that I’ve by no means actually heard him go off

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on Trump in a video type.

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Mike Pompeo may be very, very delicate

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about even the looks of being caught out

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disagreeing with Donald Trump.

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I feel he’s apprehensive in regards to the concept

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that Donald Trump is gonna keep in mind again

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to March fifth, 2016,

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and that day that he was backstage

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in a Wichita enviornment saying,

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Who the heck is that this congressman?

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Flash ahead a number of months later,

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Mike Pompeo, together with all the opposite Republicans

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within the Kansas delegation,

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endorsed Trump after he locked up the nomination.

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The flip-flop from Marco Rubio to Donald Trump

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just isn’t the one flip-flop in Mike Pompeo’s life.

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He is had a lot of actually hanging transitions.

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I feel this notion of Pompeo with the ability to

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go into new environments

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and to grasp them and to reach them

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is one thing that characterizes this life

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stuffed with actually hanging transformations.

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From the start, there have been a few issues

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that leapt out at me about Pompeo’s biography

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as I believed I knew it.

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A type of was his monetary disclosure type

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and the truth that he was the poorest member

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of Donald Trump’s Cupboard.

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He talks about having a open Bible on his desk

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on the State Division.

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In my workplace, I maintain a Bible open on my desk

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to remind me of God and his phrase.

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He presents as this heartland evangelical,

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kind of religious, humble, very anti-government,

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anti-environmental-protection man from Kansas.

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That is his public persona.

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The very first thing you notice about Pompeo

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is that he is truly not even from Kansas.

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He grew up in Orange County, California, within the ’60s.

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He got here from a household whose mother and father

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did not even go to school,

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and he obtained into West Level

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and he did amazingly properly there,

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and he obtained into Harvard Legislation College,

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after which he goes to Washington

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and he will get a job at Williams & Connolly,

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one in every of Washington’s most blue chip regulation corporations,

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and he married his faculty sweetheart

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the identical weekend that he graduated from West Level,

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after which one thing occurred. [dramatic music]

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He is by no means spoken brazenly or publicly

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about what sort of a disaster he went by means of

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in this time period.

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What he stated is that he had the chance

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and that is when he began Thayer Aerospace.

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He stop this regulation agency job

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after actually solely just a little bit greater than two years.

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He obtained divorced from his spouse.

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He has moved to Wichita

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and he has joined up with these West Level buddies

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and he is beginning his entire life over once more.

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And I wanna communicate to you this morning, Kansan to Kansan.

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As an outdated Military man,

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I wish to communicate to these of you

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who’ve served our nation in uniform, veteran to veteran.

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Earlier than I misplaced my thoughts and ran for Congress,

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I ran a small, soiled, smelly, lovely machine store.

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I wanna speak to you this morning,

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manufacturing man to manufacturing man,

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about jobs in America.

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[plane engine roaring]

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Wichita was often known as the air capital of America,

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and so there was an entire type of ecosystem

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of smaller firms

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that catered to these massive plane manufacturing firms,

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and so they might purchase up an entire bunch of these firms,

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put them collectively into one greater firm,

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and it could make a variety of sense.

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And they also raised cash so as to try this.

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Pompeo appeared to be very keen

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to reduce and to deflect questions

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in regards to the function within the rich, the billionaire Koch brothers

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in financing this firm, Thayer Aerospace,

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and the extent of help that they’d given to it.

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And so when he got here to Congress in 2011,

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he and his aides instructed the Washington Publish

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that the Koch brothers’ enterprise capital fund

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had solely given 2% of the funding in Thayer Aerospace.

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And actually, it wasn’t 2%,

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however in accordance with paperwork that had been on file

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with the Kansas Secretary of State

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however had by no means been printed,

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it was nearer to 20%.

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Secretary Pompeo, congratulations once more.

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I’ve little doubt that you’ll make America proud

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as our nation’s chief diplomat.

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[audience applauding]

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There was this huge alternative

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for somebody like Mike Pompeo that Donald Trump offered.

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After all, the issue was that he does not agree

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with Donald Trump on absolutely anything.

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Donald Trump trash talks all people,

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and but you’ll not discover Donald Trump

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publicly saying a foul phrase about Mike Pompeo.

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You do not give energy.

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I feel one of many key issues that Pompeo has completed,

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in all probability in a reasonably calculated means,

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which is to ensure that Trump

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by no means felt threatened by him,

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and that appears to be probably the most salient causes

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for Pompeo’s outstanding rise.

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Each Secretary of State and each president

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have disagreements.

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Each administration has inside fights over insurance policies.

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Let’s be clear about what’s distinctive

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to the Trump administration and what’s not.

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It would not be distinctive for a Mike Pompeo Secretary of State

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to disagree with a Donald Trump president

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in any period of our historical past.

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What’s distinctive is the way in which during which the president

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has customized international coverage

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and made loyalty the supreme check of service

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in his administration.

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Mike Pompeo will get livid if his loyalty

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to Donald Trump is questioned

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or his accuracy is questioned,

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and but he publicly is commonly pressured to defend issues

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which might be indefensible that Trump says or does,

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or issues which might be unfaithful.

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Senator, I am telling you what he had a dialog

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with Vladimir Putin about,

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and I am telling you what U.S. coverage is immediately.

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Senator, I perceive the sport that you simply’re enjoying.

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I get it. No, no, no.

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Mr. Secretary, with all due respect,

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I do not admire you characterizing my questions.

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My query is simply to get to the reality.

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We do not know what the reality is.

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Pompeo is a survivor, however for a way lengthy?

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It is a private story about anyone

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who wished to be at all times outlined as a hit,

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and but was one way or the other, that wasn’t sufficient.

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He needed to cowl up or to mislead or to obfuscate

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about durations in his life

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that he might have been clear about.

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I actually consider that details matter

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and I actually consider that it does matter

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that an agglomeration of little untruths

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in anyone’s public biography

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can find yourself being an abuse of the general public belief.