HANOI, Vietnam — President Trump mocked Sen. Richard Blumenthal’s phony Vietnam War experience Wednesday with Vietnamese leaders, in Vietnam.
Mr. Trump, who received five draft deferments during the war, tweeted that he has “now spent more time in Vietnam than Da Nang Dick Blumenthal, the third rate Senator from Connecticut.”
“His war stories of his heroism in Vietnam were a total fraud - he was never even there,” the president tweeted. “We talked about it today with Vietnamese leaders!”
Mr. Blumenthal, Connecticut Democrat and a harsh critic of the president, has been caught lying over the years about his service in Vietnam. He was a member of the Marine Corps Reserves from 1970 to 1976, he but never set foot in Vietnam.
Former Trump attorney Michael Cohen told Congress Wednesday that Mr. Trump, who never served in the military, “tasked me to handle the negative press surrounding his medical deferment from the Vietnam draft.”
“Mr. Trump claimed it was because of a bone spur, but when I asked for medical records, he gave me none and said there was no surgery,” Cohen said in prepared testimony to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. “He told me not to answer the specific questions by reporters but rather offer simply the fact that he received a medical deferment.”
Cohen said Mr. Trump told him, “You think I’m stupid, I wasn’t going to Vietnam.”
Cohen added, “I find it ironic, President Trump, that you are in Vietnam right now.”
Mr. Trump’s former attorney faces three years in jail for lying to Congress and tax evasion.
• Dave Boyer can be reached at dboyer@washingtontimes.com.
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