In addition to weathering a Trump assault on Planned Parenthood; another school slaughter; another Israeli slaughter; we have more on Trujillo’s denials of sexual harassment: His ‘lie detector test’ is a total hoax.
This Week’s Actions & Opportunities
There are five tremendous Retake candidates and two weeks until the election. Phone banking can be done from home; you only need to click to make a contribution; but by far the most important thing you can do is to canvass as a 1-1 conversation can change minds or motivate an uninspired voter to go to the polls. Click here for information on how you can help Andrea Romero (Dist. 46); Susan Herrera (Dist. 41); Janene Yazzie (Public Regulation Commission, Dist. 4), Steve Fischmann (Public Regulation Commission, Dist. 5) and Bill McCamley (State Auditor). After you read the next report, you will want to reach out to the Romero campaign right away.
Trujillo’s Lie Detector Results Are a Total Sham Proving Only One Thing: He Is Lying
Carl Trujillo claims that his lie detector results prove that he is innocent of sexual harassment. He has called Laura Bonar a liar; he has called the claims a witch hunt and he has boasted that his innocence is proven ‘passing’ a lie detector test “with an unusually high score on the most reliable and stringent FBI certified lie detector test available.” The only problem is that there were only three questions on the test that related to the harassment claims and the questions were carefully crafted to avoid asking Trujillo anything related to the harassment claims. This is truly a remarkable bit of distortion. Here are the three questions asked of Trujillo.
R1 Did you ever have sexual contact with that woman’s (Laura Bonar) private parts (breasts/buttocks/vagina)? Answer: No
- No one accused Trujillo of sexual contact, so Trujillo could answer truthfully, no. But the question has no relevance to the harassment claim. This is a classic case of deflection and distraction.
R2 Concerning that woman, did you ever have sexual contact with her private parts? Answer: No
- No one accused him of sexual contact, but you might as well ask essentially the same irrelevant question twice.
R3 Was that woman’s legislation stalled because she rejected your sexual advances? Answer: No
- No one said the legislation stalled. Trujillo refused to respond to APV requests to move the bill forward to get the funding needed to enact it. HB 20 only got the funding because another legislator rushed in when Trujillo disappeared as Lisa Jennings detailed precisely what did happen, below. But since the bill passed and was funded (no thanks to Trujillo), he could honestly answer: No. Clever. As Jennings reports:
“The request for spay/neuter funding had not been included in the original budget, and the deadline for state budget amendments was quickly approaching. I repeatedly contacted Rep. Trujillo to see if he could help us get the content of HB20 included in the final version of the budget. Rep.Trujillo completely ignored my messages asking for his help in the crucial last days and hours that mattered for the budget. I didn’t know why at the time, as Rep. Trujillo was usually very responsive to our organization, but I do now. Laura’s letter provides the missing piece of the puzzle.
Determined to try to get the spay/neuter funding without Rep. Trujillo’s help, I went to Senator Richard Martinez and asked him to start from scratch to help us, and he agreed to author a Senate amendment to the budget. That amendment was created, subsequently included in the budget, and approved by the Governor, resulting in $250,000 in spay/neuter funds for needy animals around the state – less than half of what we had originally sought.”
So, Trujillo didn’t lie in response to any of these questions; he passed the lie detector test. Unfortunately the test didn’t include any of the relevant questions. The question becomes, why would a skilled professional lie detector administer use questions that carefully skirted the accusation, allowing Trujillo to be truthful while avoiding the real issues:
- Did you proposition Laura Bonar? She claims you did and her colleague Jessica Johnson confirmed that claim.
- Did you threaten to withdraw support for HB 20 if Bonar didn’t have sexual relations with you? Never asked that question either.
Frankly, this is a big deal because Trujillo has plastered the media with self righteous and unsubstantiated claims that the lie detector proves his innocence and is a reason for all of us to believe that Laura Bonar lied; that Jessica Johnson lied; that Lisa Jennings lied; that the two women who anonymously have told Rep. Armstrong that Trujillo had harassed them.
All these courageous women must be liars because Carl Trujillo took a lie detector test that might as well have asked him about the weather for all the relevance of the questions. And that could not be an accident. ANY COMPETENT LIE DETECTOR SPECIALIST READING THE HARASSMENT CLAIMS COULD HAVE EASILY CHOSEN QUESTIONS THAT WOULD HAVE CHALLENGED TRUJILLO OR COULD HAVE CRAFTED QUESTIONS THAT GAVE THE ILLUSION OF EXONERATING HIM.
Trujillo says, “We live in an age where anybody can say anything without proof and be believed,” he is wrong. Sexual assault is an underreported crime, because of the way that we treat women courageous enough to come forward. And by the way, two women have corroborated Bonar’s charges, so it isn’t as if her claims are without proof. And, oh those two other women who came to Rep. Armstrong, but are too fearful to do so publicly. I wonder why they are afraid to step forward publicly? Is it possible they’d prefer not to be accused of lying and become pilloried by Trujillo supporters as part of a conspiracy.
Later this week, I will be reporting on a Vox story discussing Al Franken’s case. But in closing today, I’ll reveal the gist of it: Just because you really, really like a guy, just because in so many ways he has advanced your priorities, just because he helped you at the County processing some paperwork, doesn’t mean that outside the spotlight he hasn’t preyed on women, harassed women, propositioned women, and threatened them.
I keep thinking about the three questions asked and why the two relevant questions were never asked. I hope some Trujillo’s supporters are wondering too. Or was the selection of questions an establishment conspiracy too?
From the New Mexican: Another View of Trujillo’s Harassment Charges: Has He Learned From Trump? Apparently.
What follows is most of a letter to the editor penned by Michael Anderson, a Dist. 46 resident and father of two, soon to be three daughters. It was published in Sunday’s New Mexican. It compares Trump’s tweets and blathering about his sexual predation with the language used by Trujillo. I’ll let our readers judge the relevance.
“Trujillo’s own statements are no different than Donald Trump, Roy Moore, Bill Cosby and countless others who seek to discredit and harm all women. A quick comparison of public responses from Donald Trump and Carl Trujillo tell the story:
Donald Trump: “I’ve never met these people. I don’t even know who they are. They’re made-up stories.”
Carl Trujillo: “I barely even know who she is and literally had to look her up to figure out if I’d ever met her. We have had no significant interactions, and certainly nothing even close to the level of interaction that she is alleging.”
Donald Trump: “Why didn’t she do this 12 years ago? She’s a liar. … It never happened. It’s a lie.” “Nothing ever happened with any of these women. Totally made up nonsense to steal the election.”
Carl Trujillo: “Do I have to say that if this has been festering since 2013, it’s beyond suspicious that she waits until weeks before election day? This is politically motivated.”
Donald Trump: “Let me state this as clearly as I can: These attacks are orchestrated by the Clintons and their media allies.”
Carl Trujillo: “I thought there was a limit to how low my opponents could go. I was wrong. To hijack and exploit the #MeToo movement for their own political gain … it doesn’t get lower than that.”
Donald Trump: “These claims are all fabricated. They’re pure fiction, and they’re outright lies. These events never, ever happened.”
Carl Trujillo: “These charges are lies. They do nothing but motivate our Campaign for Change to fight harder to represent the true voice of the people.”
Donald Trump: “A TOTAL WITCH HUNT!!!”
Carl Trujillo: “[I am] disappointed that two of my fellow members would join this witch hunt when no proof has been offered and no formal complaint has ever been made. It is evident the timing of these allegations is strictly for political gain.”
These attacks are designed to do one thing and one thing only: to discourage other women from coming forward.
There is one thing we all can do to help. Say loudly and publicly that we believe Laura Bonar and every other woman who has the courage to come forward, even in the face of additional attacks. And we can offer our heartfelt support to those women who are thinking about coming forward but are afraid, because their lives may be turned upside down as well.”
As I had heard Trujillo’s denials, they had resonated and I recognized a pattern of language resembling Trump’s. Thanks to Michael Anderson for doing the work of researching the quotes.
In solidarity,
Paul & Roxanne
A Look Back At Israeli War Crimes, Trump’s War on Planned Parenthood and Another Progressive Primary Sweep.
New Trump Assault on Planned Parenthood. Gag Rule Could Effectively Ban Abortions
Categories: Election, Political Reform & National Politics, Women's Rights
PPC gathering at Albuquerque Civic Plaza 5/21 at 5pm
Two men grow up in the same country, speaking the same language, exposed to the same mass media. Both are college educated. Both are in politics. One is innocent; the other wants to look innocent.
Then if you look through everything they have said, and the guilty one has said a lot, and you find any similarities — by some sort of non-logic that is proof that the innocent one is really guilty.
They both used the phrase “witch hunt.” A Google search on “witch hunt” yielded 670,000 hits. It is a phrase in common use. (In my comments on this matter, I have used the phrase “trial in the media.” That is a relief — if I had said “witch hunt,” I’d be guilty also.)
They both used the word “lies.” OMG!! The evidence is piling up. A Google search yielded more than 1 billion hits. . (I said “falsehoods.” I’m a veritable Sir Galahad.)
Carl is being subjected to a witch hunt. The only question is who is playing Cotton Mather.
Thanks, Devin. Please note, instantly approved. I was by no means suggesting that the use of the same language proved anything. I don’t think anything has been ‘proven.’ But I just choose to believe 6 women: 1 who publicly charged CT with harassment, 2 others who publicly substantiated key elements of her claim and 3 other women who have made other charges but are too intimidated to come forward. I trust that over what looks to me to be a cleverly constructed lie detector test, that really doesn’t prove much to me. But I also completely understand the strong allegiance many feel for CT. Good day.
The likes of Trujillo represent one of the worst products of our patriarchal society.
As an innocent someone who has personally experienced a witch hunt instigated by New Mexico politics, I feel I have a stake in this current argument. For the record, I also had multiple accusers, which did not make me guilty. It made me someone trying to do the right thing who crossed the state’s political machine. This is how New Mexico repays trying to to the right thing when it doesn’t jive with the political undercurrent. Been there, done that.
I have previously emailed you offline regarding politically motivated mobbing (look it up, it’s real) and I sincerely believe that Carl could also be a victim of that process. Note that I am a woman too and I fully support women coming forward if they believe they have been sexually harassed. I do not support making people guilty before proven so. This is still America, last time I checked, though you couldn’t prove it by my experience.
If you read the literature on studies of mobbing behavior, note that with proper instigation, some people jump on the bandwagon and develop “false memories” of the accused after they have been sufficiently primed by authority figures to believe that the target is “evil” and “the problem.” (See the book “Mobbed!: What to Do When They Really Are Out to Get You” by Janice Harper, PhD) Mobbing tends to occur in a timeframe which will cause the target the maximum damage, hence my skepticism. But hey, don’t pay any attention to me. I just lost my job, career, and health trying to do my job because I believed I was supposed to do it. Sound familiar?
What I’m asking is that people please not join the mob and crush another human being who is possibly innocent, for all you can prove. I used to work in a crime lab and I have testified in over a hundred trials of rapists and murderers and believe me when I say that they were often given a better chance than Rep. Trujillo is being given, which is not to say the justice system is fair at all. But at least they got a TRIAL.
Let me ask you this, if he IS innocent, what would you have him do to prove his innocence that would be satisfactory? People accuse others of wrongdoing all the time and not all who are accused are guilty. That’s all I’m saying. In the not too distant past, innocent people in the south were lynched by mobs of accusers. Was that a good thing? Should we return to that kind of “mob justice”? Innocent or guilty, mob justice is NOT American.
I’m only writing this because listening to this discussion is genuinely causing me concern about the future of the state and society in general. This is triggering me, so I will be sending these to my junk mail from now on.
Thank you Sondra Sage for your beautiful, grounded and respectful comment!
Surly this kind of reporting is more likely to cause people who have been abused in some way to be less likely to come forward rather than encourage them to speak out?
If Carl is proven innocent will all the people who have dragged him through the dirt publicly apologize? If it is proven that the accusers have been manipulated in some way, into believing and reporting these accusations, will they be helped to recover from the assault inflicted upon them that caused them to accuse Carl? And if so. Will Carl and his family also be helped in recovering from this assault? Can we not just wait to see how this plays out when processed through the channels provided for these kinds of complaints? How does this kind of reporting serve anyone? Most of all the people out there who have been abused!
I would say that publicly supporting women who have the courage to speak up will have the reverse effect that you suggest. It will make it more likely that women will speak up as they will expect support instead of being vilified. I don’t think anyone is asking to dispense with due process, but voicing support for the women involved has nothing to do with abrogating due process. For centuries, the assumption was that any woman raising her voice either misunderstood, after all boys will be boys, or were lying. It is unfortunate that there may be an instance where a man is harmed by a woman who is lying. But for centuries women have been disbelieved and dismissed, so the tables are turned. Lastly, it is very hard to understand how people could have been manipulated in this case. The alleged incidents occurred 4 years and four years ago another woman claims that Bonar told her about the incidents. Were these women seduced into misrepresenting the facts four years ago in case someone might want to go after Trujillo? Who would do that, I’ve had Trujillo supporters that Speaker Egolf and “the establishment” were behind it, an odd conspiracy theory given that Egolf hosted a meet and greet fundraiser for Trujillo last night. I think what many Trujillo supporters are struggling with is that their hero, a guy who has undeniably done great things for his constituents, may very well have also behaved very inappropriately. Both can be true.. It is up to the voters to determine the degree to which what has been reported is enough for them to incorporate that into their voting decision.
Lastly, I have many times stated that I understand why many 46 residents are so passionate about Trujillo and will support him no matter what and how they may dismiss any and all charges, no matter what.
This is quite a good site to explore when we discuss men like CT.
https://everydayfeminism.com/2016/10/yes-actually-it-is-all-men/
I just read the article on the home page where I landed and it was tremendous. As always, Eduardo, i so appreciate your perspective.
“Trujillo may be innocent”
“My personal tendency is to believe women and to accept that Trujillo, because of his socialization did it.”
The philosophy of Eduardo. Paul says “Ditto.”
One reminder, or two. It has been about 7.000 years of female oppression, and possession, by the male. Until about 100 or so years ago wives and her children were declared possessions of the male, husband. Women have been, and in many cases still are, considered a male’s trophy, a sexual object and a simple vessel to create and nurture his children, preferably male ones. Trujillo may be innocent but like all males, he is ‘the child’ of a society that trains us males to see females as sexual objects, as a person of a ‘lesser value’ than a male.
My personal tendency is to believe women and to accept that Trujillo, because of his socialization did it.
Ditto.