As the White House flails and spins and lashes out, trying to justify Donald Trump’s stunningly heartless comments to the widow of a fallen soldier, yesterday Chief of Staff John Kelly went in front of the cameras and attacked Rep. Frederica Wilson as an “empty barrel,” and claimed she made a speech about a new FBI field office and took credit for getting the funding for the building. Here are his exact words:

…A congresswoman stood up, and in the long tradition of empty barrels making the most noise, stood up there and all of that and talked about how she was instrumental in getting the funding for that building, and how she took care of her constituents because she got the money, and she just called up President Obama, and on that phone call he gave the money — the $20 million — to build the building. And she sat down, and we were stunned. Stunned that she had done it. Even for someone that is that empty a barrel, we were stunned.

Well, now the Sun-Sentinel has found the video of Rep. Wilson’s speech, and let’s not beat about the bush — John Kelly flat out lied. At no point in her speech does she try to take credit for procuring funding for the building — and she was not even in Congress at the time. (And even if she had made those comments, which she didn’t, what in the world would make this relevant to Trump’s ugly remarks? It’s a pure ad hominem attack.)

A more charitable interpretation of Kelly’s attack on Rep. Wilson might be that he was mistaken; that he misremembered the speech. But then why is he still standing by his false claim despite the very clear video evidence?

Despite video showing that Kelly distorted Rep. Wilson’s speech, the WH stands by Kelly’s remarks AND calls Wilson an ‘empty barrel’ again. pic.twitter.com/bLkzwqPhBh

— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) October 20, 2017

And now the White House makes this sickening situation even more offensive:

Huckabee doubles down on the lies and says it’s “highly inappropriate” to disagree with a Marine 4 Star General. pic.twitter.com/OiVHSeHP1d

— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) October 20, 2017