Trump Reportedly Obsessed With Lie Detectors amid Scandals Engulfing White House

By Staff, Agencies

US President Donald Trump has been obsessed with using polygraphs to find out who leaked information to the press, a White House former official said.

“He wanted to polygraph every employee in the building to unearth who it was who spoke to the press,” a former official was cited as saying in a report by Politico on Tuesday.

Trump “constantly” talks about ordering polygraphs during major leaks, according to another former official. “He talked about it a lot… He’d be angry and ask, ‘Why can’t we stop these things?’”

White House officials are reportedly storing transcripts of Trump’s phone calls in a system for highly classified intelligence secrets, including his conversation with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensk, in which he tied US aid to Ukraine to an in investigation into Joe Biden and his son, Hunter.

Trump has also asked China to investigate to the top Democratic runner for the 2020 presidential vote, in which he is hoping for reelection.

One of the former White House officials indicated that the idea of polygraphs has never been serious.

“It was something that was discussed and people were trying to placate the president and trying to show that they were taking it as personally and just as seriously as he was,” said the former official. “Taking that line of, ‘Oh yeah, we have to polygraph people’ was a way to ingratiate themselves with him, but it wasn’t an idea that ever went anywhere because it was absurd.”

The House of Representatives has set off a spiraling impeachment inquiry in the wake of a whistleblower complaint into the phone call.