Elizabeth Spiers created some buzz a while back with a column about first son-in-law Jared Kushner for whom she used to work as an editor at the Kushner-owned New York Observer. She’s also the founding editor of Gawker so I doubt she’s a “fair and balanced” type who is reporting without an agenda. Still, given recent history her story about Kushner doesn’t seem implausible. She reports that Kushner told her that Trump has been lying to “stupid” Republicans because “they’ll buy it.”

On Twitter she shared something she told a “right-wing blogger” who attacked her for calling Trump a liar. She claims to have heard a friend of Trump say about him, “He’d lie to you about what time of day it is, just for the practice.”

Back when Donald Trump revived the birther conspiracy, she told Kushner she found his father-in-law’s actions appalling and racist. She claims this was Kushner’s reply:

He rolled his eyes and said, “He doesn’t really believe it, Elizabeth. He just knows Republicans are stupid and they’ll buy it.“

My response to a right-wing blogger who called me a kook and a loser for stating that Donald Trump is a liar / water is wet: pic.twitter.com/pAp18w2x3W — Elizabeth Spiers (@espiers) May 28, 2017

Spiers acknowledges that Kushner may have been making it up in order to avoid having to defend Trump’s loony position which also seems plausible.

I should mention that I think there's a non-0 possibility Jared was lying to *me* here bc he thought this was a more palatable explanation. — Elizabeth Spiers (@espiers) May 28, 2017

But it's disgusting either way. The only palatable response would have been, "yes, I find it appalling too and I don't agree with him." — Elizabeth Spiers (@espiers) May 28, 2017

If this actually happened and Jared Kushner was telling the truth, it sure supports the position that Trump’s rise to power has been at least in part an elaborate con. If it happened and Kushner was lying it raises questions about whether he should be trusted with the tasks Trump has delegated to him. If it didn’t happen and Spiers is making it up for partisan bonus points we’ll probably never know for sure, but she’ll probably get a book deal just the same.