Larry Sinclair, if that’s his real name, first popped up during the 2008 campaign telling the same story Tucker unearthed this week. At the time Sinclair went so far as to hold a press conference at the National Press Club to tell the world his tale.
Sinclair’s 15 minutes of fame were quickly extinguished when he was arrested after the press conference by D.C. police because he had a warrant out for theft and forgery charges. This was first reported by
Dave Weigel, who was at the press conference.
There were other problems with Sinclair’s background:
- Lengthy Arrest Record: His lifetime as a con man and fraudster made his claims dubious. His rap sheet was widely covered in 2008. It included (a) check fraud and credit card changes in Colorado, for which he received a 16-year sentence; (b) theft and forging a check in Florida; (c) larceny in Delaware.
- Con Man: Per Politico, “Colorado records list him with 13 aliases, including ‘Larye Vizcarra Avila’ and ‘Mohammed Gahanan.’”
- Lying To Courts: In response to theft charges in Pueblo, Colorado, in 2004, Sinclair filed an affidavit stating that he couldn’t appear in court because he was “disabled with a severe spine injury” and “terminally ill.” Nineteen years later he was alive and able to travel to Tucker’s compound. It’s a miracle!
- Failed Polygraph: The website Whitehouse.com offered to pay Sinclair $100k if he passed a lie detector test verifying his claims. He took the test and failed.
And then there’s the story itself. Generally when making these sorts of claims against a public figure, accusers have some kind of corroboration. A friend they told at the time, a diary entry, a witness. For example, at E. Jean Carroll’s defamation trial, in which the jury found that she had been raped by Donald Trump,
11 witnesses testified.
Sinclair has nothing. He can’t remember the name of the “lounge” where he supposedly met Obama in 1999. The only detail he recalls is that the cup he drank out of had 3 X’s on it. The limo driver who purportedly introduced Obama to Sinclair and sat quietly in the front seat while they had oral sex? He’s nowhere to be found. Sinclair apparently told friends that he realized that Obama was famous when he saw him speak at the 2004 Democratic National Convention. Where are those friends? Will they testify under oath to what he told them, and when? How about an employee from the Comfort Inn, the hotel he and Obama supposedly went to for their hot man-on-man action?