If you are a poker player, you put a lot of weight into the body language of people.
Well, I have played a lot of poker and won considerable money by being able to read people’s body language and right out of the gate, there were some considerable problems with the body language of Lt. Col. Vindman today.
The Tells
I am not pretending to be a body language expert, but I have studied it from some of the most notable names in the profession.
Some of the tips that I learned came from Mark Bouton, a former FBI agent specializing in body language and the author of “How to Spot Likes Lies the FBI.”
Any one, or even two of these “tells” are not a problem on their own, but when you have a significant amount of these signs showing at the same time, you can be pretty sure the individual is either lying or making up what they are saying.
When Vindman was being questioned by Nunes, he showed several concerning signs.
If we were playing poker and Vindman had put his chips in the middle, I would not have been able to get my money in the middle of the table quick enough.
Here is the video of today’s hearing, but I want you to specifically watch Vindman when he is giving basic answers versus answers where he is offering his opinion or perception of what happened.
First and foremost, Vindman’s hands were shaking terribly when he was reading his opening statement, but this could be dismissed as nervousness.
More concerning for me was the fact that Vindman regularly moved his eyes up and the right, a movement generally accepted as the creative part of the brain, in other words, you are making up what you are saying.
His eyes are also regularly darting from left to right.
Finally, when he gives answers that are not cut and dry, he blinks repeatedly, often blinking five or six straight times in a row.
These are four pretty big tells, but don’t take my word for it.
Listen to the Expert
Mark Bouton states, “…If he exhibits lying indicators when you ask more pointed or suggestive questions, and these [signs] are not the ones he previously performed, you can be confident that he’s likely lying.”
Regarding eyes darting back and forth, he states, “This is a physiological reaction to him feeling uncomfortable or trapped by your questions that he doesn’t want to answer.
“It’s a throwback to when people had to seek an escape route when they feared they were in a dangerous situation, such as facing a human or animal adversary.”
On rapid blinking, Bouton states, “A person will ordinarily blink about five or six times a minute, or once every 10 or 12 seconds.
“When stressed — for instance, when someone knows he’s lying — he may blink five or six times in rapid succession.”
Regarding looking up and to the right, he states, “When you ask a normal, right-handed person about something he’s supposed to have seen, if he looks upward and to his left, he’s truly accessing his memory of the incident.
“However, if he looks upward and to his right, he’s accessing his imagination, and he’s inventing an answer.”
Do I believe Vindman is outright lying? I may not go that far, but I absolutely believe his “perception” of what happened is his own beliefs rather than fact.
That was made quite clear when he perceived Trump asking for a favor as a demand.
Nowhere in the transcripts was the word demand ever mentioned, that is only Vindman’s perception.
It is also worth noting that both Vindman and Williams very early in their testimony stated the aid was withheld for the review of policy, but their perception of what happened changed over time due to news stories.
Now, we all know more media outlets lean very hard left, so their perception being changed to what it is now is not exactly a surprise.
In essence, both admitted the media has shaped their narrative rather than the facts.
That being the case, we cannot take a single word of their testimony as meaningful, so Democrats have done nothing but waste more of our time and money.