Friday, September 1, 2017

What's common between Depp/Heard divorce and Mnuchin's visit to Ft Knox?

Do lawyers put too mach emphasis on technical reading of the English language?  Or do they use linguistic technicalities to mislead the public? You decide.

During the infamous split between Johnny Depp and Amber Heard, the lawyers for both sides came out with a crafty and clever press release that read: "Neither party has lied nor made false accusations for financial gain."

The statement does not say "Neither party has lied or made false accusations."  Only that they didn't do so "for financial gain", which opens up the possibility that they did so for other purposes, such as to hurt the other, etc.  So to a lawyer, this immediately raises the question: did either party nonetheless lie or make false statements, but for other purposes, unrelated to financial gain?

What does it have to do with Mnuchin's recent visit to Ft Knox and his subsequent tweet "Glad gold is safe!"?  I am surprised that no one in the media has called Mr. Mnuchin on his statement, similarly to how some press outlets called Johnny and Amber on their crafty statement.  Because Mnuchin doesn't say "gold is there."  He only says "gold is safe."  So it could be "safe" in a whole different place in the U.S., Europe or even China, and not at Ft. Knox, which would mean that some conspiracy theorists are at least partially right in thinking that the gold that used to be at Ft. Knox is no longer there, whether the gold is "safe" or not.  Just saying....