Who did Donald Trump know, and when did he know them?
On Friday, President Donald Trump said of his new acting attorney general: "I don’t know Matt Whitaker. Matt Whitaker worked for Jeff Sessions."
Last month, Trump said of him: "I can tell you Matt Whitaker’s a great guy. I mean, I know Matt Whitaker."
Go figure.
No, this isn't the first time. The most famous and high-stakes example is Vladimir Putin. Trump's own televised remarks, chronologically:
October 2013: "He's a tough guy. I met him once."
November 2013: "I do have a relationship. I can tell you he's very interested in what we're doing here today."
February 2014: "He contacted me ... and was so nice."
May 2014: "I spoke indirectly and directly with President Putin."
July 2016: "I have nothing to do with Russia. I never met Putin."
October 2016: "I don't know Putin."
Motive for the Putin flip-flop was easy to spot. By the time of the last two claims, Trump was accused by his detractors of being cozy with the Kremlin, a question still being explored in special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation.
The president's suddenly "not knowing" Whitaker after sending him to run the Justice Department seems more opaque.
Did Trump feel an impulse to distance himself just a bit because of something he heard from or about Whitaker or about the congressional process to come?
Stay tuned and we might find out.
Another case where Trump suddenly "didn't know" someone you'd think he'd at least remember came after the guilty plea of former 2016 campaign aide George Papadopoulos.
The Washington Post recorded the president citing Papadopoulos as a foreign policy adviser in March 2017.
But by October of last year, Trump tweeted: "Few people knew the young, low-level volunteer named George."
Then there was Russian-born businessman Felix Sater. He had a criminal record, served as an FBI informant, and was involved in Trump-branded ventures before his presidency. Sater, by all accounts, also worked on building a Trump Tower in Moscow.
And yet in 2013, Trump said during a deposition in a lawsuit: "If he were sitting in the room, I really wouldn't know what he looked like."
If Trump is forced to acknowledge knowing former associates who have run afoul of the law, he simply minimizes their roles. Of Paul Manafort, who led the 2016 campaign through the summer GOP convention, he said in August: "I didn’t know Manafort well. He wasn’t with the campaign very long.”
Personal lawyer Michael Cohen was associated with Trump for so long and involved in so many matters he acquired a reputation as the future president's "fixer." But in August, Trump told "Fox and Friends" that Cohen “worked more or less” as a “part-time” employee for him.
“He was a lawyer for me, one of many,” Trump said. “Didn't do big deals, did small deals.”
Along with people he claims not to know, there are events of which the president denies familiarity. In one case, he was asked aboard Air Force One back in April if he'd known in advance about a $130,000 payment to porn actress Stormy Daniels.
"No," he said.
Evidence has since piled up that Trump specifically directed and was consulted on that and other such payments, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Maybe the president simply chooses not to know who and what he doesn't want to know when it could be a bad thing to know them.
Which would make his word worth very little — which a lot of people seem to not stop knowing.
Dan Janison is a member of the Newsday editorial board.
