25 Facts About Ari Fleischer

Ari Fleischer joined Fox News as a contributor in July 2017.

Ari Fleischer's mother was a database coordinator and his father was owner of an executive recruiting company.

Ari Fleischer's parents were Jewish; his mother is a Hungarian immigrant who lost much of her family in the Holocaust.

Ari Fleischer went back to being a press secretary in 1988, working for congressman Joseph DioGuardi.

Ari Fleischer served as US Senator Pete Domenici's press secretary from 1989 to 1994 and as spokesman for the House of Representatives Ways and Means Committee for five years.

When Bush became the President in 2001, he tapped Ari Fleischer to become the first press secretary of his administration.

Ari Fleischer is credited with having been the first to introduce the phrase "homicide bombing" to describe what has been called suicide bombing, in April 2002, to emphasize the terrorist connotations of the tactic:.

Ari Fleischer was replaced by deputy press secretary Scott McClellan on July 15,2003.

Ari Fleischer made numerous exaggerated and misleading claims about Iraq in the lead-up to the Iraq War, in particular about Iraq's purported WMD program and the Saddam Hussein regime's purported relationship with al-Qaeda.

In 2019, Ari Fleischer said, "It's a myth that Bush lied" about Iraq, resulting in backlash.

Ari Fleischer claimed that he and Bush "faithfully and accurately reported" the assessments of the Intelligence community.

On July 7,2003, at The James S Brady Briefing Room, Fleischer was asked about Joseph Wilson, a former US ambassador who had recently written an editorial for The New York Times criticizing the intelligence information the Bush administration had relied upon to make its case for invading the nation of Iraq.

Specifically, Ari Fleischer was asked to respond to Mr Wilson's assertion that he had been sent to Niger to investigate claims that Saddam Hussein had sought yellowcake uranium and found no evidence that such events had ever occurred.

Ari Fleischer testified in open court on January 29,2007, that Libby told him on July 7,2003, at lunch, about Plame, who is Wilson's wife.

Ari Fleischer testified to the fact that Dan Bartlett, the president's communications adviser, told him the same thing on Air Force One days later on the way to Niger with President Bush.

Ari Fleischer had then relayed this information to Time correspondent John Dickerson and NBC's David Gregory in Uganda during the African trip.

Ari Fleischer gave his final "Press Briefing" on July 14,2003.

On July 18,2005, Bloomberg reported that in his sworn testimony before the grand jury investigating the leak, Ari Fleischer denied having seen a memo circulating in Air Force One on July 7,2003, which named Plame in connection to Wilson's mission and which identified her as a "CIA" covert agent.

However, a former Bush Administration official on the plane testified to having seen Ari Fleischer perusing the document.

However, Ari Fleischer is mentioned in Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald's indictment of Libby.

Ari Fleischer has consulted for former Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper, Mark McGwire, the Washington Redskins, Tiger Woods and the Green Bay Packers.

Ari Fleischer worked with the Saudi Arabian LIV Golf Tour.

Ari Fleischer published a memoir, Taking Heat: The President, the Press and My Years in the White House, in 2005.

In November 2002, Ari Fleischer married Rebecca Elizabeth Davis, an employee in the Office of Management and Budget, in an interfaith ceremony.

Ari Fleischer is on the board of the Republican Jewish Coalition.