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Fact check: A list of 45 ways Trump has been dishonest about Ukraine and impeachment – CNN, CNN

Fact check: A list of 45 ways Trump has been dishonest about Ukraine and impeachment – CNN, CNN


Relentless deceit has seemed to be his primary defense strategy in the court of public opinion. Trump has made false claims about almost every separate component of the story, from hisJuly phone callwith Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to the whistleblower who complained about the call to Democrats’ impeachment inquiry hearings.

The President is dissembling about so many different topics at once that it can be difficult to keep track of what is true and what isn’t. To help you fight Trump-induced dizziness, here arebrief fact checks of 45 separate falseclaims Trump has made on the subject of Ukraine or impeachment.

The phone call with Zelensky

    1. Trump released an “exact transcript” of his call with Zelensky. (The documentsayson its first page that it is “not a verbatim transcript.”)

    2. Trumpdid not ask Zelensky for anythingon the call. (TrumpaskedZelensky to look into former Vice President Joe Biden, look into a debunked conspiracy theory about Democratic computer servers, and speak with his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani and Attorney General William Barr.)

    3. Zelensky criticized former US ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch “out of the blue” on the call. (Trump brought up Yovanovitch first.)

    4. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was “angry” when she saw the rough transcript of the call, and shesaid, “This is not what the whistleblower said.” (Pelosi has said no such thing in public, and there is no evidence she has said anything like that in private. Her public statement on the callwas scathing.)

    5. “Everybody” that looked at the text of the call agreed that it was “perfect.” (Some of Trump’s staunch defenders agreed with this characterization, but clearly not “everybody” did.)

    6. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell spoke to Trump about the call andsaid, “That was the most innocent phone call that I’ve read. ” (McConnellsaidhe doesn’t recall speaking to Trump about the call. public statementon the call was far less effusive than Trump’s description.)

    7. People arenot talkingabout the call anymore. (People continue to talk about the call, a central focus of the impeachment inquiry.)

    8. The Washington Postmade up fictional sourcesfor its article on how Trump had allegedly tried to get Barr to hold a news conference saying Trump had broken no laws in the call. (There is no evidence that the Post invented sources. Other major news outlets,including CNN, quickly reported the same thing the Post did.)

    The whistleblower

    9. The whistleblower was “sooo wrong.” (The rough transcript and witness testimony haveproven the whistleblower to have been highly accurate

    10. The whistleblower, a second whistleblower and the first whistleblower’s source have all “disappeared. ” (There is no evidence for this. Whistleblowers do not have an obligation to speak publicly after filing their complaints.)

    11. The whistleblower had “all second hand” information . (While the whistleblower did get information about the call from other people, the whistleblower also had “direct knowledge of certain alleged conduct,”notedMichael Atkinson, the Trump-appointed inspector general for the intelligence community.)

    12. The whistleblower “said ‘quid pro quo’ eight times. ” (The whistleblower did not even use the words “quid pro quo” in thecomplaint, much less specify a number of times Trump allegedly said those words. Trumpmay have been referringto a Wall Street Journal article that had asserted that Trump urged Zelensky “about eight times to work with Rudy Giuliani” on a probe that could hurt Biden; the article did not say this claim came from the whistleblower.)

    13 . The whistleblower “works now for Biden. ” (There is no evidence for this. The whistleblower’s lawyerssaidtheir client has never worked for or advised a candidate, campaign or party; the lawyers said the whistleblower has come into contact with presidential candidates for both parties while working as a civil servant in the executive branch.

    14. Someone “changed the long standing whistleblower rules“just before this whistleblower submitted their complaint. (Contrary to a report on a right-wing website, the whistleblower rules werenot changed.)

    House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff

    15. Schiffcommitted “a criminal act“by delivering anexaggerated interpretationof Trump’s July 25 call at a committee hearing. (The Constitution gives members of Congress (immunityfor comments they make at committee.)

    16. Schiff did have immunity for his comments at the committee, butnot when he tweeted a video of those comments. (Expertssaymembers of Congress also have immunity for videos of their comments at committee.)

    17. Schiff might have committed “treason. ” (Treason has a specific constitutionaldefinitionthat Schiff’s actions do not come close to meeting.)

    18 . Schiff made his commentsbeforeTrump released the rough transcript of the call, not expecting Trump to release it. (Schiff spoke the day after Trump released the document.)

    19. Schiff “didn’t use one word that I said“in his rendition of the call. (Schiff did add words Trump had never said, but he didn’t make up the whole thing; some of his remarkshewed closelyto what Trump said.)

    20. Schiffmight have been the whistleblower’s source. (This is nonsense. The whistleblower said in the complaint that information about the call came from “multiple White House officials with direct knowledge of the call.”)

    21. Schiffmight have picked the whistleblower. (The whistleblower sought guidance from Schiff’s committee before filing their complaint, but Schiff didn’t “pick” the whistleblower.)

    22. Schiff “will only release doctored transcripts. ” (Schiff has already released multiple transcripts of testimony from closed-door impeachment inquiry hearings, and there was no sign that any of them had been “doctored.” Witnesses and their lawyers were given the opportunity toverifythe accuracy of the transcripts prior to release, and Republicans who attended the testimonydid not allegethat any transcripts had been improperly altered.)

    The impeachment process

    23. Republicans werenot allowed intothe closed-door impeachment inquiry hearings. (Republican members of the three committees holding the hearings wereallowed into the roomand to ask questions of witnesses. Only Republicans who were not on the committees were barred from the room.

    24. Republicans werenot allowed to ask questionsin the closed-door hearings. (Republicans were allowed to ask questions. Democrats and Republicans alternated questioning.)

    25.Nobody elsehas ever faced closed-door impeachment hearings. (Boththe Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton impeachment processes involved some closed-door hearings.)

    26. Trump’s opponents havecommitted “illegal acts” related to impeachment. (Trump wasn’t clear about who he was talking about, but there is no evidence of illegality by either the whistleblower or Democrats.)

    27 . The people who have testified in the impeachment inquiry have had “no firsthand knowledge. ” Various witnesses have hadfirsthand knowledge of various componentsof the story.)

    28. Gordon Sondland, ambassador to the European Union, stillsaysthere was “no quid pro quo.” Sondlandrevisedhis original testimony to effectively acknowledge his belief that there had been a quid pro quo.)

    29. Unlike Democrats, former House Speaker Paul Ryan “would never issue a subpoena. ” (Numerous Republican subpoenaswere issued to the Obama administration during Ryan’s tenure as speaker.)

    30. “Many” of the people who had testified as of October 21 “were put there during Obama, during Clinton, during the Never Trump or Bush era. ” (FactCheck.orgnotedthat just two of the nine people who had testified at that point had been appointed under Obama. other seven were appointed by Trump or his appointees.)

    The Bidens

    31. Joe Biden, along with his son Hunter Biden, has “ripped off at least two countries for millions of dollars. ” (There is no evidence Joe Biden has profited from his son’s business dealings abroad.)

    32. A video of Joe Biden speaking in 2018 about his past dealings with Ukraine is evidence of “corruption. ” (The tape does not show corruption.It shows Biden talking about his effort,in accordance with the policy of the US and its allies, to pressure Ukraine into firing a prosecutor widely considered unwilling to fight corruption.)

    . There is a photo of Joe Biden playing golf with “the company boss“of Burisma, the Ukrainian company for which Hunter Biden sat on the board. (Neither Burisma’s owner nor chief executive is in the photo. The person Trump had identified as a “Ukraine gas exec” wasDevon Archer, another American board member at Burisma and a longtime business associate of Hunter Biden.)

    34. That golf photo contradicts Joe Biden’sclaim to have “never met the gentleman.” (Joe Biden had not claimed to have never met Devon Archer.)

    35. Hunter Biden wasunder investigationby the Ukrainian prosecutor who Joe Biden pressured Ukraine to fire. (There is no public evidence that Hunter Biden was ever himself under investigation. The prosecutor’s former deputy hassaidthat the actual investigation, into the owner of Burisma, was dormant at the time of Joe Biden’s pressure.)

    36. Biden pressured Ukraine totake the prosecutor “off the case.” (There is no evidence that Biden ever called on Ukraine to remove the prosecutor from the Burisma case. Rather, Biden, like the US government more broadly, tried to get the prosecutor, Viktor Shokin, fired.)

    37 . Before Joe Biden denied that he had spoken to Hunter Biden about Hunter’s overseas business activities, Joe Biden hadsaid he did speak to Hunterabout those business activities. (Joe Biden had not said he did speak to Hunter Biden about those business activities. Hunter Biden said they had one brief conversation in which Joe Biden asked him if he knew what he was doing.)

    38. Hunter Biden’s acts were “illegal.” Hunter Biden hasacknowledgedusing “poor judgment” in accepting the seat on the Burisma board, but there is no evidence of illegality.)

    Dealings with Ukraine

    39. Trump “didn’t delay“the military aid to Ukraine. (His administrationdid delaythe aid.)

    40. Democratic senators sent a letter to Ukraine thatthreatened to deny US aidif the Ukrainians did not comply with their demands. (The letterdid not make any threat to UkraineThe senators expressed concern about a New York Times report that Ukraine had, to avoid Trump’s wrath, stopped cooperating with the Mueller investigation and frozen investigations into former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort.

    41. President Barack Obama sent mere “pillows and sheets“in aid to Ukraine. (Trump was correct that Obama refused to provide lethal military assistance, but Obamasent other military assistance: drones, armored Humvees, counter-mortar radars, night vision devices and medical supplies.)

    42. The US is the “only“country providing assistance to Ukraine, and”nobody else is there. ” (European countries haveprovided billions in grants and loansto Ukraine since Russia’s 2014 invasion.

    43. Cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike is primarilyowned by someone from Ukraine. (CrowdStrike is a publicly traded,US-based company co- founded by Dmitri Alperovitch, an American citizen who was born in Russia.)

    Polls

      44. Impeachment has caused Trump’s poll numbers to go ” (way up) “to”higher than they’ve ever been, ever. ” (There has been no sign of a significant increase in Trump’s poll numbers. His approval rating has fallen slightly since the Ukraine scandal began, according to FiveThirtyEight’spoll aggregate.)

      45. It was “announced” that a Fox News poll showing majority support for impeaching and removing Trump from office was “incorrect. ” (Fox Newssays it stands by the poll.)

      CNN’s Tara Subramaniam, Holmes Lybrand and Ryan Browne contributed to this article.

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