Fact check: Top whoppers of 2017
We first dubbed President Trump, then a candidate, as “King of Whoppers” in our annual roundup of notable false claims for 2015.
He dominated our list that year — and again in 2016 — but there was still plenty of room for others.
This year? The takeover is complete. In his first year as president, Trump used his bully pulpit and Twitter account to fuel conspiracy theories, level unsubstantiated accusations and issue easily debunked boasts about his accomplishments.
Russia investigation
Two weeks before Trump took the oath of office, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence released a declassified intelligence report that described an “influence campaign” ordered by Russian President Vladimir Putin during the 2016 election.
The report said, among other things, that Russian intelligence services hacked into computers at the Democratic National Committee and gave the hacked material to WikiLeaks and other outlets to publicize in an effort “to help President- elect Trump’s election chances.”
A day after the report came out, Trump declared on Twitter that the intelligence community “stated very strongly that there was absolutely no evidence that hacking affected the election results.” Not so. The report specifically stated that the intelligence community “did not make an assessment of the impact that Russian activities had on the outcome of the 2016 election.”
This would be one in a long line of false, misleading or unsubstantiated statements by Trump and his aides this year about the ongoing federal investigation into whether the Trump campaign colluded with the Russians. Here are some others:
❚ In a March 4 tweetstorm, Trump called it a “fact” that President Obama “was tapping my phones in October, just prior to Election!” Trump offered no evidence. Then- FBI Director James Comey told the House Intelligence Committee on March 20 that the FBI and Justice Department had “no information that supports those tweets.”
❚ Trump tweeted in May that former director of national intelligence James Clapper “reiterated what everybody, including the fake media already knows — there is ‘ no evidence’ of collusion w/ Russia and Trump.” Clapper didn’t say that. Clapper said he had no such information “at the time,” meaning before he left office in January.
❚ The White House issued a statement May 9 saying the president fired Comey as FBI director “based on the clear recommendations” of Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. White House counselor Kellyanne Conway said the firing had “zero to do with Russia.” That was all spin. Trump later said he would have fired Comey “regardless of recommendation” and was thinking of “this Russia thing” when he decided to act.
❚ Trump claimed that Hillary Clinton “lied many times to the FBI and nothing happened to her.” There is no evidence Clinton lied to the FBI.
❚ Donald Trump Jr. agreed to meet June 9, 2016, with Russians who promised damaging information on Clinton. The president’s son at first misleadingly described the meeting as “primarily” about the adoption of Russian children but later acknowledged he agreed to the meeting to obtain dirt on Clinton.
❚ Jared Kushner, the president’s son- in- law, met with Sergey Kislyak, the Russian ambassador to the U. S., on Dec. 1, 2016, during the transition. It was reported in May that Kushner asked Kislyak at the meeting if Russia could set up a secure communications channel for discussions with the Trump transition team. In rebuttal, Trump retweeted a “Fox & Friends” tweet that said, “Jared Kushner didn’t suggest Russian communications channel in meeting, source says.” That’s false. Kushner later told Congress that he “asked if they had an existing communications channel at his embassy we could use.”
Trump boasts
During the campaign, Trump vowed that if elected, “we’re going to win with every single facet; we’re going to win so much you may even get tired of winning.” That kind of boasting didn’t end with his election:
Trump claimed that “the world is starting to respect the United States of America again,” despite surveys to the contrary. The White House provided no support for the statement.
Jobs, the economy
During the campaign, Trump ridiculed the official unemployment rates ( which were steadily declining) as “phony numbers.”
In what has been a running theme since he assumed the presidency, Trump regularly boasts that he has turned the economy around.
❚ Trump repeatedly took credit for investment and job- creation announcements that had nothing to do with him. The president, for example, said Toyota’s announcement that it would invest $ 1.3 billion in an assembly plant in Kentucky “would not have been made if we didn’t win the election.” That’s false. A Toyota spokesman said the investment had been planned “several years ago.”
Immigration, terrorism
Trump drew rebuke from the Netherlands Embassy in the United States for retweeting an anti- Muslim video that purported to show a “Muslim migrant” beating up “a Dutch boy on crutches.” The tweet was wrong. The attacker was born and raised in the Netherlands and was not an immigrant. Trump incorrectly tweeted that “122 vicious prisoners, released by the Obama administration from ( Guantanamo) have returned to the battlefield,” when the total at the time was really eight detainees.
Taxes
The president claimed in September that under his tax plan, “the rich will not be gaining at all.” Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin acknowledged that in cutting taxes across the board, “it’s very hard not to give tax cuts to the wealthy with tax cuts to the middle class.”