Debate claims aren’t all true

Fact checking comments by Trump, Clinton find some discrepancies

WASHINGTON - Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump both struggled in the final presidential debate to explain comments from their past. A look at some of the claims from the debate:

CLINTON, on Trump’s charge that she called for open borders in a 2013 speech to a Brazilian bank: “I was talking about energy.”

THE FACTS: She was actually talking about more than energy, but apparently less than an open border that immigrants can spill across at will, according to the partial transcript released by WikiLeaks.

Clinton said in the speech that “my dream is a hemispheric common market, with open trade and open borders, sometime in the future with energy that is as green as sustainable as we can get it, powering growth and opportunity for every person in the hemisphere.” The remarks suggest a broad interest in open trade but were not necessarily evidence that she would support the unfettered movement of people, as Trump charged. ——— TRUMP: “Her plan is going to raise taxes and even double your taxes.”

THE FACTS: Clinton’s plan wouldn’t raise taxes at all for 95 percent of Americans, according to the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center. The very wealthiest would take the greatest hit, though a doubling is highly questionable.

Two-thirds of her proposed increases would hit the top 0.1 percent of richest Americans, the center estimates. The main components of her tax plan: a minimum 30 percent tax on those earning at least $1 million a year, and a 5 percent tax surcharge for those earning more than $5 million a year. She would also cap the value of tax deductions and exclusions for wealthier taxpayers. ——— CLINTON: “I want to make college debt free.”

THE FACTS: Clinton might aspire to that lofty goal, but she has only proposed making college tuition free for in-state students who go to a public college or university. Even with expanded grant aid, room and board can lead students to borrow.

Clinton would have the government pay for instate tuition at public colleges and universities for students from families earning less than $125,000 a year. Students would still need to foot the bill for housing and food, which makes up more than half of the average $18,943 sticker price at a four-year public university, according to the College Board.

But Trump is correct that government would shoulder higher costs with Clinton’s plan.

Her plan would cost the federal government an estimated $500 billion over 10 years, with additional costs possibly for state governments. ——— TRUMP: Hillary Clinton “has no idea whether it’s Russia, China or anybody else” that is behind recent hacks of Democratic organizations and individuals. “Our country has no idea.”

THE FACTS: Actually, the U.S. government says it does have an idea and has concluded it was Russia who hacked into the Democratic National Committee, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and the email accounts of Clinton campaign manager John Podesta and others.

Trump’s refusal to point the finger at Moscow is at odds with the prevailing position of the U.S. intelligence community.

“We believe, based on the scope and sensitivity of these efforts, that only Russia’s senior-most officials could have authorized these activities,” the Office of the Director of National Intelligence said recently in a joint statement with the Department of Homeland Security.

Top Democrats on the House and Senate intelligence committees say they’ve concluded Russian intelligence agencies were trying to influence the U.S. presidential election.

Russia has denied the accusation. ——— CLINTON on her opposition to the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal: “It didn’t meet my test.”

THE FACTS: It met her test when she was secretary of state and she promoted it worldwide.

Hacked emails from Clinton’s campaign, released Wednesday by WikiLeaks, showed that Jake Sullivan, her top foreign policy adviser, called her a “big champion” of the deal and worried about how to handle the issue in the face of Sen. Bernie Sanders’ opposition. She later flip-flopped into opposition during the Democratic primaries against Sanders.

Clinton says she no longer backs the proposed trade deal as written because it does not provide enough protections for U.S. workers on wages, jobs and the country’s national security. Yet the final deal also includes some of the strongest labor protections of any U.S. trade agreement. ——— TRUMP: “Hillary Clinton wanted the (border) wall. Hillary Clinton fought for the wall in 2006 or thereabouts. Now, she never gets anything done, so naturally it wasn’t built.”

THE FACTS: Almost, but not quite. As a senator from New York, Clinton did support the 2006 Secure Fence Act, which authorized the construction of hundreds of miles of fencing along the U.S.Mexico border.

But it was built. Nearly 700 miles of fencing was put in place during President George W. Bush’s second term and the beginning of President Barack Obama’s first term.

The fencing is placed largely in urban areas along the nearly 2,000mile frontier. It is not the type of solid wall that Trump has pledged to construct at Mexico’s expense. The fence has miles-long gaps and gates built in to allow landowners access to their property on the south side of the fencing. Immigrants have been known to go over and around the fence.

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CLINTON: “I disagreed with the way the court applied the Second Amendment” in the District of Columbia vs. Heller decision in 2008. “I was upset because unfortunately dozens of toddlers injure themselves and even kill people with guns… But there’s no doubt I respect the Second Amendment, that I believe there’s an individual right to bear arms.”

THE FACTS: While Clinton emphasized the protection of children from gun accidents, the main holding in that case was far broader: that individuals have a right to own guns, at least in their homes and for self-defense. The case marked the first time the court said that individuals have a Second Amendment right to own a gun. The decision struck down Washington’s ban on handgun ownership as well as a separate requirement that people who have other guns store them either with trigger locks or disassembled. The court said both provisions violate the Second Amendment. ——— TRUMP: Under Hillary Clinton, “$6 billion went missing” at the State Department.

THE FACTS: Not quite. That figure is a distortion about a legitimate recordkeeping concern. In 2014 the State Department’s inspector general released an alert warning that the documentation for $6 billion in State Department contracts was incomplete. But there’s no reason to think that all occurred under Clinton. The inspector general, Steve Linnick, specifically disavowed the conclusion that the money went missing.