Q of the Century: "How to Hold Liar Trump Accountable" Fact-Checkers Now Working Overtime

You are not, but check your pants

Trump loves to brag about himself all the time

(Hands down winner this category)

Latest string, mostly new (some old), of Trump’s blatant lies from the AP fact checker (boxed off parts my emphasis):

RUSSIA INVESTIGATION AND SPYING:

TRUMP CAMPAIGN: “Just this week, Attorney General William Barr said what the President has thought all along, he believes 'unlawful spying did occur' against Donald J. Trump's presidential campaign.” — Fundraising email sent to Trump supporters.

TRUMP CAMPAIGN:  “AG Barr believes the Obama Admin illegally spied on Pres Trump.” — Text sent to Trump supporters.

THE FACTS: The email puts words in Barr's mouth and seeks to raise money in doing so. Barr never said there was illegal spying. During a Senate hearing, Barr actually made clear he had no specific evidence to cite that any surveillance was illegal or improper and stated: “I think spying did occur.  But the question is whether it was adequately predicated and I'm not suggesting it wasn't adequately predicated, but I need to explore that. I am not saying that improper surveillance occurred. I am saying that I am concerned about it and looking into it.”

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------MY VIEW INSERT: Barr, if he had any dignity and honor, would resign immediately seeing Trump lying about him and quoting Barr falsely. But, Barr is greedy and wants the job so he will stick it out.

MUELLER REPORT:

TRUMP:  “I've been totally exonerated. No collusion. No obstruction.” — Remarks at the White House.

TRUMP: “I’m not concerned about anything, because frankly there was no collusion and there was no obstruction.” — Remarks with South Korean president, Moon Jae-In.

THE FACTS: Barr's four-page summary of Mueller's nearly 400-page report did not “totally exonerate Trump.” Mueller specifically states in the report, as quoted by Barr: “While this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him.”

The summary of principal conclusions by Barr, released in late March, notes: “Mueller did not draw a conclusion — one way or the other — as to whether the examined conduct constituted obstruction, but rather set out evidence for both sides, leaving the question unanswered of whether Trump obstructed justice.” Barr said ultimately he decided as attorney general that the evidence developed by Mueller was “not sufficient to establish, for the purposes of prosecution, that Trump committed obstruction.” 

(I insert: That decision is up to Congress NOT to Barr).

In Senate testimony, Barr acknowledged that Mueller did not ask him to draw a conclusion on the obstruction question, nor did he know whether Mueller agreed with him. Barr said he would be able to explain more fully after releasing a public version of Mueller's report.

WIKILEAKS:

TRUMP was asked by a reporters if he still “loves WikiLeaks.” Trump said: “I know nothing about WikiLeaks. It's not my thing.” — Remarks also with South Korean president Moon, Jae-In.

THE FACTS: WikiLeaks was very much Trump's thing in the final weeks of the 2016 campaign, when candidate Trump showered praise on the anti-secrecy organization night after night.

On the same October day that the “Access Hollywood” tape emerged, revealing that Trump had bragged in 2005 about groping women, WikiLeaks began releasing damaging emails from Clinton's campaign manager, John Podesta. Trump and his allies seized on the dumps and weaponized them, and Trump said at various times and places:

“WikiLeaks, I love WikiLeaks,” Trump said in PA.

“This WikiLeaks is like a treasure trove,” Trump said in MI.

“Boy, I love reading WikiLeaks," Trump said in OH.

All told, Trump extolled WikiLeaks more than 100 times.

Even Assange poster hung backstage at the Republican's debate war room. At no point from a rally stage did Trump express any misgivings about how WikiLeaks obtained the emails from the Clinton campaign or about the accusations of stealing sensitive U.S. government information, which led to the recent charges against Assange. The U.S. seeks Assange's extradition from Britain.

Asked Sunday about Trump's claim he knew nothing about WikiLeaks, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders told Fox News: “The president was making a joke during the campaign and was talking about the specifics of the case at that moment.”

TRUMP TAX RETURNS:

TRUMP:  “As you know, I got elected last time with this same issue. I would love to give them, but I'm not going to do it while I'm under audit.” — Remarks reporters at the White House.

THE FACTS: Nothing prevents Trump from releasing his tax returns.

Being under audit is no legal bar to anyone releasing his or her returns.

Asked repeatedly at a House hearing whether any regulation prohibited a taxpayer from disclosing returns when under audit, IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig responded “No.” 

Trump declined to provide his tax information as a candidate in 2016 and as president, something party nominees have traditionally done in the name of the transparency. By withholding his tax returns, Trump has not followed the standard since Richard Nixon started the practice in 1969.

During the campaign, Trump said he wanted to release his returns but because he was under a routine audit saying: “I can't.” Now, Trump and Huckabee-Sander both claim that his filings are too complex for people to understand – even for Congress.

JOB APPROVAL:

TRUMP tweeted a Fox Business Network graphic showing “Soaring approval at 55%” overall: “Great news! #MAGA.”

THE FACTS: The graphic on the Georgetown University poll was incorrect: The poll found “55% was in fact: “unfavorable” rating of Trump, not his job approval (but based a different poll question). Fox Business did issue an on-air correction but Trump's tweet remained.

CLIMATE CHANGE & PARIS CLIMATE ACCORD WITHDRAWAL:

TRUMP:  “We withdrew the United States from the one-sided Paris climate accord, where you don't do any more drilling for oil and gas. That was going to cost us a lot of money. No more oil and gas with the Paris accord. That's good for Paris, but that's not good for us. Right?”  — Remarks at a ceremony for the signing of EO’s meant to accelerate pipeline construction.

THE FACTS: Wrong. The Paris accord does not ban any form of energy development. It does not impose emission caps on signatory countries. The accord is a set of voluntary targets determined by individual nations.

IMMIGRATION:

TRUMP:  “Mexico must apprehend all illegals and not let them make the long march up to the United States, or we will have no other choice than to Close the Border and/or institute Tariffs. Our Country is FULL!”  — Tweet April 7.

THE FACTS: Despite the overwhelmed southern border, there's plenty of room in the United States. Dozens of countries have greater population density. It's only full in terms of the people Trump doesn't want. His claim of a U.S. with no vacancies for more immigrants is at odds with his own statement two months ago that encouraged “the largest influx of legal immigrants ever.” 

It also belies a U.S. reality of aging baby boomers and falling birth rates, which make immigrants increasingly important to sustain a level of population growth for the U.S. economy to keep expanding.

The nation's population growth is at its lowest since 1937, with the 18-and-under population declining both nationally and in 29 states, according to William Frey (Brookings Institution). Economists say that restricting immigration would probably weaken economic growth. A shrinking labor force could also harm the health and stability of safety net programs such as Social Security and Medicare.

Trump himself seemed to acknowledge the realities during his State of the Union address in February, declaring: “I want people to come into our country, in the largest numbers ever, but they have to come in legally.” He's now describing a U.S. bursting at the seams, unable to take any immigrants, including those seeking legal asylum. 

Immigrants as a whole make up a greater percentage of the total U.S. population than they did back in 1970, having grown from less than 5 percent of the population to more than 13 percent now. 

In 2030, it's projected that immigrants will become the primary driver for U.S. population growth, overtaking U.S. births.

TRUMP on separating migrant children from their parents when caught crossing into the U.S. illegally: “I'm the one that stopped it. President Obama had child separation.” — Remarks to reporters Tuesday.

THE FACTS: No, he's the one who started it on a broad scale. He instituted a “zero tolerance policy” aimed at criminally prosecuting all adults caught crossing into the U.S. illegally. That meant detention for adults and the removal of their children while their parents were in custody. During the Obama administration and the early Trump administration, such family separations were the exception. That became the rule under Trump policy. He suspended the practice in June because of a public uproar.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------TRUMP on the family separations: “President Obama had the law. We changed the law, and I think the press should accurately report it but of course they won't.” — Remarks to reporters at White House.

THE FACTS: This is false. Trump did not achieve any change in the law. Trump's zero-tolerance policy was of his own making. He is operating under the same immigration laws as Obama's.

During the Obama administration and before Trump's zero-tolerance policy was introduced, migrant families caught illegally entering the U.S. were usually referred for civil deportation proceedings, not requiring separation, unless they were known to have a criminal record. Then and now, immigration officials may take a child from a parent in certain cases, such as serious criminal charges against a parent, concerns over the health and welfare of a child or medical concerns.

ENERGY and ENVIRONMENT:

TRUMP: “We have the cleanest air and water, they say, in the world. We are the best.”  — Remarks at the signing of orders on pipelines.

THE FACTS: Not true about air, and U.S. drinking water is among the best by one leading measure.

Trump's EPA data show that in 2017, among 35 major U.S. cities, there were 729 cases of “unhealthy days for ozone and fine particle pollution.” That's up 22 percent from 2014 and the worst year since 2012. Findings for 2018 are incomplete.

The State of Global Air 2019 report by the Health Effects Institute rated the U.S. as having the eighth cleanest air for particle pollution — which kills 85,000 Americans each year — behind Canada, Scandinavian countries, and others. The U.S. ranks poorly on smog pollution, which kills 24,000 Americans per year. On a scale from the cleanest to the dirtiest, the U.S. is at 123 out of 195 countries measured.

On water, Yale University's global Environmental Performance Index finds 10 countries tied for the cleanest drinking water, the U.S. among them. On environmental quality overall, the U.S. was 27th, behind a variety of European countries, Canada, Japan, Australia, and more. Switzerland was No. 1.

TRUMP: “With the help of the incredible workers in this room, the United States is now the No. 1 producer of oil and natural gas anywhere in the world, anywhere on the planet. Not even close. Made a lot of progress in the last two and a half years, haven't we? Huh? Took down a lot of barriers.” — At signing ceremony.

THE FACTS: As he's done many times before, Trump is crediting himself with things that happened under Obama.

Here's what the government's U.S. Energy Information Administration says: “The United States has been the world's top producer of natural gas since 2009, when U.S. natural gas production surpassed that of Russia, and the world's top producer of petroleum hydrocarbons since 2013, when U.S. production exceeded Saudi Arabia's.”

As for crude oil specifically, the information agency says the U.S. became the world's top crude oil producer last year.

That is largely attributed to the shale oil boom that began during the Obama administration, which has sent production from the Permian Basin in the southwest surging.

TRUMP: “Under this administration, we have ended the war on American energy like never before.” — Signing ceremony.

THE FACTS: It wasn't much of a war. U.S. petroleum and natural gas production has increased by nearly 60% since 2008, according to the Energy Information Administration, achieving pre-eminence during the Obama administration.

The Trump administration is more closely aligned with fossil fuel interests as it works to restrain environmental obstacles and the power of states to stand in the way of pipelines and other energy development.

My 2 cents: Simple as many times I’ve said before: “How much longer can we stand for this man to be in office one more day?”

This article brings a lot to light once again and it shows how difficult (or easy in most cases) it is to check Trump. Why can’t he check himself? Too habitual would be my first guess. To date, well over 8,000.

Thanks for stopping by.