Tag: Trump lies

FBI director Chris Wray pushes back on Bill Barr’s claim about ‘spying’ on the Trump campaign

FBI director Chris Wray pushed back on Attorney General William Barr’s claims about law enforcement “spying” on the Trump campaign.

Barr suggested FBI surveillance that caught up at least two campaign associates was improperly conducted, despite courts issuing warrants under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to investigate foreign nationals who spoke to members of the Trump campaign.

Wray, however, disputed Barr’s usage of the term and said he knew of no illegal surveillance on any of the 2016 campaigns.

“That’s not the term I would use,” Wray said.

View the complete May 7 article by Travis Gettys on the Raw Story website here.

What’s the evidence for ‘spying’ on Trump’s campaign? Here’s your guide.

Attorney General William P. Barr has indicated that he is troubled by the possibility that the FBI conducted surveillance on the 2016 presidential campaign of Donald Trump. The president has regularly tweeted that he was a victim of spying. Trump’s allies in Congress have reiterated that claim.

There are two main threads to the accusations of spying: contacts by FBI-linked operatives with George Papadopoulos, a young Trump foreign policy aide, and federal court surveillance of Carter Page after he was ousted by the campaign. For instance, Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) tweeted:

“Now we know they spied on at least two American citizens associated with the Trump campaign 1) Carter Page — using the false Dossier as the basis for a secret warrant 2) George Papadopolous — set up by an FBI agent posing as a Cambridge professor’s assistant.”

View the complete May 6 article by Glenn Kessler on The Washington Post website here.

Fact-checking President Trump isn’t enough

It’s a tsunami of lies.

It’s an avalanche of falsehoods. It’s a deluge, a torrent, a rockslide, a barrage, an onslaught, a blitzkrieg.

President Trump has made more than 10,000 false or misleading statements since becoming president — on the size of the inaugural crowd, the number of steel plants being built in America and whether he knew about hush-money payments to Stormy Daniels, to name just three.

View the complete May 1 article by Margaret Sullivan on The Washington Post website here.

George Conway mocks ‘Deranged Doanld’ Trump for his ‘amazing accomplishment’ of telling the American people 10,000 lies

George Conway, the husband of White House counselor Kellyanne Conway, mockingly congratulated President Donald Trump after Washington Post fact checker Glenn Kessler revealed that he had documented more than 10,000 false or misleading claims made by the president over the last two-and-a-half years.

“Congrats, Deranged Donald!!” Conway wrote on Twitter. “An amazing accomplishment!! No one but you could have achieved this.”

Conway then went on to document the sheer breadth and scope of lies that Trump tells.

View the complete April 29 article by Brad Reed of Raw Story on the AlterNet website here.

Populist economic frustration threatens Trump’s strongest reelection issue, Post-ABC poll finds

President Trump’s strongest case for reelection remains the country’s healthy economy, but the potency of that issue for him is complicated by a widespread belief that the economy mainly benefits people already in power, a Washington Post-ABC News poll finds.

The result previews a fresh wave of populism that could reshape yet another presidential campaign with about 18 months to go before voters decide whether to return Trump to the White House.

This sentiment runs the deepest among Democratic and independent registered voters but also exists among a significant slice of Republicans. About 8 in 10 Democrats and more than 6 in 10 independents say the country’s economic system gives an advantage to those already in power, while nearly a third of Republicans share that view.

View the complete April 29 article by Seung Min Kim and Scott Clement on The Washington Post website here.

President Trump has made more than 10,000 false or misleading claims

It took President Trump 601 days to top 5,000 false and misleading claims in The Fact Checker’s database, an average of eight claims a day.

But on April 26, just 226 days later, the president crossed the 10,000 mark — an average of nearly 23 claims a day in this seven-month period, which included the many rallies he held before the midterm elections, the partial government shutdown over his promised border wall and the release of the special counsel’s report on Russian interference in the presidential election.

This milestone appeared unlikely when The Fact Checker first started this project during his first 100 days. In the first 100 days, Trump averaged less than five claims a day, which would have added up to about 7,000 claims in a four-year presidential term. But the tsunami of untruths just keeps looming larger and larger.

View the complete April 29 article by Glenn Kessler, Salvador Rizzo and Meg Kelly on The Washington Post website here.

Poll: Even Many Trump Supporters Don’t Buy His Mueller Report Spin

In conjunction with Attorney General Bill Barr, President Donald Trump has aggressively tried to spin Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s final report as an “exoneration” of the president — even though it is nothing of the sort.

But a new poll shows that most people aren’t buying it.

Commissioned by the Washington Post and ABC News, the poll found that Trump’s spin about the report hasn’t even convinced the 39 percent of people who approve

View the complete April 26 article by Cody Fenwick with AlterNet on the National Memo website here.

Trump says he did not try to fire Mueller. Here’s what Mueller’s report says.

“As has been incorrectly reported by the Fake News Media, I never told then White House Counsel Don McGahn to fire Robert Mueller, even though I had the legal right to do so. If I wanted to fire Mueller, I didn’t need McGahn to do it, I could have done it myself.”

— President Trump, in a tweet, April 25, 2019

President Trump is disputing a key finding of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s report — that he ordered the firing of Robert Mueller.

In this tweet, he somehow tries to blame the media for accurately reporting on what the report said. Perhaps he is trying to avoid saying that a report he has claimed exonerated him was incorrect.

Trump also makes the curious claim that he could have fired Mueller himself. That’s not correct.

Four Pinocchios

View the complete April 26 article by Glenn Kessler on The Washington Post website here.

Trump disputes finding that he directed McGahn to seek Mueller’s ouster

President Trump escalated tensions with his former top White House lawyer on Thursday, sharply questioning the credibility of one of the special counsel’s key witnesses as congressional Democrats seek his testimony.

In a morning tweet, Trump disputed that he had told Donald McGahn, then White House counsel, to pursue the firing of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III amid his investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.

That episode and others are included in a report released by Mueller last week that have prompted House Democrats to issue a subpoena for McGahn as they examine whether Trump sought to obstruct Mueller’s efforts.

View the complete April 25 article by Robert Costa and John Wagner on The Washington Post website here.

Trump opposes aides’ testimony on Mueller report, ramping up feud with Democrats

House Judiciary Committee has subpoenaed former White House Counsel Don McGahn

President Donald Trump said Tuesday he is opposed to current and former White House officials testifying before Congress about special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s report.

“There is no reason to go any further, and especially in Congress where it’s very partisan — obviously very partisan,” Trump said in an interview with The Washington Post.

The House Judiciary Committee has subpoenaed former White House Counsel Don McGahn, whom Democrats describe as a potential star witness in their ongoing probes of all things Trump.

View the complete April 23 article byJohn T. Bennett on The Roll Call website here.