Fact Checker: The first time we've used the word 'lie'

Democracy Dies in Darkness

The truth behind the rhetoric

The first time we've used the word 'lie'

The Fact Checker had never used the word “lie” to describe a statement from a politician. But there’s a first time for everything, and we’re breaking the emergency glass for President Trump.

There’s no question Trump lied — repeatedly, intentionally, over more than a year, enlisting top aides and advisers to further the deception — to cover up the hush money he arranged during the 2016 campaign for porn star Stormy Daniels and Playboy model Karen McDougal, who say they had separate affairs with Trump.

The president had made a staggering 4,229 false or misleading claims since taking office to the end of July, according to our database. In many of those cases, it’s not possible to tell whether Trump was intentionally fibbing or simply careless or wrong.

But Michael Cohen’s guilty plea in Manhattan federal court this week provides indisputable evidence that Trump lied when the story about his payoffs broke in November 2016, that he lied in April 2018 when reporters asked him about the Daniels payment, that he tweeted a lie in May about having reimbursed Cohen through a monthly retainer (he was actually repaid through falsely documented payments from the Trump Organization), and that he was still not telling the truth in a Fox News interview in which he reacted to the guilty plea.

Sex-trafficking ads are not offline yet, contrary to GOP spin

It’s a point of pride for House Judiciary Committee Republicans that a new law called FOSTA-SESTA has all but eliminated sex-trafficking ads online. Rep. Ann Wagner (R-Mo.), the key sponsor of FOSTA, said ads were down 90 percent since the law’s passage.

This is a case of taking too much credit for something that hasn’t happened. Online sex ads registered a sharp decline after the Department of Justice shut down a website called Backpage on April 5. Furthermore, the numbers are climbing again after their initial descent. On the day the Judiciary Committee posted a video with Wagner’s “90 percent” claim, sex-trade ads were back at about 50 percent of the daily volume before the law had passed; as of Aug. 11, they were at almost 75 percent. We gave Wagner’s claim Three Pinocchios.

We’re always looking for fact-check suggestions.

You can also reach us via email, Twitter (@GlennKesslerWP, @mmkelly22, @rizzoTK or use #FactCheckThis), or Facebook (Fact Checker). Read about our rating scale here, and sign up here for our weekly Fact Checker newsletter.

Scroll down for this week’s Pinocchio roundup.

— Salvador Rizzo

Not just misleading. Not merely false. A lie.

Here's the definitive account of how President Trump and his associates misled, obfuscated and ultimately lied to the American people about hush-money payments

By Glenn Kessler • Read more »