Trump Distorts Mar-a-Lago Search

In a nearly two-hour rally in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania -- to campaign for the state’s Republican candidates for governor and U.S. Senate -- former President Donald Trump turned to the FBI search of his Florida home on Aug. 8. The search was lawfully executed after the warrant was approved by a federal magistrate judge. But Trump falsely claimed there was a "phony pretext" for the search.

To the contrary, Trump repeatedly thwarted efforts by the National Archives and Records Administration to recover highly classified government records that were taken to Mar-a-Lago from the White House.

As FactCheck.org staffers Eugene Kiely, Robert Farley and D’Angelo Gore explain, NARA worked through 2021 and finally got 15 boxes of records from Trump in January of this year. A preliminary FBI review found the boxes contained “184 unique documents bearing classification markings, including 67 documents marked as CONFIDENTIAL, 92 documents marked as SECRET, and 25 documents marked as TOP SECRET.”

But the Department of Justice had reason to believe that there were more classified records to be recovered. It issued a subpoena to Trump’s office in May, asking for all documents “bearing classification markings.” In response, DOJ got one envelope containing 38 documents. But that wasn’t everything.

A DOJ court filing said the FBI found evidence indicating that “classified documents remained at the Premises” and “that efforts were likely taken to obstruct the government’s investigation.”

The Aug. 8 FBI search uncovered more than 100 documents with classified markings and 48 “empty” folders marked as having once contained “classified” material. 

This is why the FBI got the search warrant. It wasn't a "phony pretext."

Trump’s Pennsylvania rally included numerous other factual distortions, as Eugene, Rob and D’Angelo explain. Read the full story, "Trump Distorts Facts in Pennsylvania Rally."

Reader: How come you guys never fact check Joe Biden? Especially his speeches.

FactCheck.org Managing Editor Lori Robertson: Actually, we do fact-check President Joe Biden, including in a story we published last week, on Sept. 2. 

In that article, we wrote about Biden's recent campaign-style speeches in Pennsylvania and at events hosted by the Democratic National Committee. We found that he was wrong about COVID-19 statistics, greatly understating the supply of COVID-19 vaccines when he took office and overstating the number of deaths from the disease. As we said in the story: "We’ve written repeatedly about Biden’s misleading remarks about a low vaccine supply when he became president."

In these speeches, Biden also may have left the wrong impression that police officers were killed during the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, as we explained. And he repeated a misleading talking point about the Affordable Care Act that we've also written about before. Biden said at the Aug. 25 DNC rally that “if you don’t have the Affordable Care Act, people … with a preexisting [condition] cannot get insurance.” We explained that while the ACA expanded preexisting condition protections, "[p]lenty of Americans with preexisting conditions had insurance before the ACA."

On Aug. 17, we published an article on Biden's repeated boasts about declining gasoline prices. We wrote that Biden can't claim much credit for that. "Analysts have said the decrease can mostly be attributed to a drop in the price of crude oil, which has declined largely because of concerns that the global economy may soon experience a downturn, reducing demand for oil," we said. 

The day before that, we wrote about competing claims from Democrats, including Biden, and Republicans about inflation.

So, yes, we do fact-check Biden, and we expect to do plenty more of it while he's in office. 

We also encourage tips from readers. If you spot a claim from Biden, or any other politician, that you think should be fact-checked, please let us know.

Wrapping Up

Here's what else we've got for you this week:

• "Fetterman’s Commutation Vote on Convicted Murderer": A Republican super PAC’s ad labels Democratic U.S. Senate candidate John Fetterman “dangerously liberal on crime,” citing a case in which Fetterman, the lieutenant governor of Pennsylvania, voted to recommend the commutation of a life sentence for a man convicted of murder in 1970. We thought readers may want to know more of the context of the case.
• "Biden’s Campaign-Style Distortions": As the midterm elections draw near, President Joe Biden has delivered campaign-style speeches that misstated statistics on the COVID-19 pandemic, may leave the wrong impression that police officers were killed during the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, and overstated the impact of the Affordable Care Act. 
• "Biden Hasn’t Officially Filed for Reelection, Contrary to Social Media Claims": President Joe Biden hasn’t filed anything yet with the Federal Election Commission that would officially indicate he’s running for reelection. But partisan social media accounts have been falsely claiming that he has. The claims are based on a misinterpretation of a routine filing.

• "Artículo hace acusaciones infundadas sobre la respuesta de salud pública al brote de la viruela del mono": Un artículo publicado en inglés y español repite la desmentida idea de que el brote actual de viruela del mono puede haber resultado de un virus que fue creado en un laboratorio. La nota también afirma infundadamente que la decisión de la Organización Mundial de la Salud de declarar el brote una emergencia de salud pública fue motivada por intereses económicos.