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A Project of The Annenberg Public Policy Center

Trump’s Hollow ‘Empty Folders’ Defense

Trump’s Hollow ‘Empty Folders’ Defense

Former President Donald Trump’s latest defense for having classified documents found by FBI agents at his Mar-a-Lago home is that many of them were simply “empty folders” stamped “classified” on the outside that Trump kept as mementos. The FBI says it did find dozens of empty folders, but it also found 103 classified documents.

McCarthy Distorts Facts About DOJ Search of Mar-a-Lago

McCarthy Distorts Facts About DOJ Search of Mar-a-Lago

In questioning why the FBI “raid[ed] President Trump,” House Speaker Kevin McCarthy falsely claimed that government officials “could have come and taken” classified government documents stored at Donald Trump’s private club and residence in Florida “any time they wanted.”

Classified Documents Found at Former Biden Office, Drawing Comparisons to Trump

Classified Documents Found at Former Biden Office, Drawing Comparisons to Trump

The Justice Department is reviewing the circumstances surrounding the discovery of classified documents by personal lawyers for President Joe Biden inside his former office. We review what we currently know about the documents, as well as how this situation compares to the FBI’s recovery of highly classified documents at former President Donald Trump’s private club and residence in Florida.

The Facts Underpinning Jan. 6 Committee Criminal Referrals

The Facts Underpinning Jan. 6 Committee Criminal Referrals

The House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol released a 154-page summary of its final report on Dec. 19 that concludes former President Donald Trump was responsible for a “multi-part plan to overturn the 2020 Presidential election.” Here we will outline the four criminal referrals brought by the committee.

Trump Swapped Prisoners, Too

Trump Swapped Prisoners, Too

Former President Donald Trump wrongly boasted that his administration “got 58 hostages released from various hostile countries without paying any money, or giving up anything.”

The Whoppers of 2022

The Whoppers of 2022

The midterm elections are finally over, but it won’t be long before the 2024 campaign cycle — which will really start in 2023 — gets going. Before that happens, we’ve put together this list of the year’s biggest whoppers that politicians and others made over the past 12 months.

McCarthy Mischaracterizes Trump’s Response to Fuentes Meeting

McCarthy Mischaracterizes Trump’s Response to Fuentes Meeting

Asked about Donald Trump’s dinner meeting attended by Nick Fuentes, a white supremacist, Rep. Kevin McCarthy claimed the former president “came out four times and condemned him.” That’s not accurate. Trump had repeatedly said he didn’t know who Fuentes was, but he stopped short of condemning him or his ideas.

Bogus Theory Misinterprets FTX Support for Ukraine

Bogus Theory Misinterprets FTX Support for Ukraine

The bankruptcy of FTX, one of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges, has sparked an unfounded claim that its former CEO had conspired with Ukraine and Democratic politicians to launder U.S. aid money. FTX helped make crypto donations available to Ukraine; it wasn’t taking any assets from Ukraine.