Comparing the Biden and Trump documents cases The announcement that classified documents were found at President Biden's office at the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement — and then more material at his Wilmington, Del., residence — raised instant comparisons with the Justice Department's investigation of former president Donald Trump's retaining of hundreds of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago home in Florida. Now a special counsel has been appointed — just as in the Trump case. We provided a brief explainer to help readers evaluate the significance of these developments. So far, there appear to be significant differences between Biden and Trump — but that perception may change depending on what prosecutors uncover. In the Trump case, the Archives initially contacted the former president in May 2021 about missing documents. Trump resisted returning them — and then when he did, some were highly classified. Even then, an FBI search later found even more documents. In the Biden case, once the documents were discovered, Archives officials were notified and the documents immediately turned over, according to the White House. We delve into other matters, too, such as different levels of classification and whether Biden as vice president had declassification authority. Please click the link to read more. Enjoy this newsletter? Forward it to someone else who'd like it! If this email was forwarded to you, sign up here. Did you hear something fact-checkable? Send it here; we'll check it out. New Congress, same false claim on the IRS Republicans took charge of the House of Representatives this week — and put forward as their first act a bill that is based on a repeatedly debunked falsehood. We call these "zombie claims" because they keep rising from the dead no matter how often they have been fact-checked. But we haven't before witnessed such a roundly criticized claim set the agenda for a new Congress. "Our very first bill will repeal the funding for 87,000 new IRS agents," declared House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) in his first floor speech. Nope, that's false, as we first explained back in August. Republicans plucked the number from a Treasury Department report on how to address the "tax gap" — the difference between what is owed to the government and what is actually paid — but not all of these employees would be revenue agents who conduct audits. Many would be employees hired to improve information technology and customer service. Moreover, the hiring is over a decade, and much of it replaces pending retirees. We originally gave this claim Three Pinocchios because at least Republicans could point to a number in a government report. But now, after repeated fact checks, there is really no excuse, and we are upping the rating to Four Pinocchios. We're always looking for fact-check suggestions. You can reach us via email, Twitter (@GlennKesslerWP and @AdriUsero) or Facebook. Read about our process and rating scale here, and sign up for the newsletter here. Scroll down for this week's Pinocchio roundup. | 
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