News Reporter: Fact Checker: The fact-checks that most captivated our readers in 2016

The truth behind the rhetoric

Happy holidays! Here’s to 2017.

It was a banner year for The Fact Checker. Our number of unique visitors was five times higher than during the 2012 presidential year – an indication of how much people were seeking factual information during this unusual presidential race. In fact, out 15th most popular fact check in 2015 would have ranked only 68th in 2016.

Our most widely read column of the year was the Four Pinocchios given to Sean Hannity for a false story about Donald Trump. This became the most popular column in the history of The Fact Checker — proving yet again that although Trump may be bad at sticking to the facts, he is certainly good for fact checking.

Programming note: This is our last newsletter of 2016. The Fact Checker will try to get some rest over New Year’s, and be back to business as usual the following week. We wish you all a great holiday season with your loved ones, and a happy 2017.

Enjoy this newsletter? Forward it to someone else who'd like it! If this e-mail was forwarded to you, sign up here for the weekly newsletter. Hear something fact-checkable? Send it here, we’ll check it out.

We doled out many, many Pinocchios (and some Geppetto Checkmarks). Below is our list of the 10 most popular fact-checks of 2016, with links to each column:

1. Too good to check: Sean Hannity's tale of a Trump rescue

Topping the list is an inaccurate yarn promoted by Fox News personality Sean Hannity. A reader was suspicious of a story promoted on Hannity's website — Donald Trump sending his personal plane down to Camp Lejeune, N.C., when 200 Marines were stranded after fighting in the 1991 Persian Gulf War. The Trump campaign even confirmed the tale.

But, after checking military operations records, we discovered that Trump had nothing to do with the dispatch of the jet to the troops at Camp Lejeune. The aircraft that ferried them was part of the Trump Shuttle fleet, at a time when Trump barely had control over the airline and was frantically trying to negotiate deals with bankers to prevent the collapse of his business empire. Trump Shuttle had a contract with the military, and this flight home was part of that contract. (Four Pinocchios. This column is also part of the biggest Pinocchio list.)

2: The facts about Hillary Clinton and the Kathy Shelton rape case

Before the second presidential debate, Donald Trump held a brief news conference with three women who claimed they were abused by Bill Clinton – and one woman, Kathy Shelton, who said Hillary Clinton ruined her life after Clinton was appointed in 1975 by a judge to defend the man who raped Shelton when she was still a child. Readers were intensely interested in this little-known story, so we detailed the facts, including disclosing that court records show that a central part of Shelton’s story — an alleged psychiatric exam — does not appear to have taken place. Other aspects of her account also changed over time, though we did not assign a Pinocchio rating. (No Rating)

3: The inaccuracies in Donald Trump's Air Force One tweet

Shortly after being elected president, Trump tweeted that Boeing's planned project to build the next generation of aircraft designated as Air Force One should be canceled because "costs were out of control." But there were a number of inaccuracies in his tweet, including that Boeing was not yet building the jet, that costs had not yet been set and that the order had not been placed. Trump, as president, will be able to adjust the contract as he sees fit. Since this was a round-up of claims, we did not assign a Pinocchio rating. (No Rating)

4: Did the Clinton Foundation raise 'hundreds of millions of dollars' for a hospital in Haiti that was never built?

A Trump surrogate made this unsupported claim in passing, but it spread widely on social media after pro-Trump duo Diamond and Silk picked it up. This is a mishmash talking point stringing together different information relating to Haiti recovery efforts, like a message from the last player in a game of "Telephone." There is no Clinton Foundation-funded hospital project. The Interim Haiti Recovery Commission, co-chaired by Bill Clinton, approved a $99 million public hospital in Port-au-Prince as one of its first recovery projects. The project has been delayed, but it is not funded by the Clinton Foundation; it is backed by money from the U.S. government, Haiti and France. The Clintons have faced a lot of criticism for their involvement with Haiti recovery efforts, but this one is not credible. (Four Pinocchios)

5: Donald Trump's misleading claim that he's 'won most of' lawsuits over Trump University

Trump faced attacks over allegations made in lawsuits against him and Trump University, a free introductory seminar that promised to give people insider knowledge about real estate investing if they paid as much as $35,000. He said he "won most of" the lawsuits, in which plaintiffs claimed the program was a scam and they didn't get the access and information they were promised. Trump's claim was quite misleading; the lawsuits were pending at the time and there were court rulings in favor of both Trump and the plaintiffs. After Trump was elected president, he agreed to a $25 million settlement to end all three lawsuits. The settlement included a $1 million penalty to New York state for the use of the word "university," which violated state law. (Three Pinocchios)

(giphy.com)

6: Did Clinton laugh about a rapist's light sentence and attack sexual harassment victims?

We looked at two key claims in a Republican National Committee ad that offered a kitchen sink of allegations slamming Hillary Clinton. One claim alleged that Clinton laughed about a light sentence given in the Kathy Shelton rape case. In a recorded interview, Clinton is heard laughing or giggling four times when discussing the case with unusual candor; the reporter is also heard laughing, and sometimes Clinton is responding to him. Clinton certainly laughs during the conversation but at no point does she laugh specifically about the sentence. The other claim alleged she politically attacked sexual harassment victims, but the timeline did not support that. These were both very complex situations that had been reduced to misleading sound bites. (Three Pinocchios)

7: Clinton's claim that the FBI director said her email answers were 'truthful'

To her later regret, Clinton during an interview on Fox News Sunday cherry-picked statements by Comey to preserve her narrative about the unusual setup of a private email server. She was relying on this statement by FBI Director James Comey: "We have no basis to conclude she lied to the FBI." But Comey repeatedly had dodged or sidestepped questions about whether she had lied to the American public. So Clinton earned Four Pinocchios. (Four Pinocchios. Also on the biggest Pinocchios list.)

8: What we know about Donald Trump and his taxes so far

Trump was the first major-party presidential candidate in four decades not to release his tax returns. Presidential candidates have released their returns for the sake of transparency, even though they have no legal obligation to do so. Still, Trump’s long history of litigation has given the public a sense of what is in his returns: He did not pay any (or nearly any) income taxes at least five times in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s. After this fact-check was published, the New York Times revealed that Trump had reported a $916 million loss in 1995, which would have been large enough to allow him to avoid paying any federal income taxes for up to 18 years. This was an explainer, so no Pinocchios were given. (No Rating)

9: Trump is right: He didn't kick a baby out of a campaign rally

In one of the campaign's stranger episodes, the media spun a fable that Trump had kicked a baby out of his rally in Ashburn, Va. When Trump complained that this was "a lie," we decided to check it out. Daniel Dale, a reporter for the Toronto Star, was seated behind the mother and wrote that the entire incident was mischaracterized. (Most of the media wrote the story based on a videotape.) We also contacted the mother, who wrote that "the media did in fact blow this entire situation out of proportion." She said chose to leave the auditorium on her own. We concluded Trump had been unfairly maligned and gave him a Geppetto Checkmark. (Geppetto Checkmark)

10: Does Huma Abedin have 'ties' to the Muslim Brotherhood?

Huma Abedin is a longtime aide to Hillary Clinton who has also been the subject of suspicion on the right, given that she grew up in Saudi Arabia (after being born in Kalamazoo, Mich.). Rep. Sean Duffy (R-Wis.) claimed that she had been "an editor for a Sharia newspaper" and had "ties to the Muslim Brotherhood." We looked into his claims and concluded they were bogus. She had worked for a sober academic journal edited by her mother – and her alleged connections to the Muslim Brotherhood were so tenuous as to be obscure. So Duffy earned Four Pinocchios. (Four Pinocchios)

(giphy.com)

Introducing: The Trump Promise Tracker! Bookmark it for 2017.

We’re excited to introduce the Trump Promise Tracker, Fact Checker’s first presidential promise tracker.

Since the Fact Checker was relaunched in 2011, we had missed the start of President Obama's term, and so it was too late to track his 2008 promises. But, with a new president, we can start afresh.

Trump’s "Contract with the American Voter" listed 60 promises, some of which he said he would fulfill on the day he took the oath of office. Others, he said, would be implemented or launched in his first 100 days. So we built an interactive Trump Promise Tracker to track whether he is keeping to his pledges. You can sort the promises by category or rating to check its progress. We welcome feedback and debate as we rate the success or failure of his pledges.

We rely on readers like you to point out fact-checkable claims made in ads, speeches and more. If you hear something fact-checkable, fill out this form, e-mail us or tweet us: @myhlee, @GlennKesslerWP or using #FactCheckThis. Read about our rating scale here, and sign up here for our weekly Fact Checker newsletter.

–Michelle Ye Hee Lee