News Reporter: Fact Checker: Democrats' misleading claims about Jeff Sessions and his meetings with the Russian ambassador

Friday 3 March 2017

Fact Checker: Democrats' misleading claims about Jeff Sessions and his meetings with the Russian ambassador

Democracy Dies in Darkness

The truth behind the rhetoric

Democrats’ misleading claims about Jeff Sessions and his meetings with the Russian ambassador

This week, The Washington Post reported that Attorney General Jeff Sessions in 2016 met twice with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak, including once in his Senate office, when Sessions was a key adviser to Donald Trump's presidential campaign. Sessions did not disclose this detail to the Senate during his confirmation hearings for the attorney general post, even when he was asked about potential ties between Moscow and the Trump campaign.

Democrats called for Sessions to resign or to recuse himself from investigations into the 2016 elections, including potential Russian interference. Sessions recused himself but did not resign. We looked into two claims by Democratic lawmakers in response to The Post’s report.

Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) tweeted: "I've been on the Armed Services Com for 10 years. No call or meeting w/Russian ambassador. Ever. Ambassadors call members of Foreign Rel Com." Her tweet was liked and retweeted more than 33,000 times. But a quick search on Twitter turned up two instances when McCaskill announced she was interacting with a Russian ambassador — once in a 2013 group meeting about Russian decision to end all U.S. adoptions, and another in a 2015 call with British, Russian and German ambassadors about the Iran deal.

That's certainly different from her claims of "no call or meeting" with the Russian ambassador "ever" over the course of 10 years. Her staff explained she was making a distinction between Sessions meeting privately with Kislyak, and McCaskill meeting him with a group. McCaskill then clarified her claim on Twitter.

But she went too far in her original tweet, and earned Three Pinocchios.

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Another fishy claim was by House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.): “This Congress impeached a president for something so far less, having nothing to do with his duties as president of the United States.”

Clinton gave misleading testimony in a private lawsuit filed by former Arkansas state employee Paula Jones, and his perjurious statements were about his affair with Monica Lewinsky, not the plaintiff. An independent investigation found 11 possible grounds for impeachment, including lying repeatedly under oath to a grand jury, in his civil deposition, and even to his own lawyer. The House impeached Clinton in 1998, and the Senate acquitted him in 1999.

Sessions gave potentially misleading testimony in a public Senate hearing about Russian involvement in U.S. presidential elections — an issue much more germane to national security than Clinton's sex life. But we don't know yet whether Sessions perjured himself.

If one were to weigh Pelosi's claim based on whether Sessions and Clinton lied under oath, it's clear Clinton's case is not "far less" than Sessions's. But the content of Clinton's lies (his sex life) was "far less" important than the content of Sessions's statements (about potential foreign influence in U.S. elections). Pelosi's staff indicated that she was making a distinction between the content of their statements. We awarded Two Pinocchios.

Still, we’ll note: Pelosi may be better off comparing Sessions's case to that of Richard G. Kleindienst, former acting attorney general in 1972.

Breaking: Trump went a full 24 hours without a false/misleading claim!

We’ve been tracking every problematic claim made by Trump throughout his first 100 days as president. Every day since Inauguration Day, Trump made at least one false or misleading claim. So far, we’ve counted 194 false or misleading claims over 43 days. (We’re tracking his promises, too.)

Feb. 28 was his worst factual day: Trump made a record 27 claims. Fourteen of those were made during his maiden speech to Congress, which we fact-checked in a round-up.

March 1 was his best factual day: For the first time as president, Trump made no false or misleading claim. He only tweeted once (“THANK YOU!”) and made only brief public comments. Alas, he was back to business as usual on March 2.

We’re always looking for suggestions. 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.

Scroll down for this week’s Pinocchio roundup.

— Michelle Ye Hee Lee