News Reporter: Fact Checker: Fact-checking Texas Republicans' hypocrisy over funding for Hurricane Harvey vs. Hurricane Sandy

Friday 1 September 2017

Fact Checker: Fact-checking Texas Republicans' hypocrisy over funding for Hurricane Harvey vs. Hurricane Sandy

Democracy Dies in Darkness

The truth behind the rhetoric

Fact-checking Texas Republicans’ hypocrisy over funding for Hurricane Harvey vs. Hurricane Sandy

This week, Texas lawmakers sought emergency aid as Hurricane Harvey tore through Houston and much of southeastern Texas. Yet the same lawmakers refused to back relief for the victims of Hurricane Sandy in 2012.

We looked into the defense from Republican Senators Ted Cruz and John Cornyn from Texas, about the Sandy aid legislation being a bad bill. Cruz claimed this week: "The problem with that particular bill is it became a $50 billion bill that was filled with unrelated pork. Two-thirds of that bill had nothing to do with Sandy."

But that’s not correct. The Congressional Research Service issued a comprehensive report on the provisions, and it's clear that the vast majority of the spending was for Hurricane Sandy, including elements (such as Smithsonian repairs) that some lawmakers incorrectly believed were unrelated to the storm.

Still, there were relatively minor items included in that bill to address other or future disasters, such as funds to improve weather forecasting and upgrades to National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration aircraft. These provisions arguably were not related to Sandy, but they made up a relatively small portion of the bill. We awarded Cruz Three Pinocchios.

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Was former Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio's criminal conviction an Obama 'political witch hunt'?

In a move that drew criticism from both parties, President Trump pardoned Joe Arpaio of his criminal contempt of court conviction. The former sheriff from Arizona, known for his hardline stance against illegal immigration, had willfully rejected a federal judge’s order to stop employing tactics that discriminated against Latinos. Arpaio faced up to six months in jail, but he had not yet been sentenced when Trump announced the pardon for his longtime political ally.

Arpaio thanked Trump and said his conviction was a “political witch hunt by holdovers in the Obama Justice Department.” Trump similarly described the conviction as a politically motivated one. But that is false.

Arpaio has a complicated legal history, which we wrote about last week. The bottom line is that it was the judiciary, not the executive branch, that found Arpaio guilty of both criminal and civil contempt of court. Arpaio violated a federal judge’s order to stop detaining Latino drivers solely because they’re suspected of being undocumented. Arpaio’s deputies continued with business as usual despite the order, and Arpaio repeatedly told the media that he wasn’t going to change his behavior.

Trump and Arpaio continue to make false claims about Arpaio’s conviction. But there are no presidential pardons for Pinocchios. We awarded Four Pinocchios.

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We’re always looking for fact-check suggestions. You can also reach us via email, Twitter (@myhlee, @GlennKesslerWP, @mmkelly22 or use #FactCheckThis), or Facebook (Fact Checker or myhlee). 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