News Reporter: Fact Checker: John Boehner is blowing smoke on prisons and pot possession

Friday 20 April 2018

Fact Checker: John Boehner is blowing smoke on prisons and pot possession

Democracy Dies in Darkness

The truth behind the rhetoric

John Boehner is blowing smoke on prisons and pot possession

Former House speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) joined the advisory board of a multi-state cannabis company. The former speaker, who was once staunchly opposed, said "When you look at the number of people in our state and federal penitentiaries, who are there for possession of small amounts of cannabis, you begin to really scratch your head. We have literally filled up our jails with people who are nonviolent and frankly do not belong there."

There are lots of people arrested for possessing marijuana but few of them end up in prison. (There is a difference between jails and prisons. In this case, he's talking about prisons.) Not a single state treats pot possession as a felony. And in the federal system in 2017, only 92 people in the entire country were sentenced for possession.

Boehner is repeating a myth. Under no stretch of the imagination is Boehner's claim accurate. For blowing smoke, he earns Four Pinocchios.

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Did Comey lie about leaking information to the media?

President Trump let loose on a familiar target this week: former FBI Director James B. Comey. In a tweet, he said Comey had, "lied in Congress to Senator G." This is a reference to an exchange that Comey had with Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) at a congressional hearing May 3, 2017.

Grassley asked if the then-FBI director had been an anonymous source or authorized anyone else at the FBI to be one in the news reports about either the Clinton or Trump investigation. (We've previously examined the claim that Comey illegally leaked classified information, finding it wanting.) So what is Trump on about? In the past, he has said he's referring to the actions of Comey's former deputy, Andrew McCabe.

McCabe was fired just before his retirement after a Justice Department Inspector General investigation found that he lied about his involvement in a Wall Street Journal report that disclosed the existence of an FBI probe of the Clinton Foundation. McCabe claims that Comey knew that he had leaked sensitive information, but the IG report undercuts that claim.

In the wake of the IG report, it appears that Trump's original rationale that Comey lied to Grassley has turned to dust. Ordinarily, we'd label that as Four Pinnochios. But Trump's latest reference to a lie is so vague that it could refer to just about anything. So, for the moment, the president earns Three Pinocchios.

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