News Reporter: Fact Checker: Bill Barr twists the Mueller report

Friday 19 April 2019

Fact Checker: Bill Barr twists the Mueller report

Democracy Dies in Darkness

The truth behind the rhetoric

Bill Barr twists the Mueller report

In a four-page letter and then in a news conference, Attorney General Bill Barr had much to say about special counsel Robert Mueller's report before its public release.

But in Barr's telling, the damning, 448-page document lost all its bite. It cleared Trump and his campaign of colluding with Russia, it did not prove that Trump obstructed justice, and it showed that the White House "fully cooperated" with Mueller and his team, Barr stated.

But Barr's use of a selective quotation, his omission of damning details, and his remarks about full cooperation gave an incomplete and misleading view of Mueller's report.

We contrasted Barr's comments with the actual contents of the Mueller report — and gave Three Pinocchios to the attorney general.

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Scant evidence that Pence supported gay conversion therapy

Did Vice President Pence ever promote federal funding for the discredited therapy intended to convert homosexuals? The question has arisen anew in the wake of attacks by Democratic presidential hopeful Pete Buttigieg on Pence's attitudes toward gays. Buttigieg, the openly gay mayor of South Bend, Ind., says he's not trying to raise the issue but told The Fact Checker: "I don't know what he believes about conversion therapy because he has never given a straight one [answer]."

So we investigated. There is little dispute that Pence has long been a skeptic of laws that seek to expand gay rights. But the claim of supporting conversion therapy does not come from anything Pence ever said. Instead, it stems from an old campaign website from his first run for Congress in 2000.

There's some ambiguous language there regarding "sexual behavior" and funding a law that provides health care for people with AIDS. But we found that was actually a key issue in the 2000 debate about reauthorizing the law. Pence spokesmen have insisted that the 2000 campaign page was referring to safe-sex practices and that he does not support conversion therapy.

We concluded there is little evidence that Pence supported conversion therapy, but that Pence could clear this up by rejecting such therapies in his own words, rather than through a spokesman.

We're always looking for fact-check suggestions.

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Scroll down for this week's Pinocchio roundup.

— Salvador Rizzo

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