The impeachment hearings begin ...
Members of Congress repeated a slew of false and misleading talking points while questioning the top U.S. diplomat in Ukraine, William B. Taylor Jr., and his boss at the State Department, George Kent, during the opening day of the Trump impeachment hearings. Reps. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), John Ratcliffe (R-Tex.) and Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) all made some variation of the "nothing to see here" defense. They noted that Ukrainian officials never opened the investigations President Trump requested but Trump released the military aid package anyway. That simplified reading of events, however, left out a series key developments between July 18, when the White House told agencies to freeze nearly $400 million in aid for Ukraine, and Sept. 11, when the White House released the funds. Other repeated falsehoods included: The claim that the Obama administration had only provided "blankets" to Ukraine. (The Obama administration provided Ukraine with $600 million in security assistance after Russia annexed Crimea in 2014.) The conspiracy theories about election-year meddling by Ukraine in 2016. (Fiona Hill, who served as the top Russia adviser on Trump's National Security Council, testified these rumors are "fiction.") The suggestion that Trump withheld aid to Ukraine to gauge newly-elected Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky's commitment to fighting corruption. (Trump only raised concerns about two specific issues that would stand to benefit him politically — not corruption in Ukraine generally.) One hearing down and many more to go. For full fact check, click here. Enjoy this newsletter? Forward it to someone else who'd like it! If this e-mail was forwarded to you, sign up here. Hear something fact-checkable? Send it here, we'll check it out. Warren's muddy math on tax hike for billionaires
Elizabeth Warren made her latest pitch for a wealth tax in a television ad. Calling out four billionaires by name, she said: "It's time for a wealth tax in America. I have heard there are some billionaires who don't support this plan." And she concluded with, "All we are saying is when you make it big, pitch in two cents so everyone else gets a chance to make it," while listing a range of public services the tax would fund. Here's the thing: Warren has proposed an annual wealth tax of 2 percent on people with a net worth above $50 million — so they are the ones chipping in 2 cents on the dollar, not the billionaires the ad shows. For billionaires, the tax increases to 3 percent. That may not sound like much, but over time it adds up. For example, if Warren's wealth tax had been in place since 1982, Bill Gates would be worth $42.2 billion, not the estimated $97 billion he's worth today. Plus, the wealth tax isn't the only additional tax Warren has proposed for billionaires. She tacked on an additional 3 percent tax to fund her Medicare-for-all plan. That brings the total to 6 percent for people with a net worth above $1 billion. Warren is shortchanging the cost of her plans for billionaires. She's asking that billionaires pay an extra 6 cents on the dollar, not 2 cents as the ad seems to suggest. For the full fact check, click here. We're always looking for fact-check suggestions. You can also reach us via email, Twitter (@GlennKesslerWP, @mmkelly22, @rizzoTK, @SarahCahlan or use #FactCheckThis), or Facebook (Fact Checker). Read about our rating scale here, and sign up for the newsletter here. Scroll down for this week's Pinocchio roundup. | 
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