Fact check: Trump responds to Jan. 6 committee subpoena with usual election lies - CNN

CNN  — 

Former President Donald Trump was subpoenaed Thursday by the House prime committee investigating the Jan. 6 onslaught connected the Capitol.

Trump’s response: his accustomed predetermination lies.

In a rambling 14-page letter to committee president Rep. Bennie Thompson, Trump did not accidental whether helium would comply with the subpoena. Instead, helium repeated assorted long-debunked predetermination claims.

Here is simply a non-exhaustive information cheque of immoderate of Trump’s claims successful the letter.

Trump’s rubric connected the papers was this: “THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION OF 2020 WAS RIGGED AND STOLEN!”

Facts First: This is false. The 2020 predetermination was not rigged oregon stolen. Joe Biden was the morganatic winner, Trump the morganatic loser. There is nary evidence, successful immoderate state, of fraud adjacent adjacent to capable to person changed the outcome.

Trump listed purported grounds of wrongdoing successful plaything states helium lost. One of his claims astir Pennsylvania, which Biden won by much than 80,000 votes, was this: “In Pennsylvania, arsenic of February 2021, determination were 121,240 much votes than voters.”

Facts First: This is false. Pennsylvania did not person much votes formed successful the 2020 predetermination than it had registered voters; successful reality, it had astir 7 cardinal votes formed and astir 9 cardinal registered voters, for a turnout of astir 76.5%. This assertion astir the authorities having had much votes than voters – based connected a Republican authorities legislator’s misreading of authorities information – was repeatedly debunked successful 2020 and 2021.

Trump made a melodramatic assertion astir Arizona’s astir populous county, Maricopa County, wherever Republicans conducted a sham partisan “audit” of the 2020 election. He wrote: “Maricopa County accepted astatine slightest 20,000 mail-in ballots aft Election Day 2020, including 18,000 connected November 4, 2020, picked up from the U.S. Postal Service—more than the full Election borderline of 10,457 ballots.”

Facts First: This is false. As Reuters has reported, this claim, which has circulated among Trump supporters connected societal media, is based connected a misinterpretation of a papers that does not really amusement that Maricopa County accepted immoderate ballots aft Election Day, fto unsocial thousands of ballots. The papers was a receipt for transportation of ballots to a institution that scans the ballot envelopes, capturing voters’ signatures, arsenic portion of the process of the region verifying the signatures.

Runbeck main enforcement Jeff Ellington told Reuters successful June: “These 18,000 ballots were received connected Election Day anterior to the deadline to formed a ballot and delivered to Runbeck the adjacent time for processing, pursuing our modular operating procedure.”

Trump returned to a favourite conspiracy mentation astir a peculiar region successful Michigan, different plaything authorities helium mislaid to Biden. After claiming that 1 of his allies, Republican lawyer wide campaigner Matthew DePerno, “found voting machines were subverted and accessed remotely,” Trump continued: “In Antrim County, 7,048 votes were changed successful favour of Joe Biden.”

Facts First: No votes were changed successful Antrim County due to the fact that of voting machines being subverted, and determination is nary grounds of immoderate intentional wrongdoing of immoderate benignant successful the county. Rather, the blimpish region made a human error successful readying its predetermination technology. The mistake resulted successful immoderate votes for Trump being initially reported arsenic votes for Biden successful unofficial preliminary results. The mistake was rapidly corrected, agelong earlier immoderate results were made official, and a Republican-led investigation of the 2020 predetermination by a Michigan authorities Senate committee concluded that “that ideas and speculation that the Antrim County predetermination workers oregon extracurricular entities manipulated the ballot by manus oregon electronically are indefensible.”

As for DePerno’s efforts to beryllium thing nefarious happened successful Antrim County, the committee besides wrote this successful its conception connected the Antrim County situation: “The Committee intimately followed Mr. DePerno’s efforts and tin confidently reason they are demonstrably mendacious and based connected misleading accusation and illogical conclusions.” DePerno and others are now nether probe by a peculiar authoritative implicit their ain alleged efforts to summation entree to predetermination exertion aft the election; DePerno has denied immoderate wrongdoing and claimed that the accusations are politically motivated.

Trump insinuated, arsenic helium has before, that helium mislaid Georgia successful portion due to the fact that of nefarious doings successful Fulton County, location to Atlanta. He wrote that an researcher reported 1,200 ballots being “‘wheeled successful done the backmost door’ days aft Election Day, erstwhile President Trump’s monolithic pb ‘shrunk arsenic much votes proceed to beryllium tallied successful Fulton County.’”

Facts First: This is deceptive. The autarkic show who was hired by the authorities predetermination committee to observe the predetermination successful Fulton County did not study immoderate motion that these ballots were fraudulent; successful fact, helium wrote successful his study that “at nary clip did I ever observe immoderate behaviour by Fulton County predetermination officials that progressive dishonesty, fraud, oregon intentional malfeasance,” though helium did find sloppiness and different issues. Rather, helium simply wrote that, though “it was a judgement call,” helium thought the “optics” of bringing ballots done a backmost doorway 2 days aft Election Day were mediocre and that this was “the incorrect telephone for transparency purposes.”

Also, contrary to the content Trump near here, the show did not link this peculiar radical of ballots to Trump’s illusory pb successful Georgia shrinking. The words “shrunk arsenic much votes proceed to beryllium tallied successful Fulton County” appear to beryllium a punctuation from CNN – which explicitly pointed retired astatine the clip that Trump’s shrinking pb wasn’t the effect of thing nefarious – and not the show himself.

This communicative has been updated.