Fact check: a sample of Trump’s false claims, Republicans said on the day the Capitol was invaded

Before and after a crowd of Trump supporters invaded the Capitol on Wednesday, Trump and a group of Republicans in Congress repeated some of the same unfounded election-related nonsense that shook much of the president’s base.

Trump was speaking at a rally near the White House. House and Senate members were speaking while opposing some of Joe Biden’s electoral votes.

Trump spiced up his rally speech with his usual series of totally false statements about the presidential election he lost – claiming that “we won by a landslide”, that the election was “so corrupt” that unidentified people “manipulated” the process , and that Joe Biden obtained “80 million computer votes” instead of legitimate votes.

Facts first: This is all false. Trump lost a free and fair election to Biden – 306-232 at the Electoral College. Biden has won more than 81 million legitimate votes, exceeding Trump’s total by more than 7 million. There is no evidence that the election was rigged in any way.

Pence is “right”

According to Trump, “if Mike Pence does the right thing, we will win the election.” He added, “All Vice President Pence needs to do is send him back to the states to recertify,” which Trump said Pence has “the absolute right to do.”

Facts first: This is totally untrue. There is nothing in the law about Pence doing anything except calling boxes and announcing the results. The Constitution only gives you the power to count the votes.

According to CNN contributor and law professor Steve Vladeck, Trump’s statement “just isn’t true”.

Vladeck pointed to the 12th Amendment, which describes the vice president’s traditional role in the certification process as largely ceremonial. The Vice President, in his role as President of the Senate, has the power to “open all certificates and then votes will be counted”.

“There is no criterion about [the Vice President’s] party, nor has any vice president previously claimed the power to reject any properly formatted certificates, “Vladeck told CNN.

Even the president’s longtime lawyer, Jay Sekulow, said that Pence has no legal authority to trigger such a result.

“Some speculated that the vice president could simply say, ‘I will not accept these voters’, that he has the authority to do so in the constitution. In fact, I don’t think that’s what the Constitution has in mind. If that were the case, any vice president could turn down any election, “Sekulow said on his radio show this week, adding that Pence’s role is” more of a ministerial function.

Georgia

The president said that while many people were watching the Georgia election Tuesday night, “they cheated like the devil anyway”.

“Last night was a little better because of the fact that we had a lot of eyes watching a specific state,” said Trump, “but they cheated like the devil anyway.”

Facts first: This is fake. Whether in the general election or in the Senate runoff on Tuesday, there is no evidence of massive electoral fraud in Georgia. Trump’s allegations were unmasked personally and repeatedly by Gabriel Sterling, Georgia’s manager of implementing voting systems.

Trump tweeted several false allegations on Tuesday and Wednesday, alleging election fraud.

On Tuesday, Trump claimed that “reports are coming out of Georgia’s 12th Congressional District that Dominion Machines has not been working in certain Republican strongholds for more than an hour”, adding that “ballots are being left in closed boxes”.

Your campaign I sent emails and text messages suggesting this was part of a Democratic conspiracy to steal the election.

But there was no theft or cheating. On Tuesday morning, there were some problems with the security keys in Columbia County, Georgia. The problem was resolved, according to Georgia’s Secretary of State, Brad Raffensperger, at about 10 am and people were able to vote for spare paper ballots in the meantime.

Sterling refuted these claims on Twitter, writing the “issue at Columbia Co. was resolved hours ago and our office informed the public in real time” and “everyone’s votes will be protected and counted”.

On Wednesday, Trump I wrote, “They found 50,000 ballots last night. The US is ashamed of fools.”

Sterling again debunked this conspiracy theory, first in CNN then on Twitter, writing in response to Trump’s post, “No, Mr. President, there were no ‘found’ ballots. We know the number of votes advanced since this weekend.”

“We saw a record turnout on election day,” added Sterling. “On Monday, 970,000 absentees were accepted. 31k more were added to yesterday’s total. That leaves 60k who came in yesterday.”

Pennsylvania Vows

Trump said that in Pennsylvania, there were “205,000 more ballots than voters”.

Facts first: False. There were no more votes than registered voters in Pennsylvania; state officials and fact checkers have repeatedly explained that this statement is false. Trump seemed to be invoking an incorrect figure of a Republican state legislator who had was based on incomplete data.

Election night

Trump said the election “ended at 10 pm” on election night, when he had an advantage in vote counts in Georgia, Michigan and Pennsylvania, but then “bullshit explosions” occurred.

Facts first: It is obviously false that the election ended at this early stage in the counting process. There is a simple explanation for Trump’s big early leads in some states that he ended up losing, including Georgia, Pennsylvania and Michigan: he led because many postal bills had yet to be counted. There is no indication that he lost the leads for any suspicious reason.

The media and political analysts noted weeks before election day that we would likely see a “red mirage” in which Trump would initially appear to be big in some states that last counted ballots. The ballots in the mail favored Biden so strongly, largely because Trump used to discourage his own supporters from voting by mail. In several states, legislatures have banned election officials from processing votes in advance, causing delays.

Shipping notes

Trump continued to lie about voting by mail, saying there was widespread fraud in voting by mail.

“This year, using the pretext of the Chinese virus and the mail ballot scam, Democrats tried the most outrageous and outrageous election,” he said. “Theft and there was never anything like it. It’s pure theft in American history, everyone knows that.”

Facts first: The president is repeating a lie he has made since before election day. Voting by post is safe, has been around for decades and studies have shown that distance fraud is extremely low. Trump may have led election night in battlefield states, but that’s because states counted votes cast on election day first, and votes sent and absent votes second.

Millions of Americans voted by mail in the 2016 elections and again during the 2020 elections, and there was no widespread fraud. Comprehensive studies of billions of votes cast over many years indicate that the rate of electoral fraud is less than 0.0001%.

Banknotes “suitcases”

Trump said that in Fulton County, Georgia, on election night, officials pulled “suitcases from under the table”, which was “totally fraudulent”.

Facts first: Trump’s claims are totally unfounded. After analyzing the images of the polling station in question, state and county officials determined that the actions of election workers were part of the normal process, not fraud. And the objects removed from under the table were ballot boxes, not suitcases, according to election officials.

You can read a longer fact check here.

Audits

Trump said that “no undecided state has carried out a comprehensive audit to remove illegal ballots.”

Facts first: This is fake. At least two decisive states conducted audits, but found no evidence of widespread fraud.

Georgia conducted a state audit, manually counting about 5 million ballots and an additional recount, while Arizona conducted audits in its four largest counties.

Voting observers

On the floor of the House, Rep. Lee Zeldin of New York echoed Trump’s claims that polling station observers were banned from counting locations or otherwise prevented from counting and denied the access they legally deserved.

According to Zeldin, “some ballot box observers have denied the ability to closely observe the vote counting operation.”

Facts first: There have been no reports of systematic irregularities with voting observers anywhere in the United States. There is no evidence to support claims that research observers were excluded from the process.

You can read more about what happened to research observers in specific states here.

Election Day Extended

Opposing Pennsylvania’s electoral votes, Ohio deputy Jim Jordan claimed that the Supreme Court extended election day in the community.

“Pennsylvania law says ballots by mail must arrive by 8 pm on election day. The Democratic Supreme Court said, ‘No, we are going to extend it, election day does not end on Tuesday now.’ They took it to Friday, “said Jordan.

Facts first: This is misleading and needs context. While it is true that the Pennsylvania Supreme Court extended the deadline for Pennsylvania to accept ballots in the mail, election day itself has not been extended and it is false to suggest that votes cast after Tuesday were somehow counted.

Before the election, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court allowed ballots received up to three days after the election, even without a valid postmark, to be counted.

As CNN’s Ariane de Vogue previously reported, Republicans have asked the Supreme Court to intervene to re-establish an election day deadline for ballots by mail. On October 19, the United States Supreme Court announced that it was in a 4-4 stalemate, meaning that the three-day extension could be maintained. After Supreme Court appointed Trump judge Amy Coney Barrett was confirmed, Republicans brought their challenge back to court, but Barrett did not participate in the case and the judges denied the request, saying there was not enough time to decide before of the election.

Undocumented voters

Representative Mo Brooks said that “Joe Biden won about 1,032,000 votes from illegal foreign voting.”

Facts first: This is totally unfounded.

There is no evidence that more than a million undocumented immigrants voted, and experts say that electoral fraud of any kind is extremely rare.

This is not the first time that Brooks mentions the subject of undocumented immigrants in an effort to challenge the 2020 results. accused Biden of “‘buying’ block votes from illegal aliens” through amnesty pledges and said Trump “won [the] electoral college and reelection. ”

This story is being updated

CNN’s Melissa Tapia contributed to this article.

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