Fact-checking impeachment is hard to do

It’s only been a little more than two weeks since U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced an impeachment inquiry against President Donald Trump. But for fact-checkers, it feels like a lifetime.

Since the announcement of the inquiry, which focuses on a phone call between Trump and the president of Ukraine, misinformation has come from all sides. Online, social media users have targeted politicians who speak out against the president with disinformation. In Washington, politicians from both sides of the aisle have tried to spin the news to make their respective cases about impeachment. Trump even mentioned a conspiracy theory during his call with Ukraine.

So let’s start with the facts.

It is a fact that, during the July phone call, Trump asked President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate Joe Biden, a top contender for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020. It is a fact that Trump had recently frozen military aid to Ukraine. And it is a fact that a whistleblower subsequently filed a complaint about the interaction.

But if you exclusively read social media or right-wing media outlets, all you hear about are the Bidens.

While the impeachment inquiry was unfolding, allegations about the Bidens’ dealings in Ukraine started to surface. Biden’s son, Hunter, had previously served on the board of Ukrainian energy company Burisma, whose owner faced accusations of money laundering, fraud and tax evasion. Some claim Joe Biden, as vice president, called for the ouster of a prosecutor investigating the company to shield his son.

Fact-checkers have found no evidence to support that claim, as Biden was not alone in calling for the prosecutor’s removal. But Trump allies and conspiracists took the kernel of truth and ran with it.

That was exemplified when Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s personal lawyer, went on ABC News last weekend to talk about the Bidens’ dealings in Ukraine. He made a slew of unproven, conspiratorial claims in less than 15 minutes. Afterward, Nieman Lab published a story questioning the value of doing live TV interviews.

Daniel and Miriam Valverde of (Poynter-owned) PolitiFact fact-checked statements from the interview. Most of those checks pointed to the fact that there is simply no evidence to back up what Giuliani claimed on ABC, particularly the notion that Ukraine colluded with Democrats during the 2016 presidential election.

But therein lies the problem — there is no evidence. That makes it arguably harder for fact-checkers to debunk misinformation than for partisans to create it in the first place, because there is no tangible proof that adjudicates the claim. And politicians seem to know that.

Writing for The Washington Post, Abby Ohlheiser articulated this conundrum especially well — particularly as it relates to the challenge that fact-checkers and reporters face while covering impeachment.

“Trump, and many key figures in the pro-Trump Internet, are good at overwhelming their perceived enemies,” she wrote. “The Impeachment Internet will never just be about impeachment; it’ll be about impeachment and Joe Biden and the Clintons and Soros and the media — and random people on Twitter and outrages from years ago that can still go viral if shared in the right place.”

“It is an inseparable blend of fact and fiction and anger and fear and lamentation. It will be hot and exhausting.”

Indeed, it already is.