Trump is referring to efforts by a Ukrainian-American operative to expose former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort’s ties to the Russian government. The comparison to the Russian probe is overblown and facile. One fundamental difference is that Ukraine is considered a U.S. ally, and Russia is considered an adversary. Moreover, U.S. intelligence officials found a top-down effort, initiated by Russian President Vladimir Putin, to illegally hack and release information in a deliberate attempt to meddle in the U.S. election and undermine the democratic system. There is no such evidence of a top-down effort in the Ukrainian case.

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For more, read our examination of this claim, and watch our video explaining the case:

Here, Trump reprises a Four-Pinocchio claim from the presidential campaign. Andrew McCabe, who is now the acting FBI director, became part of the investigation of Hillary Clinton’s emails long after his wife, Jill McCabe, unsuccessfully ran for a Virginia senate seat. The political action committee of Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D) gave $452,500 to McCabe, and the state Democratic Party gave her campaign an additional $207,788. That was about one-third of the $1.8 million budget for her campaign. McAuliffe is close to Clinton, but there is no evidence she knew of the contributions. Moreover, it stretches the imagination that McAuliffe would know that the husband of someone he was supporting in a Virginia legislative race was going to be promoted months later to a position of authority in the email case.



Trump conflates a number of issues here in his continuing effort to force his attorney general from office. The Clinton email issue was exhaustively investigated by the FBI, with the conclusion a year ago that she was “extremely careless” in her handling of classified information but did not intend to violate any laws. “In looking back at our investigations into mishandling or removal of classified information, we cannot find a case that would support bringing criminal charges on these facts,” FBI Director James B. Comey said in July 2016.

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There is no evidence that Clinton was involved in the question of whether the Democratic National Committee’s servers should be turned over to the FBI as part of the investigation into Russian-linked hacking. The FBI and the Democratic National Committee disagree on whether the FBI requested access to the DNC’s servers. Comey testified to the Senate Intelligence Committee that the bureau made “multiple requests at different levels” to access the DNC’s servers, but the DNC said the FBI never requested access. The DNC ultimately allowed a private company, CrowdStrike, to review its database and share findings with the FBI. “We got the forensics from the pros that they hired which — again, best practice is always to get access to the machines themselves, but this my folks tell me was an appropriate substitute,” Comey said.

It’s worth noting here that the DNC was the victim in this instance, and yet Trump without evidence seems to be accusing it of a crime.

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