POLITICO's analysis of where the Democratic candidates stretched the truth, steered around some inconvenient facts, or just plain got it wrong.



Clinton pushes bankruptcy law a little too far

In response to a question about Puerto Rico's crippling debt burden, Hillary Clinton said, "I have been calling for months that the Congress must give authority to Puerto Rico to restructure its debts, just like it has enabled states and cities to restructure their debt." The implication is that the troubled territory should be allowed to go through bankruptcy. The only problem is that states don't actually have this right. What she's talking about is a more complicated issue that has bedeviled the bailout efforts: In U.S. states, public corporations (like water companies) can declare chapter 9 bankruptcy, but thanks to an oversight in the legal code, that can't happen in Puerto Rico. Many policymakers, including Clinton and Jeb Bush, have been calling for Congress to change the law so Puerto Rico isn't excluded. But even if they did, and public corporations in territories like Puerto Rico were afforded the same rights at state, it wouldn't go as far as Clinton suggests.

— Danny Vinik



Break up the banks? They're both wrong on this one

At the Democratic debate Wednesday night, Hillary Clinton promised she could break up the big banks if they pose a threat to the financial industry. "We have Dodd-Frank and we will break up banks that pose a systemic threat to our economy," she said. Bernie Sanders has made a similar promise throughout his campaign. But the Dodd-Frank financial reforms don't give the president that power. The law does give the government the ability to break up big banks if the Federal Reserve board of governors votes that the institutions pose a "grave threat to the financial stability of the United States," and if two-thirds of the Financial Stability Oversight Council agree with that finding. But that's a process the president controls only remotely, by appointing people over the years who'd be more inclined to be tough on banks. So while it's a promise that enthuses Democratic voters, it's a huge stretch to imagine either candidate could suddenly make it happen.

— Danny Vinik



Clinton mentions "low" in border apprehensions, but ignores their upward bounce

Hillary Clinton claimed that border apprehensions are at a 40-year low, a talking point that Obama made good use of in his 2013 State of the Union speech. Obama's claim was true when he made it, but since then apprehension numbers have bounced up, especially in 2014, when there was an uptick of almost 70,000 border apprehensions compared to 2013, bringing the year's total to 486,651. Last year the number dropped again; and Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson released a statement today noting that border apprehensions are increasing slightly this year. The 2014 numbers were triggered by serious political conflict south of the US border, and as PolitiFact noted in 2014, it's hard to compare border patrol statistics in general over a 40-year window, since economic conditions and border-security measures vary so much in different political contexts.

— Noah Weiland



Goldman's behavior not as "illegal" as Bernie says

Bernie Sanders said Goldman Sachs was one of the financial institutions whose "illegal behavior” led to the financial crisis. A lot of people may believe what the firm did was wrong, but it wasn't found guilty of any crimes. Goldman Sachs agreed to a civil settlement with the Justice Department (albeit, at $5 billion, the largest ever) but did not admit wrongdoing. The same was true of its earlier settlement with the SEC.

— Isaac Arnsdorf



Actually, Sanders did vote to protect the Minutemen

When Hillary Clinton charged that he voted to protect the anti-immigrant border “vigilantes” known as the Minutemen, Bernie Sanders defended himself by saying Clinton was cherrypicking one piece of a bigger bill to make him look bad. But the issue in question was a specific amendment, specifically written to protect the Minutemen: in the words of its sponsor, Rep. Jack Kingston (R-Ga.), "What my amendment does is simply says that the U.S. Government cannot tip off the Mexican officials as to where these folks are located." In June 2006, Sanders voted in favor.

— Isaac Arnsdorf



Clinton torques the facts on emails

Under questioning about who gave her permission to use a private email server while Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton claimed the practice was “not prohibited” and “not in any way disallowed”—but that exaggerates the degree to which State Department policy permitted employees to use personal email. While the policies did not prohibit all use of private email for official business, they did declare that “normal day-to-day operations [should] be conducted on an authorized” official system. Clinton also repeatedly said the government has “retroactively” classified many of her emails, but the intelligence community claims at least some of the most sensitive emails should have been treated as classified from the day they were written. The State Department is contesting some of those claims.

In her defense, Univision’s Jorge Ramos also overstated Clinton’s involvement in a 2011 cable that urged State employees to “avoid” using personal email for security reasons. The message went out with Clinton’s name at the bottom, but that is standard protocol for all such cables sent from State Department headquarters, and doesn’t signal that she “personally” approved the missive.

— Josh Gerstein

