Washington
CNN
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Former President Donald Trump stated he was going to carry a “press convention” on Friday within the wake of his Thursday conviction in Manhattan on felony costs of falsifying enterprise information.
As an alternative, Trump delivered a rambling monologue that was stuffed with false claims on topics starting from the Manhattan trial to immigration to tax coverage.
Here’s a truth test of among the inaccurate or unsubstantiated claims he made.
Trump repeated his familiar claim that, whereas Manhattan prosecutors have been specializing in him, New York Metropolis has been experiencing record-high violent crime. He stated this time that “you might have violent crime throughout this metropolis at ranges that no one’s ever seen earlier than.”
Info First: Trump’s declare shouldn’t be even near true. Violent crime in New York City – and violent crime in Manhattan particularly – has plummeted because the early Nineties and is as we speak nowhere close to report ranges.
New York Metropolis recorded 391 murders in 2023, down about 83% from the two,262 in 1990; 1,455 rapes in 2023, down about 53% from the three,126 in 1990; and 16,910 robberies in 2023, down about 83% from the 100,280 in 1990.
Criticizing key prosecution witness Michael Cohen, Trump repeated a declare he made during the trial in April. He asserted that Cohen, his former lawyer and fixer, “bought into bother not due to me” however due to “exterior offers” and “one thing to do with taxicabs and medallions, and he borrowed cash, and that’s why he went.” He added that Cohen pleaded responsible to marketing campaign finance violations to attempt to get himself a lighter penalty.
Trump continued: “He bought in bother for a quite simple cause: as a result of he was concerned with borrowing some huge cash and he did one thing with the banks – I don’t know, defrauded the banks, however one thing occurred.”
Info First: Trump’s declare that Cohen bought into bother merely due to his non-Trump-related actions, similar to these associated to taxis and loans, shouldn’t be true. First, Cohen’s case was referred to federal prosecutors in New York by the special counsel, Robert Mueller, who was appointed to research any connections between the Trump marketing campaign and Russia. Second, Cohen’s three-year jail sentence in 2018 was for multiple crimes, a few of which have been immediately associated to Trump.
Most notably, Cohen was sentenced for campaign finance offenses connected to a hush money scheme through the 2016 presidential marketing campaign to hide Trump’s alleged extramarital relationships – the identical hush cash scheme that was central to this prosecution towards Trump. Cohen was also sentenced to two months in prison, to run concurrently with the three-year sentence, for lying to Congress in 2017 in relation to previous talks about the possibility of building a Trump Tower in Moscow, Russia, together with in regards to the extent of Trump’s involvement in the aborted Moscow initiative and about when in 2016 the discussions ended. (The discussions continued into June 2016, the month after Trump became the presumptive Republican nominee, and didn’t conclude in January 2016 earlier than the primary votes have been solid, as Cohen had claimed.)
Referring to Trump as “Particular person-1,” Cohen said on the time of his 2018 responsible plea for making false statements to the US Senate Choose Committee on Intelligence: “I made these statements to be per Particular person-1’s political messaging and out of loyalty to Particular person-1.” When Cohen pleaded responsible in 2018 to the marketing campaign finance violations, he said he broke the regulation “in coordination and on the path of a candidate for federal workplace,” Trump.
Biden and the case
Trump repeated his frequent declare that the Manhattan case wherein Trump was convicted “is all achieved by Biden and his individuals” and “in complete conjunction with white home and the DOJ,” the federal Division of Justice.
Info First: There isn’t any foundation for Trump’s declare. There isn’t any proof that President Joe Biden, his White Home aides or the federal Justice Division had any function in launching or operating Manhattan District Legal professional Alvin Bragg’s prosecution – and Bragg, a Democrat, is a regionally elected official who doesn’t report back to the federal authorities. The indictment within the case was permitted by a grand jury of strange residents.
Trump has repeatedly invoked a lawyer on Bragg’s group, Matthew Colangelo, whereas making such claims; Colangelo left the Justice Division in 2022 to join the district attorney’s office as senior counsel to Bragg. However there isn’t a proof that Biden had something to do with Colangelo’s employment resolution. Colangelo and Bragg had been colleagues earlier than Bragg was elected Manhattan district legal professional in 2021.
Earlier than Colangelo labored on the Justice Division, he and Bragg labored on the identical time within the workplace of New York’s state legal professional basic, the place Colangelo investigated Trump’s charity and Trump’s monetary practices and was involved in bringing various lawsuits towards the Trump administration.
The decide and an knowledgeable in election regulation
Trump claimed that, due to Decide Juan Merchan, “we weren’t allowed to make use of our election knowledgeable beneath any circumstances.” He claimed that this knowledgeable on election regulation was able to testify “and the decide knocked him out, stated you may’t testify.”
Info First: Trump’s declare that Merchan refused to permit Trump’s group to make use of this witness “beneath any circumstances” is fake. Merchan didn’t prohibit the potential witness, former Federal Election Fee chairman Bradley Smith, from testifying. Relatively, Merchan restricted what Smith was allowed to testify about. Merchan decided in March that Smith might present background details about the FEC and outline sure phrases related to this case however couldn’t opine on whether or not Trump broke federal election legal guidelines or provide opinions about the way to interpret or apply these legal guidelines. After Merchan refused last week to change his mind, Trump’s protection determined to not name Smith as a witness.
Smith wrote on social media final week: “Decide Merchan has so restricted my testimony that protection has determined to not name me.”
Trump, providing a touch of a clarification, did proceed to say on Friday that Smith “primarily” was not capable of testify. However his earlier feedback made it sound like Merchan had imposed a complete ban on Smith’s testimony.
Immigration and ‘the Congo’
Trump repeated a declare he has made earlier than about “the Congo” and migration, once more with out specifying whether or not he was referring to the Democratic Republic of Congo or the neighboring Republic of Congo. He stated: “The Congo has simply launched lots of people from jail – Congo, Africa – simply launched lots of people, lots of people, from their prisons and jails, and introduced them into america of America.”
Info First: Trump’s declare is baseless. Consultants on the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Republic of Congo, plus each pro-immigration and anti-immigration organizations within the US, instructed CNN they haven’t seen any proof of Congolese prisons being emptied, not to mention proof of both nation in some way having “introduced” ex-prisoners into the US. Trump’s presidential marketing campaign and an allied tremendous PAC didn’t reply to requests to supply any proof. A CNN search of two media databases turned up no proof. And federal figures present that there isn’t a “very massive” inflow of Congolese migrants of any variety, not to mention former prisoners particularly.
“Every part he’s saying isn’t true,” Democratic Republic of Congo spokesperson Patrick Muyaya Katembwe instructed CNN in a textual content message in March. Requested particularly about Trump’s claims about Congolese prisons being emptied of violent criminals, he stated, “By no means ever, it’s not true.” And, he stated, “we wish him to cease” telling these tales, since “it’s very unhealthy for the nation.”
Serge Mombouli, the Republic of Congo’s ambassador to the US, stated in an e-mail to CNN in March: “There isn’t any fact or any signal nor a single truth supporting such a declare or assertion.”
You’ll be able to learn extra here.
Trump and Nord Stream 2
Trump repeated his declare that he had ended a key Russian undertaking – the Nord Stream 2 gasoline pipeline to Germany. He stated: “You already know, I ended the Russian pipeline. It was lifeless.”
Info First: Trump’s declare is fake. He didn’t “finish” Nord Stream nor render it “lifeless.” Whereas he did approve sanctions on firms engaged on the undertaking, that transfer got here almost three years into his presidency, when the pipeline was already around 90% complete – and the state-owned Russian gasoline firm behind the undertaking said shortly after the sanctions that it might full the pipeline itself. The corporate announced in December 2020 that building was resuming. And with days left in Trump’s time period in January 2021, Germany announced that it had renewed permission for building in its waters.
The pipeline by no means started operations; Germany ended up halting the project as Russia was about to invade Ukraine in early 2022. The pipeline was broken later that yr in what has been described as a likely act of sabotage.
Trump claimed whereas denouncing the Biden administration: “They wish to elevate your taxes by 4 instances.”
Info First: That is false, simply because it was when Trump made the same claim during the 2020 election campaign and in early 2024. Biden has not proposed to quadruple Individuals’ taxes, and there has by no means been any indication that he’s in search of to take action.
The nonpartisan City-Brookings Tax Coverage Heart suppose tank, which analyzed Biden’s never-implemented finances proposals for fiscal 2024, discovered this: “His plan would elevate common after-tax incomes for low-income households in 2024, depart them successfully unchanged for middle-income households, and decrease after-tax incomes considerably for the highest-income taxpayers.”
The Tax Coverage Heart discovered that Biden’s proposal would, on common, have raised taxes by about $2,300 – however that’s a few 2.3% decline in after-tax earnings, not the large discount Trump is suggesting Biden desires. And critically, Tax Coverage Heart senior fellow Howard Gleckman famous to CNN on Friday that 95% of the tax hike would have been coated by the highest-income 5% of households.
The very greatest burden beneath the Biden plan would have been carried by the very richest households; the Tax Coverage Heart discovered that households within the high 0.1% would have seen their after-tax incomes decline by greater than 20%. That’s “so much,” Gleckman famous, however it’s nonetheless nowhere close to the quadrupling Trump claims Biden is on the lookout for. And once more, even this enhance would have been just for a tiny subset of the inhabitants.
Biden has promised to not elevate taxes by even a cent for anybody making beneath $400,000 per yr.
This story has been up to date with extra reporting.