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Trump's Tweet Doesn't Pass His Own Staff's Fact-Check — & Twitter Claps Back

Amelia Edelman
March 21, 2017, 1:45 AM
You've likely noticed that the leader of the free world does not have the best Twitter manners — or any manners, for that matter. Nor does he — that is, the @POTUS account — have the best Twitter fact-checker, apparently. Which is odd, right? Seeing as this is the President of the United States and/or his staff, tweeting from the president's official government Twitter account? But no matter! After all, Trump thinks all media is "fake news" anyway; he must have figured, If I can't beat 'em, might as well join 'em. Because @POTUS sent out a doozy of a fake-news tweet today.
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The tweet said, "The NSA and FBI tell Congress that Russia did not influence electoral process," and included a video clip of FBI Director James Comey and NSA Director Adm. Michael Rogers answering...an entirely different question.
In the clip, Comey and Rogers are asked specifically whether they have evidence that Russian hackers "changed vote tallies" in the states of Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Florida, and North Carolina. Decidedly not the same question as "Did Russia influence U.S. electoral process?"
Rogers says he does not have evidence pointing towards Russian hackers tampering with vote tallies, but that he "would highlight we are a foreign intelligence organization, not a domestic intelligence organization, so it would be fair to say we are probably not the best organization to provide a more complete answer."
Voter tallies aside, Russian "influence" in the election is already an established fact anyway. According to a declassified C.I.A. and N.S.A. report, Vladimir Putin "ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the US presidential election" and "Putin and the Russian Government developed a clear preference for President-elect Trump." Thus, the release of the DNC emails, etc. — all designed to do damage to Clinton's candidacy.
Later in the same hearing, Comey was asked to fact-check Trump's tweet about Comey's comment earlier in the hearing. (That's the magic of technology, folks.) And he made it clear the tweet was not true.
"It certainly wasn't our intention to say that today because we don't have any information on that subject," he said.
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Twitter, of course, is having a field day with this.
But hey, Trump can't say former Congressman Joe Walsh didn't warn him.
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