FactChecking Trump’s Tweetstorm

Summary

President Donald Trump responded to the firing of FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe with a flurry of tweets that contained numerous false, misleading or unsubstantiated claims about the Russia investigation led by Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller III:

• Trump said the “Mueller probe should never have been started” because there was “no collusion” and “no crime.” Mueller took over the investigation about 11 months after it started. He has made no allegations of collusion to date, but he has found evidence of crimes contained in five guilty pleas and two indictments.
• Trump claimed that the “Mueller probe” was “based on … a Fake Dossier” paid for by the Democrats, referring to opposition research conducted by former British spy Christopher Steele. However, the probe started after an Australian diplomat informed the FBI that a Trump foreign policy adviser told him that the Russians had “dirt” on Hillary Clinton.
• Trump also claimed that the FBI and Department of Justice “improperly used” the Steele dossier “in FISA Court for surveillance of my campaign.” The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court did not approve spying on the Trump campaign, but rather on a former aide who already had left the campaign.
• The president claimed that the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence concluded “there was no collusion between Russia and the Trump Campaign.” But one of the Republican leaders of the investigation said the committee didn’t make that conclusion — instead it found “no evidence of collusion.”
• Trump tweeted that McCabe’s wife’s campaign received “hundreds of thousands of dollars” from former Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, “who was also under investigation.” But the FBI was reportedly looking at McAuliffe’s personal finances and donations to his gubernatorial campaign, not contributions his political action committee made to Dr. Jill McCabe.
• Trump claimed former FBI Director James Comey lied to Congress, but Trump misquoted Comey. Trump said Comey under oath denied having “known someone else to be an anonymous source.” Comey was actually asked whether he had “authorized” any leaks, and Comey said he had not.
• Trump suggested Mueller’s team was biased, saying it included “13 hardened Democrats” and “some big” supporters of Clinton. Thirteen of the 17 team members are registered Democrats; five donated to Clinton’s 2016 campaign. It’s worth noting that Mueller is a Republican who was selected special counsel by a Trump appointee.

Analysis

The president made his claims on Twitter from March 16, the day McCabe was fired,