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AP FACT CHECK: Trump sticks to election falsehoods on Jan. 6

Former President Donald Trump is clinging to his false statements that the 2020 election was stolen as the nation marks the one-year anniversary of the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection

Via AP news wire
Thursday 06 January 2022 12:57 EST
Capitol Riot Anniversary Biden
Capitol Riot Anniversary Biden (The Hill)

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Former President Donald Trump on Thursday clung to his false claims that the 2020 election was stolen as the nation marked the one-year anniversary of the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection.

Reacting to President Joe Biden who blamed him for the deadly event, Trump issued a statement repeating his assertions that the voting was rigged. Those claims have been thoroughly debunked.

In a speech marking the anniversary, Biden said Trump’s falsehoods about the 2020 election fueled the riot. Biden said the election was the most scrutinized in U.S. history, and that the riot was an un-American attempt to derail democracy incited by a politician who couldn’t accept the people’s will.

A look at the claims:

TRUMP, on the Biden administration: ““That’s what you get when you have a rigged Election.”

TRUMP: “In actuality, the Big Lie was the Election itself.”

THE FACTS: To be clear, no widespread corruption was found and no election was stolen from Trump.

Biden earned 306 electoral votes to Trump’s 232, the same margin that Trump had when he beat Hillary Clinton in 2016, which he repeatedly described as a “landslide.” (Trump ended up with 304 electoral votes because two electors defected.) Biden achieved victory by prevailing in key battleground states.

Trump’s former attorney general, William Barr found no evidence of widespread election fraud. Trump’s allegations of voting fraud also have been dismissed by a succession of judges and refuted by state election officials and an arm of his own administration’s Homeland Security Department.

No case has established irregularities of a scale that would have changed the outcome.

An Associated Press review last month of every potential case of voter fraud in the six battleground states disputed by Trump found fewer than 475 — a number that would have made no difference in the presidential election.

Biden won Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin and their 79 Electoral College votes by a combined 311,257 votes out of 25.5 million ballots cast for president. The disputed ballots represent just 0.15% of his victory margin in those states.

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TRUMP: “Biden ... used my name today to try to further divide America.”

THE FACTS: Biden did not cite Trump by name in the speech. Instead, he referred to him throughout as the “former president.”

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Klepper reported from Providence, Rhode Island.

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EDITOR'S NOTE — A look at the veracity of claims by political figures.

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Find AP Fact Checks at http://apnews.com/APFactCheck

Follow @APFactCheck on Twitter: https://twitter.com/APFactCheck

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