Washington
CNN
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President Donald Trump made several false claims in his speech to the Justice Department on Friday. There, we discussed the legal system and crime, but also a wide range of other topics, including immigration, the war in Ukraine, and former President Joe Biden.
Trump also made numerous allegations in which he failed to provide evidence, claiming the government’s unspecified “malicious crimes” during the Biden administration, corruption among unspecified judges, and illegality by media outlets who negatively covered the “bending” actions by law firms related to cases in which Trump was involved, and claimed “bending” actions.
Here are some fact-checks for his claims:
Trump’s prosecution and Biden: Trump has repeated his regular, unfounded claims that former President Joe Biden used his office to wield the legal system against Trump.
“Etched on the walls of this building is what British philosopher John Locke said: “The law ends, and the tyranny begins.” And I saw it and in the last four years when someone was allowed to attack maliciously in this department and in the FBI. How did it work? It didn’t work very well, but it wasn’t comfortable. I was attacked by my political opponents,” Trump said.
There was never any evidence that Biden personally used the Justice Department or the FBI to attack Trump.
Trump’s two federal indictments came from special advisor Jack Smith over Trump’s efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss and maintaining his classification documents after his first presidency. Smith was appointed in November 2022 by then General Merrick Garland, who was Biden’s appointee, but that is not evidence that Biden was involved in the prosecutor’s efforts. Garland said in 2023 he would resign if Biden asked him to play against Trump, adding that he is sure that it will never happen.
Two other prosecutions for Trump came in Manhattan, New York, and the other by a local district attorney in Fulton County, Georgia. Both are Democrats, but again there is no evidence that Biden or his White House directed their decision. Trump was found guilty of forging business records in a Manhattan case. The Georgia lawsuit was put on hold in June 2024, but the appeals court considered whether district attorney Fani Willis should be disqualified from the case.
The two federal lawsuits were dropped by Smith for Trump’s 2024 election victory. The document case had previously been dismissed by a federal judge appointed by Trump, but Smith appealed her ruling that her appointment as a special advisor was unconstitutional.
Biden documented the investigation: Trump falsely claimed that former President Joe Biden was “essentially guilty, but he said he was incompetent, so he said he wasn’t guilty.” He added, “No one knows what the verdict is.” He continued. They don’t know what he was doing, so let him go. ”
Biden was not “essentially” guilty and there was no judicial “ruling.” Biden was not even charged with a crime. Robert Huar, a special adviser appointed to consider handling of Biden’s confidential documents, wrote that “the evidence does not establish Biden’s guilt beyond reasonable doubt,” adding that “some defenses are likely to generate reasonable doubt regarding such charges.”
Trump appeared to be referring to the fact that he wrote in his report Friday: “In the trial, Biden thought that during his interview he would present himself to the ju-degree, as he did in his interview as an older man with sympathetic, well-meaning older memories.” But Hart said he would not have brought charges against Biden otherwise. Hur wrote at length about various facts of the incident and the possible defense of Biden.
Immigration under Trump: Trump repeated two false claims regarding immigration statistics during his chairmanship.
First, “In his first month of office, he achieved the lowest level of illegal border crossing ever recorded.” He may have said exactly that the number of immigrant anxiety from border patrols of 8,347 since February 2025 was the lowest in years, but that was not the lowest on record. Official federal statistics show that border patrol encounters with immigrants were few years ago from the early 1960s.
Secondly, he said for the first time, “by the time I left.” My favorite chart was knocked down that day and said it had the lowest number ever. “However, the chart doesn’t really show that illegal immigrants were at the lowest level at the time Trump left, but it claims that the text beside the red arrow on the chart is what it shows. In fact, the arrows actually point to your finger in April 2020. This is when Trump is still over eight months left in his first semester, and the global transition has been trickle-tricked due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
After hitting a roughly three-year low (not an all-time low) in April 2020, immigration numbers on the tropical border increased monthly until the end of Trump’s first term.
US and European Aid to Ukraine: Trump has reiterated his exposed claim that the US supported “probably $350 billion” compared to $100 billion from Europe.
Neither number is correct. The $35 billion figure Trump repeatedly quotes is particularly inaccurate.
According to the Kiel Institute for World Economic Research, German think tanks that closely track wartime aid to the European Union and individual European countries Ukraine, have committed far more wartime military, financial and humanitarian aid to Ukraine (approximately $26.9 billion at current exchange rates) by December 2024 (approximately $12.9 billion). Europe also allocated more military, fiscal and humanitarian aid (approximately $144 billion) than the US was allocated (approximately $124 billion).
It is possible to reach different totals using different counting methodologies, but there is no clear basis for Trump’s “$35 billion” figure. An inspector of the US government overseeing Ukraine’s response, said on its website that the US had allocated approximately $183 billion to Ukraine’s response by December 2024.
US Elections: Trump has vowed to restore the country’s “fairness” and has pushed the integrity of US elections without a basis, saying “Fully integrated elections are a big factor.” He usually did not call for an election in 2020, but nonetheless, there is no basis for the broader claim that the country’s recent “elections” are “fully equipped.”
Iran and Terrorist Groups: Trump repeatedly made the false claims that “they were not giving Hamas or Hezbollah any money” when he was president because Iran was “completely broken.” Funding for Iranian terrorist groups fell late in the presidency as his sanctions against Iran had a major negative impact on the Iranian economy, but in fact, as four experts told four experts in 2020, the funding didn’t stop completely. You can read a longer fact check here.