When it comes to political images, seeing shouldn’t always be believing. Case in point is an image recently tweeted by Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp that is misleadingly presented to make his polling advantage over Republican rival David Perdue appear larger than it actually is in a hypothetical general election matchup with Democratic candidate Stacey Abrams.

According to a recent poll from Emerson College/The Hill, Kemp leads former U.S. Sen. Perdue in the Republican gubernatorial primary race by 11 percentage points, 43% to 32%, with 17% still undecided.

In a tweet on April 7, Kemp used that same poll to try to make the case that he is also a much safer bet than Perdue to beat Abrams in a general election matchup.

Poll after poll shows our campaign is the STRONGEST against Stacey Abrams this fall. Let's keep up the momentum and keep Georgia red! pic.twitter.com/F40pS4ZcLN

— Brian Kemp (@BrianKempGA) April 7, 2022

The Emerson College poll, conducted April 1 to 3, found that in a hypothetical November general election matchup, Kemp leads Abrams by 7 percentage points, 51% to 44%, with 5% undecided. In a race between Abrams and Perdue, the poll found Perdue leads Abrams by 5 percentage points, 49% to 44% with 7% undecided.

In his tweet, Kemp cites this poll as evidence that “our campaign is the STRONGEST against Stacey Abrams this fall.”

As we said, the poll indicates Kemp would beat Abrams by 2 percentage points more than Perdue would. But look at the side-by-side graphics in the tweet. To the eye, it would appear the difference in performance against Abrams is more substantial that it actually is.

Jacob Rubashkin, a reporter and analyst for Inside Elections, tweeted an image that shows how the scale of the side-by-side bar charts distorts the actual size of the lead Kemp enjoys.

Hmmm https://t.co/dYHL7FYBeA pic.twitter.com/goe10Szotk

— Jacob Rubashkin (@JacobRubashkin) April 7, 2022

Here’s what a to-scale representation of that poll should look like:

Kemp’s lead over Abrams, compared with Perdue’s, is even less impressive when factoring in the poll’s margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

“The margin of error allows you to predict with 95% certainty just how much the population will support each candidate,” Patricia Moy, a political communication scholar at the University of Washington, told us via email. “Given the figures represented in the image, you can be 95% confident that: 41-47% of registered voters in Georgia will support Abrams; 46-52% will support Perdue; and 48-54% will support Kemp.”

“The overlap makes it impossible to say who is stronger,” said Moy, who is president of the American Association for Public Opinion Research. “Numerically, the difference between Kemp and Perdue could be as much as a 4% lead for Perdue (high end, 52%, for him, vs. 48% for Kemp) or 8% lead for Kemp (54% Kemp, 46% Perdue).”

More troubling, she said, is “the visual misrepresentation of how the 44% Abrams bar is depicted closer to 30%” against Kemp.

Just a reminder to our readers, when it comes to political advertising, don’t always believe what your eyes are telling you.

Editor’s note: FactCheck.org does not accept advertising. We rely on grants and individual donations from people like you. Please consider a donation. Credit card donations may be made through our “Donate” page. If you prefer to give by check, send to: FactCheck.org, Annenberg Public Policy Center, 202 S. 36th St., Philadelphia, PA 19104.

The post Distorted Graphic in Georgia Governor Race appeared first on FactCheck.org.

Quick Take

Online posts falsely claim that there was fraud in the Senate runoff elections in Georgia, but the only evidence they offer are clips of election night newscasts that corrected two data-entry errors.

Full Story

Some of the same false claims that were aimed at undermining the Nov. 3 presidential election are now being launched at the Senate runoff elections that occurred in Georgia on Jan. 5.

The claims, again, are false.

Democrats Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff won both of the state’s U.S. Senate seats in the runoff elections, according to unofficial results from Georgia’s secretary of state. The Associated Press also has called the election for Warnock and Ossoff.

But posts on social media falsely claim that news clips of election night reporting show that votes were taken away from Ossoff’s Republican opponent, incumbent David Perdue.

No such thing happened. Rather, the clips show two data-entry errors that were quickly corrected.

One of those errors was shown on both CNN and ABC. Clips from the networks have been circulating with the claim that they are evidence of election fraud, showing that votes had been subtracted from Perdue’s total.

The scrolling statewide vote count at the bottom of the screen on both networks had shown Perdue’s tally at 774,723, before dropping to 742,323 — a difference of 32,400. “MORE ELECTION FRAUD: 32,400 Votes Removed from Senator Perdue’s Vote Tally Live on TV,” a Gateway Pundit headline said.

That change, though, was actually a correction of faulty data for one county.

Information from Bibb County had been logged in wrong by a data entry worker, explained Rob Farbman, executive vice president for Edison Research, which provides vote tabulation data to the networks.

Shortly after 8 p.m. on Election Day, vote totals for Ossoff and Perdue were 27,986 and 12,496, respectively, Farbman wrote in an email to FactCheck.org. Less than 10 minutes later, the feed Edison uses reported that Ossoff’s vote total had remained the same and incorrectly reported that Perdue’s had increased by 32,400 to 44,896.

“This error was obvious to our quality control team and corrected within 5 minutes. The initial error accounts for the brief additional 32k votes for Perdue. The vote drop reflected the correct vote,” Farbman wrote in the email.

The next update from the state feed, about 20 minutes after the correction, reported 28,888 votes for Ossoff and 14,044 for Perdue, Farbman wrote.

The unofficial results show that Perdue received a total of 23,695 votes in Bibb County, according to the secretary of state’s office. Ossoff received 39,439 votes.

The other error was highlighted by major right-wing websites after being posted on social media.

Those posts show Perdue’s statewide tally dropping by 5,000 during ABC News’ election night coverage.

Similar to the other example, that was an error in the tally for one county.

A data-entry worker in DeKalb County had mistaken the number “3” for the number “8,” leading to a 5,000-vote error, Farbman explained.

That mistake was corrected less than five minutes later, he said.

The same kind of short-lived, election night error was also used to fuel a conspiracy theory that a supercomputer had been used to switch votes away from President Donald Trump in the Nov. 3 election. We debunked that claim at the time.

Data-entry errors on election night do occur, but they are not evidence of fraud. The fact that they were caught and corrected shows the system is working. Georgia’s runoff election results will become official after each county certifies its results and sends them to the secretary of state for statewide certification, which must be completed by Jan. 22.

Editor’s note: FactCheck.org is one of several organizations working with Facebook to debunk misinformation shared on social media. Our previous stories can be found here.

This fact check is available at IFCN’s 2020 US Elections FactChat #Chatbot on WhatsApp. Click here for more.

Sources

Georgia Secretary of State. Runoff election results. Accessed 7 Jan 2021.

Peoples, Steve, Bill Barrow and Russ Bynum. “Warnock, Ossoff win in Georgia, handing Dems Senate control.” Associated Press. 6 Jan 2021.

Farbman, Rob. Executive vice president, Edison Research. Email to FactCheck.org. 6 Jan 2021.

Fichera, Angelo and Saranac Hale Spencer. “Bogus Theory Claims Supercomputer Switched Votes in Election.” FactCheck.org. 13 Nov 2020.

King, Michael. “When are votes certified in the state of Georgia?” WXIA-TV. Updated 7 Jan 2021.

The post False Claims of Fraud in Georgia Runoffs appeared first on FactCheck.org.

Two months after Election Day, control of the U.S. Senate in the 117th Congress comes down to two races in Georgia on Jan. 5. None of the four candidates on the ballot garnered 50% of the vote on Nov. 3, which forced separate runoffs.

In one of the contests, Georgia’s senior senator, Republican David Perdue, is defending his seat against Democrat Jon Ossoff, a media executive and investigative journalist, who ran for a House seat in 2017. In the other, Georgia’s junior senator, Republican Kelly Loeffler, who was appointed to her seat in December 2019, is trying to win a special election against Democrat Raphael Warnock, the senior pastor of Atlanta’s historic Ebenezer Baptist Church.

Democrats have labeled the Republican candidates selfish politicians more interested in serving themselves than their constituents, and Republicans have branded the Democratic challengers dangerous liberals trying to change America. Below we recap the facts behind the claims made in some of the many attack ads released by the campaigns and outside groups in the last nine weeks.

Loeffler vs. Warnock

Claim: Warnock “called police thugs and gangsters.” — Loeffler campaign ad

Facts: Warnock did not use those words to describe all law enforcement.

In a 2015 sermon, Warnock talked about police in Ferguson, Missouri — where Michael Brown, an unarmed, 18-year-old Black man was shot and killed by a white officer in August 2014 — “showing up in a kind of gangster and thug mentality.” He added, “You know you can wear all kinds of colors and be a thug. You can sometimes wear the colors of the state and behave like a thug.”

In an email, Warnock’s campaign told us, “This is very clearly in reference to a specific incident in Ferguson, Missouri and the behavior of some in the Michael Brown shooting, not at a comment on all police officers.”

Full story: “Loeffler-Warnock Runoff Starts with Attack Ads,” Nov. 19

Claim: Loeffler “immediately” began “dumping stocks” after a January Senate briefing about the coronavirus. — Warnock campaign ad

Facts: This is disputed by Loeffler, who has said the decision to sell between $1.3 million and $3 million in stock she and her husband jointly owned was made independently by outside advisers overseeing the couple’s stock holdings.

“I have never used any confidential information I received while performing my Senate duties as a means of making a private profit. Nor has anyone in my family,” Loeffler wrote in an April 8 Wall Street Journal column. “My family’s investments are managed by third-party advisers at Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, Sepio Capital and Wells Fargo. These professionals buy and sell stocks on our behalf. We don’t direct trading in these accounts. These trades are disclosed routinely and publicly in reports to the Senate Select Committee on Ethics, in full compliance with transparency laws.”

The Senate Select Committee on Ethics found no evidence that Loeffler violated federal laws or Senate rules against insider trading. The Department of Justice also reportedly dropped its own investigation of Loeffler and two other senators — Dianne Feinstein, a California Democrat, and James Inhofe, an Oklahoma Republican — who reported selling large amounts of stock after the January briefing.

Full story: “Loeffler-Warnock Runoff Starts with Attack Ads,” Nov. 19

Claim: Warnock “hosted a rally for Communist dictator Fidel Castro.” — Loeffler campaign ad

Facts: Warnock has denied that he had any say in inviting the late Cuban leader to speak in 1995 at New York City’s Abyssinian Baptist Church, where Warnock worked as a youth pastor at the time. 

“I had nothing to do with that program. I did not make any decisions regarding the program. I have never met the Cuban dictator, and so I’m not connected to him,” Warnock said in a Nov. 15 CNN interview.

The Associated Press reported that the event with Castro was organized by the Interreligious Foundation for Community Organizing, which advocated lifting the U.S. trade embargo against Cuba. Warnock’s campaign has not said whether Warnock was present when Castro spoke, but Abyssinian’s pastor, the Rev. Calvin Butts, did attend and made remarks.

Full story: “Loeffler-Warnock Runoff Starts with Attack Ads,” Nov. 19

Claim: Warnock is “backed by defund the police radicals. … Warnock cannot stand up to the radicals because he’s one of them.” — American Crossroads ad

Facts: Warnock doesn’t support efforts to defund law enforcement, as the Republican super PAC’s deceptive ad suggests. He has said multiple times that he opposes defunding the police, the controversial concept of eliminating or reallocating funds from police budgets. 

In a June 25 Sirius XM radio interview, for example, he said: “I do not believe that we should defund the police. I do believe that we should responsibly fund law enforcement. We need to reimagine policing and reimagine the relationships between law enforcement and communities. We certainly need to demilitarize the police, so that we can rebuild trust between the police and the community.”

Full story: “Ad Links Warnock to ‘Defunding the Police,’” Nov. 25

Claim: Loeffler “supports raising taxes on Georgia’s middle class.” — Warnock campaign ad

Facts: That’s false. The claim refers to the fact that Loeffler has voiced support for the 2017 Republican tax law, which was enacted before she took office. That law included temporary cuts to individual income taxes that will expire after 2025, resulting in a tax increase for most taxpayers.

But the economic plan Loeffler unveiled in late April says she wants to make the law’s tax cut provisions “for working and middle class families permanent.” Her campaign also said she has “committed to opposing all tax increases at the federal level,” and she signed a pledge with Americans for Tax Reform, saying she would “oppose any and all efforts to increase the marginal income tax rates for individuals and/or businesses.”

Full story: “Warnock’s False Ad on Taxes,” Dec. 9

Claim: Warnock “supports cashless bail for criminals,” which “puts the most violent right back into our neighborhoods.” — National Republican Senatorial Committee ad

Facts: That’s misleading; Warnock specifically supports ending cash bail for those accused of nonviolent crimes.

In an email, his campaign told us: “Reverend Warnock supports ending cash bail for nonviolent misdemeanor offenders, not an all out ban on cash bail as this [NRSC ad] suggests.”

In fact, a 2018 Atlanta ordinance that Warnock supported “maintains the ability to impose bail and other conditions for certain offenders including violent offenders, repeat offenders, and offenders who fail to appear for their initial hearing,” according to the office of Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, who signed the ordinance into law.

Warnock has been critical of the cash bail system, which requires individuals charged with committing crimes to pay a fee in order to leave jail while their court case is pending. He has argued that cash bail laws contribute to the mass incarceration of poor people, who may not be able to afford the bail amount set by a judge.

Full story: “NRSC’s Dual Attack on Warnock and Ossoff,” Dec. 4

Perdue vs. Ossoff

Claim: Ossoff would “defund police” and provide “voting rights for illegal immigrants.” — Perdue campaign ad

Facts: That’s a distortion of Ossoff’s positions; he doesn’t support doing either.

In a Sirius XM radio interview on Sept. 11, Ossoff said, “I oppose defunding the police and I think frankly, it’s a counterproductive and foolish way of characterizing what I think for some folks is a desire to reform police.”

The Perdue campaign pointed to Ossoff saying in a June radio interview: “You have to have national standards for the use of force, and yeah, you’ve got to be able to hold individual officers and entire departments accountable, and there also has to be funding for those departments on the line.”

Ossoff’s campaign said he was talking about supplemental police funding. In August, he told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that he agrees with President-elect Joe Biden’s position of tying federal funds for law enforcement agencies to meeting certain standards, including whether they can “demonstrate they can protect the community.”

In addition, Ossoff, like Biden, supports creating “a path to legal status for undocumented immigrants who are already here and otherwise follow the law.” Once they become citizens, which could take years, they would gain the right to vote.

But that’s not the same as allowing “voting rights for illegal immigrants,” which suggests allowing those noncitizens to vote.

Full story: “Opening Ads in the Perdue-Ossoff Runoff,” Nov. 19

Claim: Perdue “only serves himself by voting for pay raises for himself while he votes against military pay raises.” — American Bridge 21st Century ad

Facts: Perdue didn’t vote specifically for congressional pay raises or against military pay raises, as a former U.S. Marine says in the Democratic super PAC’s ad.

The claim is based on the senator’s votes against massive appropriations bills that included sections funding automatic military pay raises or blocking automatic pay increases for Congress. Perdue has said he opposed the spending bills in question for reasons that had nothing to do with the provisions concerning congressional or military pay, which were only part of the large bills. 

Full story: “Cherry-Picked Pay-Raise Attacks on Perdue,” Dec. 17

Claim: Ossoff “praised” the Green New Deal. — National Republican Senatorial Committee ad

Facts: That’s misleading; Ossoff spoke favorably about one aspect of the Green New Deal, a nonbinding resolution introduced by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in the House and by Sen. Ed Markey in the Senate.

In September 2019, Ossoff told the New York Times: “I commend Senator Edward Markey and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez for linking environmental policy and infrastructure policy.” And Ossoff’s own campaign website says he will “support a historic infrastructure plan that includes massive investments in clean energy, energy efficiency, and environmental protection.”

But Ossoff has repeatedly said he does not support the Green New Deal as a whole. “They’re claiming that I support the Green New Deal. I do not,” he told the Gwinnett Daily Post in August, pushing back against a claim made in a different NRSC ad.

Full story: “NRSC’s Dual Attack on Warnock and Ossoff,” Dec. 4

Claim: “Liberal megadonors” are spending $1 billion in “dark money” to help Ossoff. — Senate Leadership Fund ad

Facts: That amount is how much multiple experts estimate may be spent on all candidates in both Georgia Senate elections for the entire 2020 campaign cycle.

The headline of a MarketWatch story the Republican super PAC cited to support the claim states clearly: “Georgia’s two Senate runoff elections could spark $1 billion in political spending, analysts say.” 

And that includes all spending, not just “dark money,” which refers to spending by politically active groups that do not disclose the source of their money.

Full story: “A Misleading Dark Money Attack on Ossoff,” Dec. 1

Claim: Perdue “ignored the medical experts, downplayed the crisis and left us unprepared.” — Ossoff campaign ad

Facts: We’ll leave it to readers to decide for themselves if Perdue’s comments did that.

The ad features clips of Perdue’s flawed comments comparing COVID-19 to the flu, praising Georgia’s early reopening plan and crediting President Donald Trump for keeping the death count below projections.

But some of the comments used in the ad – such as Perdue saying on March 11 that “the risk of this virus … still remains low” and that “very, very few people have been exposed to it” — came early in the year at a time when there were still relatively few COVID-19 cases and when medical experts were making similar statements. And Perdue’s campaign emphasized to us that he made other comments warning about the seriousness of the virus and reinforcing Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommendations to reduce the spread of the virus.

Full story: “Opening Ads in the Perdue-Ossoff Runoff,” Nov. 19

Claim: “Ossoff ignored the rules, hiding cash from Chinese communists and terrorist sympathizers.” — Senate Leadership Fund ad

Facts: The misleading claim refers to compensation Ossoff received from two TV or broadcasting groups that he left out of his May financial disclosure filings for his Senate candidacy. Ossoff didn’t initially disclose that his documentary and TV production company, Insight TWI, received more than $5,000 in compensation in the past two years from PCCW Media Limited in Hong Kong and Al Jazeera Media Network in Doha, Qatar. 

But Ossoff’s campaign objected to the Senate Leadership Fund ad’s descriptions of the two media companies, which paid the money to air investigative documentaries. “PCCW does not = Chinese communists and Al Jazeera does not = terrorist sympathizers,” Miryam Lipper, a spokesperson for the campaign, told us in an email.

Ossoff also had amended his filings in July to include the payments from those companies.

Full story: “Twisting the Facts on ‘Dirty Money’ in the Georgia Race,” Nov. 19

Claim: Ossoff “could face federal investigation” for failing to disclose payments received by his broadcast production company from PCCW and Al Jazeera. 

Facts: The only support for this claim is a Dec. 8 letter the Georgia Republican Party sent to the Senate Select Committee on Ethics asking for an investigation. Perdue is using that partisan request to make the improbable claim that there could be an investigation. 

The Senate Select Committee on Ethics “does not have authority to investigate allegations made against candidates,” Bryson B. Morgan, a member of the law firm Caplin & Drysdale who previously was investigative counsel for the House’s Office of Congressional Ethics, told us in an email. “Instead, the Committee’s jurisdiction extends to ‘the conduct of individuals in the performance of their duties as Members of the Senate, or as officers or employees of the Senate,’” he said, citing the committee’s “Rules of Procedure.”

The committee “arguably would have jurisdiction” if Ossoff wins the election, Morgan said, but “such an investigation is extremely unlikely,” both because the committee “rarely conducts investigations” and the issue is moot. Ossoff “proactively corrected the issue by filing an amendment.” 

Full story: “Perdue’s Shaky Claim of a Nonexistent ‘Investigation,’” Dec. 23. 

Claim: “Ossoff lied, bankrolling his campaign with corporate PAC donations funneled through national liberals.” — Senate Leadership Fund ad

Facts: Ossoff’s campaign told us it “has not taken a single contribution from a corporate PAC.” Such PACs are set up by corporations and take contributions from employees.

The basis for the claim is a Townhall story pointing out that Ossoff had received money from leadership PACs, which are used by politicians to donate to other members of their parties. Leadership PACs, the story said, “allow candidates to receive corporate donations indirectly.”

However, the amounts received by Ossoff from leadership PACs don’t show they are “bankrolling his campaign.” According to the most recent data from the Center for Responsive Politics, Ossoff has raised $32.3 million, and all PAC donations total only $322,000, or 1% of that.

Full story: “Twisting the Facts on ‘Dirty Money’ in the Georgia Race,” Nov. 19

Editor’s note: FactCheck.org does not accept advertising. We rely on grants and individual donations from people like you. Please consider a donation. Credit card donations may be made through our “Donate” page. If you prefer to give by check, send to: FactCheck.org, Annenberg Public Policy Center, 202 S. 36th St., Philadelphia, PA 19104. 

This fact check is available at IFCN’s 2020 US Elections FactChat #Chatbot on WhatsApp. Click here for more.

The post FactChecking the Georgia Senate Runoffs appeared first on FactCheck.org.

A TV ad from Republican Sen. David Perdue’s campaign claims a supposed “China scandal” involving his challenger, Democrat Jon Ossoff, “keeps getting worse.” But it’s the distortions of the facts that are getting worse, not any “scandal.”

The ad claims Ossoff “could face federal investigation,” but there’s no indication of that. The only support for the claim is a Dec. 8 letter the Georgia Republican Party sent to the Senate Select Committee on Ethics asking for an investigation. We asked the Georgia GOP whether the committee had responded to the request, and a spokeswoman declined to answer.

The Georgia GOP is asking the committee to investigate a rival candidate in the middle of an election, and Perdue is using that request to make the improbable claim that there could be an investigation. Perdue and Ossoff are facing off in a Jan. 5 runoff that will help determine which party will control the Senate.

The issue concerns Ossoff’s financial disclosure reports. He didn’t disclose some payments received by his broadcast production company in his May filing, but amended the report to include the additional payments two months later, in a July report. We wrote about this in November.

The Senate Select Committee on Ethics “does not have authority to investigate allegations made against candidates,” Bryson B. Morgan, a member of the law firm Caplin & Drysdale who previously was investigative counsel for the House’s Office of Congressional Ethics, told us in an email. “Instead, the Committee’s jurisdiction extends to ‘the conduct of individuals in the performance of their duties as Members of the Senate, or as officers or employees of the Senate,'” he said, citing the committee’s “Rules of Procedure.”

Abigail Sigler, a spokeswoman for the Georgia GOP, told us: “Candidates for US Senate are required to file financial disclosures with the Senate Ethics Committee, and therefore it falls under their jurisdiction.”

But she didn’t answer whether the committee had responded to the request, and Morgan, who advises candidates and officeholders on matters involving the Senate Select Committee on Ethics, told us the committee “arguably would have jurisdiction” if Ossoff wins the election. But even then, “such an investigation is extremely unlikely,” both because the committee “rarely conducts investigations” and the issue is moot. Ossoff “proactively corrected the issue by filing an amendment,” Morgan said.

The Georgia GOP’s letter claims Ossoff “willfully and knowingly failed” to disclose “ties to controversial companies,” but there’s no evidence Ossoff willfully left out the information in the May report. The Ossoff campaign said it was “a paperwork oversight” that was “rectified” in the July amended filing. The GOP letter asserts voters “were left in the dark” during the primary, which was held on June 9.

Ossoff’s Financial Disclosures

As we wrote in November, Ossoff’s production company received payments from a Hong Kong media company and Al Jazeera for the rights to air investigative pieces. Ossoff is managing director and CEO of Insight TWI, a London-based documentary and TV production company. Republicans have misleadingly claimed Ossoff got cash from “Chinese communists and terrorist sympathizers.”

The Perdue campaign ad, which began airing on Dec. 19, according to AdImpact, revisits the issue, claiming the “scandal … keeps getting worse.” But the only new development is the Georgia GOP’s letter asking for an ethics investigation.

In Ossoff’s May 15 financial disclosure filing, he listed 21 TV or broadcasting groups around the world from which Insight TWI received more than $5,000 in compensation in the past two years. Two months later, on July 10, Ossoff filed an amended report that included 32 TV or broadcasting groups that had paid Insight TWI. 

Those that he had left out of the initial report included PCCW Media Limited in Hong Kong and Al Jazeera Media Network in Doha, Qatar.

The Perdue ad focuses on the payment from the Hong Kong company, claiming Ossoff was “paid by the communist Chinese government through a media company.” It cites an October Townhall article that says PCCW is “partially owned by China Unicom, a company maintained by the Chinese government.”

The Financial Times reported in 2009 and 2010 that the state-owned China Unicom was the second-largest shareholder of PCCW, behind owner Richard Li.

So, a partly state-owned company paid Ossoff’s company to air TV segments. Ossoff’s campaign says there was another layer of separation in the transaction. Miryam Lipper, a spokesperson for the campaign, told us Insight TWI, which “conducts international investigations that have exposed corrupt officials, organized crime, and war criminals around the globe,” licenses its documentaries to both TV stations and distributors. In the case of PCCW, TWI licensed documentaries to the distributor Sky Vision, which then licensed two investigations of Islamic State war crimes to PCCW.

“TWI would never have sold anything to PCCW directly, just received a royalty check from Sky Vision,” Lipper said, when we wrote about this issue before.

The campaign has since said that royalty payment was about $1,000. That’s below the reporting requirement. The Senate financial disclosure forms ask about “compensation of more than $5,000 from a single source in the two prior years.”

In response to questions about Perdue’s ad, Lipper told us: “Jon fully discloses the TV stations and distributors in dozens of countries and on every continent that have aired his company’s work. Revisions to financial disclosures to ensure they are accurate and complete are totally normal.”

The Ossoff campaign points out that Perdue has amended his financial disclosures many times over the years. Perdue’s financial disclosures show he amended his reports every year from 2014 to 2018, often more than once per year.

The Perdue ad claims Ossoff “tried hiding” the payments from PCCW and “got caught, then lied.” But Ossoff disclosed the payments himself in July. Articles about the payments from PCCW and Al Jazeera appeared afterward, based on Ossoff’s amended report.

John Burke, a spokesman for the Perdue campaign, told us Ossoff “hid this information from voters in his own party,” since it was disclosed after the Democratic primary. As for lying, Burke said Ossoff had “changed his story,” but the evidence doesn’t support that. Ossoff’s campaign said the omission was “a paperwork oversight,” and now the campaign says the payment from PCCW was actually below the threshold of reporting requirements. Lipper told the National Review that both statements were true.

As for the ad’s claim that “now Ossoff could face federal investigation,” as we said that’s unlikely and based only on the Georgia GOP’s request for an investigation.

Lipper, with the Ossoff campaign, told us this was “an utterly false and desperate complaint, which will go nowhere.”

She added: “This is a laughable partisan smear by David Perdue and his allies to distract from the actual federal investigations Perdue has been under this year.”

According to a Nov. 25 New York Times article, the Justice Department this spring looked into Perdue’s stock trades, but closed the case without filing any charges.

Eugene Kiely contributed to this story.

Updated, Dec. 23: We updated the story to include information from the Perdue campaign.

Editor’s note: FactCheck.org does not accept advertising. We rely on grants and individual donations from people like you. Please consider a donation. Credit card donations may be made through our “Donate” page. If you prefer to give by check, send to: FactCheck.org, Annenberg Public Policy Center, 202 S. 36th St., Philadelphia, PA 19104. 

The post Perdue’s Shaky Claim of a Nonexistent ‘Investigation’ appeared first on FactCheck.org.

A Democratic super PAC cherry-picks from huge appropriations bills that Georgia Republican Sen. David Perdue opposed in order to accuse him of trying to increase his own pay while rejecting pay increases for the military.

In a TV ad from American Bridge 21st Century, Dave, “a lifelong Georgia Republican” and former U.S. Marine Corps drill instructor, says, “When I look at David Perdue, I see a man that only serves himself by voting for pay raises for himself while he votes against military pay raises.”

But Perdue has said he opposed the spending legislation in question for reasons that had nothing to do with the provisions concerning congressional or military pay, which were only part of the bills.

The group, officially known as AB PAC, says the ad is airing in five media markets across Georgia and “is part of a multi-million dollar program to help defeat Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue in the January 5th Georgia runoff election.” The ad has already run more than 1,200 times since Dec. 12, according to AdImpact.

Congressional Pay

Under a 1989 law, members of Congress are eligible to receive an annual cost-of-living adjustment to their salary that is determined by a formula based on private sector wages. The adjustment happens automatically unless members pass legislation to stop it.

And since 2009 — when pay for most U.S. senators and representatives was raised to $174,000 — Congress has consistently voted to approve bills including language to block additional hikes. Perdue, who has been in the Senate since 2015, has voted for some of those bills.

To support the claim that Perdue backed “pay raises for himself,” the ad cites his March 2018 vote against an omnibus spending bill, known as the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2018, which included a section freezing congressional pay for that fiscal year. The ad also cites Perdue’s December 2016 vote against the Further Continuing and Security Assistance Appropriations Act of 2017, which funded the government though April 28, 2017, and included language prohibiting a bump in member wages for the 2017 fiscal year.

But the votes on the large appropriations bills were not simply for or against raising pay for Congress.

Perdue, who had an estimated average net worth of almost $26 million as of 2018, actually issued press releases explaining both of his votes; in neither case did he say he was motivated by the provisions rejecting the cost-of-living adjustments.

Perdue said he voted against the 2018 omnibus bill — which still became law — because of its estimated $1.3 trillion cost and the way it was put together.

“Unfortunately, this spending bill is not a product that represents everybody. It’s a product written by a few politicians who got in a room and decided how to spend a trillion dollars. The result is a massive spending package projected to increase the federal debt by another trillion dollars. This is no way to fund the federal government,” he said in a March 22, 2018, statement.

Perdue said he opposed the 2017 continuing resolution — which also was enacted — because it funded the government only temporarily rather than for the full fiscal cycle.

“Here we go again. For the 19th consecutive year, Washington has not funded the federal government on time. As the current continuing resolution is expiring in the midnight hour, Congress is once again trying to pass a temporary fix three months after the beginning of the current fiscal year. This is ridiculous,” he said in a Dec. 10, 2016, release.

Military Pay

By law, increases in basic military pay are determined by a statutory formula, and the automatic adjustments can only be changed by the president or Congress.

To support the claim that Perdue “votes against military pay raises,” the ad again cites his March 2018 vote against the omnibus bill, which, among other things, included funding for a 2.4% pay increase for military personnel. The ad also highlights his September 2018 vote against a minibus spending bill and continuing resolution for fiscal year 2019 that included money for a 2.6% military pay raise, as well as other appropriations for the departments of defense, labor, health and education.

But as we already noted, Perdue said he voted against the 2018 spending bill out of concern about its overall cost and the budget process — not because of a pay increase for service members. In fact, he said he wouldn’t support the legislation despite the fact that it included additional military funds.

“While this bill provides our military with more funding, it does not provide them with more certainty in the long-term,” he said in his statement. “The larger problem here is the budget process has failed again. It is imperative the newly formed Joint Select Committee change the budget process to address the structural problems that lead to this unacceptable outcome.”

As for the two-bill minibus and continuing resolution that he later opposed that year, Perdue said he did so because it was yet another short-term spending bill.

“Here we go again. In typical Washington fashion, Congress has once again fallen short of completing its Constitutional responsibility. We had the opportunity to fully fund the government on time for the first time in 22 years. Congress has used over 180 continuing resolutions instead of getting it all done. We are going to walk past the deadline on September 30th and fall into the same trap. This is unacceptable,” he said in a Sept. 18, 2018, statement.

“We didn’t cancel August recess and make significant progress on the appropriations process only to give up this close to the finish line. In the real world, you are held accountable to complete the job. The goal should be to never do another continuing resolution.”

In a statement to FactCheck.org, Perdue’s campaign argued that he has supported pay increases for the military.

“Since taking office, Senator Perdue has consistently supported our women and men in uniform and has been the top advocate for Georgia’s military community,” Perdue’s communications director, John Burke, said in an email. “He was proud to vote for the largest military pay increase in a decade and is committed to ensuring our armed forces are compensated for the very important work they do to keep us safe.”

That’s a reference to Perdue’s votes for the National Defense Authorization Act of 2020, which authorized the statutorily calculated 3.1% increase in military pay, and the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2020, which included funding for the raise.

But the super PAC attacking Perdue defended its ad, arguing that the claim about the senator “voting for pay raises for himself while he votes against military pay raises” is factual.

“Nothing in that statement is untrue,” American Bridge 21st Century spokesperson Zach Hudson said in an email to us.

“Perdue has voted for pay raises for himself. He has voted against military pay raises. It doesn’t matter what else he has voted on. He has cast votes that justify those statements.”

But it’s not as simple as Hudson says.

The super PAC is focusing on one or two sections of massive spending bills that Perdue said he opposed for reasons unrelated to pay increases for Congress or the military. He didn’t vote specifically for congressional pay raises or against military pay raises, which the ad could lead viewers to believe.

Robert Farley contributed to this article.

Editor’s note: FactCheck.org does not accept advertising. We rely on grants and individual donations from people like you. Please consider a donation. Credit card donations may be made through our “Donate” page. If you prefer to give by check, send to: FactCheck.org, Annenberg Public Policy Center, 202 S. 36th St., Philadelphia, PA 19104. 

The post Cherry-Picked Pay-Raise Attacks on Perdue appeared first on FactCheck.org.

For the first time since Election Day, President Donald Trump will stage a political rally — traveling to Valdosta, Georgia, to campaign on Dec. 5 for the state’s two Republican senators.

Sens. David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler were unable to get 50% of the vote in the Nov. 3 election, forcing both into Jan. 5 runoff elections against their respective Democratic challengers, Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock.

In advance of Trump’s visit, we recap here our fact-checking reports on the Georgia races — which will decide control of the Senate.

We also review the president’s false, misleading and unfounded statements about alleged election fraud in Georgia — a state that President-elect Joe Biden won by nearly 13,000 votes, according to the state’s certified election results.

Trump’s Election Fraud Allegations

Georgia signature checks: In a nearly 46-minute video that he posted on social media on Dec. 2, Trump wrongly claimed Georgia didn’t properly check signatures from mail-in ballots and misleadingly claimed the signature checks were left out of the recount.

“In the recent recount in Georgia, which means nothing because they don’t want to check signatures, and if you’re not going to check signatures in Georgia, it doesn’t work,” Trump said. “But we have a secretary of state, and a governor who made it very difficult to check signatures.”

As we have written, Georgia election officials check signatures twice: once when a voter requests a mail-in ballot, and then again when the ballot is returned. Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a Republican, said Georgia strengthened its signature match for this election, and trained election officials on Georgia Bureau of Investigation signature-matching techniques. Trump is correct that signature checks were not part of the hand recount. Once a signature is verified on the ballot’s outer envelope, the ballot is separated from the envelope for counting. This protects voter privacy.

Rejected ballots in Georgia: Trump again falsely claimed that the percentage of ballots rejected in Georgia was suspiciously low.

“In swing state after swing state, the number of ballots rejected has been dramatically lower than what would have been expected based on prior experience,” Trump said. “In Georgia, just 0.2%, that’s substantially less than 1%, of mail-in ballots have been rejected. … Nothing was rejected, practically, compared to 6.4% in 2016.”

As he has in the past, Trump is conflating the ballots rejected just for signature issues in this election with ballots rejected in past elections for all reasons — usually for arriving too late. The percentage of mail-in ballots rejected in Georgia due to signature issues this year was about the same as in the 2016 and 2018 general elections.

Missed votes in Georgia: Trump falsely suggested that many votes from Trump supporters in Georgia remain uncounted. “Thousands of uncounted ballots were discovered in Floyd, Fayette, and Walton counties weeks after the election, and these ballots were mostly from Trump voters. They weren’t counted. They were from Trump voters,” he said.

It’s true that almost 6,000 previously uncounted or unreported votes in those counties (and Douglas County) were discovered by officials during Georgia’s hand recount of ballots after the election. But those votes for Trump and Biden have since been included in the overall tallies and didn’t change the outcome.

Gabriel Sterling, the voting systems implementation manager for the Georgia secretary of state’s office, said that after including those additional votes for both candidates, Biden’s lead over Trump narrowed from 14,156 votes to 12,781 votes.

See “Trump’s ‘Most Important’ Speech Was Mostly False” for more.

Biden-only voters: In a Nov. 29 interview on Fox News, Trump baselessly said that “there were a lot of ballots where it was just Biden on top,” and no other candidates selected in the other races, because Democrats were rushing to forge ballots for Biden.

“They say that I was doing so much better than they thought that they panicked, and they started just doing ballot after ballot very quickly and just checking the Biden name on top. They didn’t have time,” Trump said, not explaining who “they” were. “So, you have all these ballots with just one name checked. People don’t vote that way.”

In making this unsupported claim, Trump repeated a flawed conspiracy theory that one of his campaign advisers, Steve Cortes, previously had suggested about Georgia. Cortes claimed “there were almost 96,000 people in Georgia, allegedly, who voted Biden-only and then did not vote for Senate.”

Barry Burden, director of the Elections Research Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, told us it is not possible to know how many Georgians voted for Biden and no other candidate. That “would require individual-level information from ballots, not aggregation information about ballots cast in each race,” he said. 

Instead, while Biden garnered more votes than Ossoff in Georgia, that’s likely because of ticket-splitting, when a voter picks a presidential candidate of one party and a Senate candidate of another party, and “ballot roll-off,” which is when voters skip certain races.

See “Trump Repeats Baseless, False Claims About the Election” and “Faulty Claim About ‘Biden-Only’ Ballots in Georgia” for more.

Two days after Election Day, Trump made several unfounded, baseless and specious claims at the White House about alleged election counting issues in Georgia.

Stopped counting: Trump claimed that he “won by a lot … with a lead of over getting close to 300,000 votes on election night in Georgia.” But “a pipe burst in a far away location, totally unrelated to the location of what was happening and they stopped counting for four hours,” saying “a lot of things happened” during that time to steal the election from him.

But the Trump campaign has provided no evidence of fraud. As the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported, a water leak at State Farm Arena in Atlanta, which serves as a ballot processing site, caused a several hours delay in vote-counting on election night. No ballots were damaged, and vote processing resumed normally.

In a Nov. 21 opinion piece for the Washington Post, Raffensperger described the state’s election process he oversaw as “secure, reliable and efficient,” dismissing criticism of it as “unfair and unwarranted.”

Post-election votes: Trump claimed that votes were “coming in after Election Day” in Georgia. But there is no evidence to support his claim.

The Trump campaign and the Georgia Republican Party filed a lawsuit that included an affidavit from a Republican poll observer who expressed concern that 53 ballots may have been received in Chatham County after the 7 p.m. deadline on Election Day but intermingled with on-time ballots. Superior Court Judge James Bass dismissed the lawsuit, stating: “[T]he Court finds that there is no evidence that the ballots referenced in the petition were received after 7:00 p.m. on election day, thereby making those ballots invalid.”

Election observers: Trump also claimed — without evidence — that his campaign had been “denied access to observe in critical places in Georgia.” David Shafer, chairman of the Georgia Republican Party, specifically claimed that GOP observers were denied proper access in Fulton County, where Atlanta is located. 

But in a press conference on Nov. 6, Raffensperger, Georgia’s secretary of state, said that while there have been allegations in other states about monitors not being allowed to watch the counts, “In Georgia, this process is and will remain open and transparent to monitors.”

See “Trump’s Wild, Baseless Claims of Illegal Voting” for more.

Perdue-Ossoff Race

A Perdue TV ad misleadingly claimed that Ossoff would “defund police” and provide “voting rights for illegal immigrants.”

Ossoff has repeatedly said he does not support defunding police. And while he supports providing a pathway to citizenship to some 11 million immigrants currently in the country illegally, he does not support voting rights for noncitizens.

An Ossoff TV ad offered similar side-by-side comments from Perdue and Trump that the ad contends show Perdue “ignored the medical experts, downplayed the crisis and left us unprepared.”

We’ll leave it to readers to decide for themselves if Perdue’s comments did that, but some of the comments highlighted in the ad came early in the year at a time when medical experts were making similar comments. And Perdue made other comments warning about the seriousness of the virus and reinforcing Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommendations to reduce the spread of the virus.

See “Opening Ads in the Perdue-Ossoff Runoff” for more.

Ossoff’s production company received payments from a Hong Kong media company and Al Jazeera for the rights to air investigative pieces, but a Republican TV ad misleadingly claimed Ossoff got cash from “Chinese communists and terrorist sympathizers.”

See “Twisting the Facts on ‘Dirty Money’ in the Georgia Race” for more.

A Republican TV ad falsely suggested that “liberal megadonors” are spending $1 billion in “dark money” to help Ossoff in the runoff race. That’s how much multiple experts estimate may be spent on all candidates in both Georgia Senate elections for the entire 2020 campaign.

See “A Misleading Dark Money Attack on Ossoff” for more.

An ad from the National Republican Senatorial Committee misleadingly says Jon Ossoff “praised” the Green New Deal, a proposal that Ossoff has repeatedly said that he does not support. 

See “NRSC’s Dual Attack on Warnock and Ossoff” for more.

Loeffler-Warnock Race

An ad from Warnock claimed that Loeffler “immediately” began “dumping stocks” after a January Senate briefing about the coronavirus. But his campaign provided no evidence she made that investment decision. Loeffler has said her family’s investments are managed by third-party advisers without her input. Also, the Senate’s ethics panel investigated allegations that Loeffler may have violated federal laws or Senate rules against insider trading and found no evidence that she had. 

A Loeffler ad claimed that Warnock “hosted a rally for Communist dictator Fidel Castro” in 1995. But her campaign has provided no evidence that Warnock, who was a youth pastor for a Harlem-based church at the time, was involved in inviting Cuba’s former dictator to speak at that church more than two decades ago.

Loeffler’s ad also said Warnock “called police thugs and gangsters,” leaving out that his comments were specific to the circumstances surrounding the death of Michael Brown, a young Black man who was shot and killed in 2014 by a police officer in Ferguson, Missouri. His campaign said he wasn’t referring to all officers.

See “Loeffler-Warnock Runoff Starts with Attack Ads” for more.

A conservative group’s deceptive TV ad suggested that Warnock supports defunding the police. He has said multiple times that he doesn’t.

See “Ad Links Warnock to ‘Defunding the Police’” for more.

An NRSC ad says Warnock “supports cashless bail for criminals,” which “puts the most violent right back into our neighborhoods.” Warnock’s campaign has said that he “supports ending cash bail for nonviolent misdemeanor offenders, not an all out ban on cash bail.”

In 2018, for example, Warnock, the senior pastor at Atlanta’s Ebenezer Baptist Church, supported an ordinance approved by the Atlanta City Council that eliminated the requirement for individuals charged with committing certain low-level crimes to pay a cash bond to secure their pretrial release from custody. 

See “NRSC’s Dual Attack on Warnock and Ossoff” for more.

Editor’s note: FactCheck.org does not accept advertising. We rely on grants and individual donations from people like you. Please consider a donation. Credit card donations may be made through our “Donate” page. If you prefer to give by check, send to: FactCheck.org, Annenberg Public Policy Center, 202 S. 36th St., Philadelphia, PA 19104. 

This fact check is available at IFCN’s 2020 US Elections FactChat #Chatbot on WhatsApp. Click here for more.

The post Primer on Trump’s Visit to Georgia appeared first on FactCheck.org.

A Republican TV ad falsely suggests that “liberal megadonors” are spending $1 billion in “dark money” to help Democrat Jon Ossoff in Georgia’s Senate runoff race. That’s how much multiple experts estimate may be spent on all candidates in both Georgia Senate elections for the entire 2020 campaign cycle.

In fact, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, slightly more dark money — where the source of the money is not disclosed — has been spent on behalf of Ossoff’s opponent, Republican Sen. David Perdue.

The narrator in the ad, which is from the Senate Leadership Fund, says “liberal megadonors are backing Ossoff with untold millions in dark money,” while viewers see an image with the words “$1 billion in political spending.” In smaller print below the $1 billion figure, the ad cites an article in MarketWatch.

If that graphic wasn’t enough to convince viewers the ad was suggesting that $1 billion in dark money would be spent on behalf of Ossoff in the runoff election, a shorter, 15-second version of the ad draws an arrow between the $1 billion figure and Ossoff.

But the MarketWatch article does not speculate that $1 billion might be spent solely on behalf of Ossoff. The full headline of the story is: “Georgia’s two Senate runoff elections could spark $1 billion in political spending, analysts say.”

The other Georgia Senate race pits Republican Sen. Kelly Loeffler against Democrat Raphael Warnock. If Democrats win both Jan. 5 runoff races, they would control both houses of Congress and the presidency.

The $1 billion estimate in the story was based on comments provided by three political analysts during an interview on Atlanta radio station WABE’s “Closer Look” program on Nov. 9.

MarketWatch, Nov. 12: “All eyes are going to be on Georgia. Probably $1 billion is going to be spent by the Democratic Party here in Georgia to try and take those two seats,” a Republican analyst, Julianne Thompson, said on the program, leading host Rose Scott to sound incredulous.

But an Emory University professor of political science, Bernard Fraga, and a Democratic strategist, Fred Hicks, then indicated to Scott that Thompson’s estimate wasn’t way off.

Both parties combined could spend $1 billion in Georgia, said Fraga, describing that outlay as “really possible.” Hicks said $1 billion in total spending is “a lot of money, but there’s a lot at stake.”

Fraga clarified to us via email, “My statement that $1 billion dollars is ‘possible’ would have to include all spending to support the Democratic and Republican candidates for U.S. Senate in Georgia this year across all stages of the process (primaries, general, and general runoff), including by groups that are not coordinating with the campaigns.”

So the analysts were talking about all money being spent on the two races, and not just dark money. The article also noted that “other spending estimates for the Georgia runoffs are more modest, with a CNBC report suggesting outlays of more than $200 million.”

Other political experts have also suggested total spending in the two races could reach $1 billion. But again, that’s on behalf of all candidates in two races, and for all spending in the 2020 cycle, not just in the runoff.

An analysis of Federal Election Commission data shows that during the entire 2020 election cycle, “$2.76 million in dark money was spent in support of Ossoff or against Perdue and $2.83 million was spent in support of Perdue or against Ossoff,” Anna Massoglia, a researcher at the Center for Responsive Politics, which operates the website OpenSecrets.org, told us via email. She is responsible for researching dark money for OpenSecrets.org.

The term “dark money” refers to spending by politically active groups that do not disclose the source of their money, such as “social welfare” groups that are organized under Internal Revenue Code 501(c)(4). Although all groups must report to the FEC any spending that explicitly advocates for or against federal candidates, 501(c)(4) nonprofits are not legally required by the IRS to disclose their funding.

Most of the dark money supporting Ossoff comes from Majority Forward, a 501(c)(4) organization that is affiliated with Democratic Senate leadership, Massoglia said.

“None of this dark money spending was reported during the runoff but there is always a chance that there was additional spending on things like digital ‘issue’ ads boosting or attacking a candidate without explicitly calling for their election or defeat since those ads are generally not required to be disclosed to the FEC,” Massoglia said.

More substantial has been the tens of millions of dollars in so-called “gray money” poured into the Georgia race by super PACs that receive contributions from dark money sources.

As the Center for Responsive Politics explains, “Opaque nonprofits and shell companies may give unlimited amounts of money to super PACs. While super PACs are legally required to disclose their donors, some of these groups are effectively dark money outlets when the bulk of their funding cannot be traced back to the original donor.”

Most of that “gray money” in the Georgia Senate races is being spent by super PACs aligned with Senate leadership from both parties. And more of that gray money has been spent on Perdue’s behalf than on Ossoff’s.

“Out of $49 million in total grey money spending on the right, $47.9 million of that came from Senate Leadership Fund, a super PAC aligned with Senate Republicans,” Massoglia said. “Senate Leadership Fund has spent over $4.3 million of that during the runoff and spent nearly $44 million before Election Day in November.”

Again, the Senate Leadership Fund — which was established in 2015 by allies of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell — is the group responsible for the ad attacking Ossoff saying that “liberal megadonors” are backing him with “untold millions in dark money.”

“Out of $33.6 million in total grey money spending on the left, $31.2 million of that came from Senate Majority PAC, a super PAC aligned with Senate Democrats,” Massoglia added.

“Only around $5 million in grey money spending has been reported to the FEC during runoff but FEC filings are continuing to roll in,” Massoglia said. “Of the grey money spending during the runoff, a little over $250,000 has come from the left and $4.8 million from the right.”

Almost all of that gray money spending during the runoff has been by Senate Leadership Fund, she said.

Overall, outside groups have spent more money to help Perdue than Ossoff, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Outside spending in support of Ossoff or in opposition to Perdue totaled $44.4 million, while spending in support of Perdue or in opposition to Ossoff added up to $84.2 million, as of Dec. 1.

As for his candidate committee, Ossoff received $17.7 million in large individual donations, accounting for about 55% of the money he raised, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

Perdue got less from large individual donors, about $10.2 million. That accounted for 48.2% of the money Perdue raised.

But, Ossoff also got a lot more in small individual contributions, $12.8 million. That’s nearly 40% of his total. By comparison, Perdue got about $2 million in small individual contributions, a little less than 10% of his total.

And as we have written, Perdue has gotten a lot more than Ossoff from PACs during the 2020 election cycle. Ossoff has raised a total of $32.3 million, but only $322,000, or 1%, came from PACs. By comparison, Perdue received $3.3 million from PACs, which represents nearly 16% of his total contributions, including nearly $2.7 million from business PACs.

We should note that the ad also misleadingly claims that Ossoff took “money from Chinese communists and terrorist sympathizers.” We addressed that claim last month when we wrote about an earlier Senate Leadership Fund ad. As we wrote at the time, Ossoff’s TV production company received payments from a Hong Kong media company and Al Jazeera — among many others — for the rights to air investigative pieces.

Clarification, Dec. 2: This story has been updated to make clear that Massoglia, a researcher at the Center for Responsive Politics, says tens of millions of dollars in gray money — not dark money — have been spent on the Georgia Senate race.

Editor’s note: FactCheck.org does not accept advertising. We rely on grants and individual donations from people like you. Please consider a donation. Credit card donations may be made through our “Donate” page. If you prefer to give by check, send to: FactCheck.org, Annenberg Public Policy Center, 202 S. 36th St., Philadelphia, PA 19104. 

This fact check is available at IFCN’s 2020 US Elections FactChat #Chatbot on WhatsApp. Click here for more.

The post A Misleading Dark Money Attack on Ossoff appeared first on FactCheck.org.

Georgia Democratic Senate candidate Jon Ossoff’s production company received payments from a Hong Kong media company and Al Jazeera for the rights to air investigative pieces, but a Republican TV ad misleadingly claims Ossoff got cash from “Chinese communists and terrorist sympathizers.”

The group behind the ad, Senate Leadership Fund, further claims that such “dirty money” for Ossoff includes a “bankrolling” by “corporate PAC donations funneled through national liberals,” adding the Democratic candidate had “lied.” Ossoff pledged to not accept corporate PAC money; the ad instead refers to leadership PACs, set up by other politicians.

Ossoff’s contributions from all PACs total just $322,000, while his opponent, Republican Sen. David Perdue, has received $3.3 million from PACs, about 80% of that from business PACs, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

A Jan. 5 runoff election will determine the winner of this Georgia Senate race, as neither Ossoff nor Perdue garnered 50% of the vote on Nov. 3.

Even before it was clear that control of the Senate would come down to the two Georgia races, outside groups had spent significant sums in this contest. Senate Leadership Fund has spent nearly $48 million opposing Ossoff, while a Democratic counterpart — Senate Majority PAC — has spent $31.3 million against Perdue or in support of Ossoff.

All told, outside groups have flooded the race with $113.5 million, as of Nov. 19, with most of that — 66% — backing Perdue.

Ossoff’s Media Company

The Senate Leadership Fund ad focuses on payments received by Ossoff through Insight TWI, a London-based documentary and TV production company of which Ossoff is managing director and CEO.

The ad begins: “Jon Ossoff. A trail of dirty money. Ossoff ignored the rules, hiding cash from Chinese communists and terrorist sympathizers.”

But the support for those charges is weak.

Citations in the ad on-screen refer to Ossoff’s financial disclosure filings for his Senate candidacy. In Ossoff’s May 15 filing, he listed 21 TV or broadcasting groups around the world from which Insight TWI received more than $5,000 in compensation in the past two years. But he amended that list in July 10 filings to include 32 such groups.

Two that he left out in May: PCCW Media Limited in Hong Kong and Al Jazeera Media Network in Doha, Qatar. Those are the supposed “Chinese communists and terrorist sympathizers.”

The conservative National Review described PCCW as “a Hong Kong media conglomerate whose owner [Richard Li] has spoken out against pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong.” The Financial Times reported in 2009 and 2010 that the Chinese state-owned China Unicom partly owns PCCW as its second-largest shareholder behind Li.

Regarding Al Jazeera, the ad cites a 2011 story by American Journalism Review. The magazine didn’t equate the network with “terrorist sympathizers” but rather attributed the viewpoint to “critics.”

The magazine said: “For years, critics have assailed what they see as anti-Semitic, anti-American bias in the channel’s news content. In the wake of 9/11, Al Jazeera broadcast statements by Osama bin Laden and reported from within the ranks of the Taliban, earning a reputation as a mouthpiece for terrorists.”

The story also described praise for the network. David Marash, a former “Nightline” correspondent, quit a job with Al Jazeera’s English-language channel in the late 2000s over a perceived anti-American bias, but by 2011, “Marash unabashedly praises Al Jazeera as ‘the best news channel on earth,'” AJR reported.

Ossoff’s campaign objected to the ad’s descriptions of the two media companies, which paid the money to air investigative documentaries. “PCCW does not = Chinese communists and Al Jazeera does not = terrorist sympathizers,” Miryam Lipper, a spokesperson for the campaign, told us in an email.

Lipper said that the structure of Insight TWI “doesn’t leave any room for this notion that he is somehow controlled by these groups in the nefarious way they try to imply.” Insight TWI “conducts international investigations that have exposed corrupt officials, organized crime, and war criminals around the globe,” she said. The company then licenses its documentaries to TV stations and distributors throughout the world.

“In some instances, as is the case with PCCW, TWI even licenses the documentaries to distributors like Sky Vision who re-license them to TV stations,” she said. “TWI would never have sold anything to PCCW directly, just received a royalty check from Sky Vision when PCCW ran TWI’s two investigations of ISIS war crimes.”

As for Al Jazeera, the network has aired several TWI documentaries on its English-language channel, mostly about Africa. “What’s clear is that some people have different opinions about Al Jazeera but that doesn’t make them something just because people say it,” Lipper said, highlighting a quote from the late Sen. John McCain, a Republican.

“I’m very proud of the role that Al Jazeera has played,” McCain said in 2011 of the network’s broadcasts during the Arab Spring. “I congratulate you and I mourn for those who have sacrificed in the service of providing the information, which is knowledge, which is power.”

The ad also charges Ossoff was “hiding” these payments from PCCW and Al Jazeera, based on the fact that he left those two companies off his initial May financial disclosure filing. Why not include them initially? Lipper told us that was “a paperwork oversight” that was “rectified” in the July amended filing after “a normal review of the campaign’s paperwork.”

Ossoff’s work for Al Jazeera was also part of attack ads when he ran for Congress in 2017, so that much was known. “This was widely reported in 2017, and he literally reported them transparently on a government website for all to see,” Lipper said. “There was no hiding.”

PAC Money

The Senate Leadership Fund ad goes on to say: “Ossoff lied, bankrolling his campaign with corporate PAC donations funneled through national liberals.”

Ossoff has said he won’t accept corporate PAC donations, and his campaign maintains it “has not taken a single contribution from a corporate PAC,” Lipper said.

Corporate PACs are set up by corporations and take contributions from employees.

The ad, however, cites a Townhall story pointing out that Ossoff had received money from leadership PACs, which are used by politicians to donate to other members of their parties. Leadership PACs, the story said, “allow candidates to receive corporate donations indirectly.”

But even if so, the amounts received by Ossoff from leadership PACs don’t show they are “bankrolling his campaign.” Ossoff has raised $32.3 million, and all PAC donations total only $322,000, or 1% of that.

Among the largest donations from PACs, $10,000 each came from End Citizens United, which advocates overturning the Supreme Court decision on corporate money, and Washington Women for Choice, which supports pro-abortion rights candidates.

Lipper told us: “The reason for a pledge like that is to avoid a position where you take money from a corporate PAC and then feel some kind of debt to pay to them by voting in their favor.” But on leadership PACs, she said, “we do not know their donors,” and she pointed us to a PolitiFact article from 2018 that quoted experts saying the two types of PACs are not the same.

“Leadership PACs do (usually) take corporate PAC contributions,” Andrew Mayersohn, a committees researcher with the Center for Responsive Politics, told PolitiFact. But Mayersohn went on to say he doubted a politician would feel indebted to a corporation because its PAC contributed to a leadership PAC. It was more likely the politician would feel an obligation to the lawmaker behind that leadership PAC.

As we said, Perdue, who has not sworn off corporate PAC donations, has received $3.3 million from PACs, nearly $2.7 million of that from business PACs.

The ad goes on to say that these “national liberals” are “spending millions more for [Ossoff] because he could help them jam through their radical agenda.” The words “$36 million for Ossoff” appear on-screen. That appears to be a reference to outside groups spending money in this election. We asked Senate Leadership Fund about its claims, but we didn’t get a response.

If it is a reference to outside spending, so far, even more money from outside groups has been spent to back Perdue, as of Nov. 19, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

Outside spending in support of Ossoff or in opposition to Perdue totaled $38.3 million, while spending in support of Perdue or in opposition to Ossoff added up to $75.2 million.

Editor’s note: FactCheck.org does not accept advertising. We rely on grants and individual donations from people like you. Please consider a donation. Credit card donations may be made through our “Donate” page. If you prefer to give by check, send to: FactCheck.org, Annenberg Public Policy Center, 202 S. 36th St., Philadelphia, PA 19104. 

The post Twisting the Facts on ‘Dirty Money’ in the Georgia Race appeared first on FactCheck.org.

In the first TV ads of the runoff campaign that could help decide the balance of the Senate, Republican Sen. David Perdue warned his opponent would “radically change America,” while Democratic challenger Jon Ossoff accused his opponent of downplaying the coronavirus.

The ad from Perdue makes the misleading claims that Ossoff would “defund police” and provide “voting rights for illegal immigrants.” Ossoff has repeatedly said he does not support defunding police. And while he supports providing a pathway to citizenship to some 11 million immigrants currently in the country illegally, he does not support voting rights for noncitizens.

Ossoff’s ad offers similar side-by-side comments from Perdue and President Donald Trump that the ad contends show Perdue “ignored the medical experts, downplayed the crisis and left us unprepared.”

We’ll leave it to readers to decide for themselves if Perdue’s comments did that, but some of the comments highlighted in the ad came early in the year at a time when medical experts were making similar comments. And Perdue made other comments warning about the seriousness of the virus and reinforcing Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommendations to reduce the spread of the virus.

Perdue’s Ad

The first TV ad of the runoff from the Perdue campaign begins with a clip of Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer celebrating after Joe Biden was projected the winner of the presidential race, telling a crowd in New York, “Now we take Georgia, then we change America.”

If Democrats were to flip the two Senate seats in Georgia’s January runoff elections — Perdue vs. Ossoff and Republican Sen. Kelly Loeffler vs. Democrat Raphael Warnock — Democrats would control both houses of Congress and the presidency.

“You heard him,” the ad’s narrator says. “Chuck Schumer is trying to use Georgia to take the Senate majority and radically change America. The Schumer, Pelosi, Ossoff change? Defund police. Voting rights for illegal immigrants. Washington, D.C. as the 51st state.”

That’s a distortion of Ossoff’s positions. Ossoff has repeatedly said he does not support defunding police.

For example, in a Sirius XM radio interview on Sept. 11, Ossoff said, “I oppose defunding the police and I think frankly, it’s a counterproductive and foolish way of characterizing what I think for some folks is a desire to reform police.”

In an interview on WSB radio on June 11, Ossoff reiterated, “No, the answer is not to defund police. The answer is to reform police. And the answer is to demilitarize police. Far too many local police departments are heavily equipped with armored vehicles and military equipment, and when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.”

The Perdue campaign points to comments Ossoff made in a radio interview in June: “You have to have national standards for the use of force, and yeah, you’ve got to be able to hold individual officers and entire departments accountable, and there also has to be funding for those departments on the line.” (Starting at the 19:39 mark.)

The Ossoff campaign says that Ossoff was talking about supplemental police funding, and that Ossoff’s position is similar to that of Biden, who in June told CBS News, “No, I don’t support defunding the police. I support conditioning federal aid to police, based on whether or not they meet certain basic standards of decency and honorableness. And, in fact, are able to demonstrate they can protect the community and everybody in the community.”

As we have written, there is no agreed upon definition for the term “defund the police.” Some police critics, who believe there is systemic racism in law enforcement, really do want to abolish police forces and replace them with other forms of community safety entities. Others advocate shifting some money and functions away from police departments to social service agencies.

Ossoff told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution in August that he agrees with Biden’s position of tying federal funds for law enforcement agencies to meeting certain standards, including whether they can “demonstrate they can protect the community.”

The ad also distorts Ossoff’s position when it says he supports “voting rights for illegal immigrants.” Ossoff’s campaign told us he does not, and the Perdue campaign didn’t provide any evidence that he does.

The Perdue campaign points to Biden’s support for “providing a roadmap to citizenship for nearly 11 million undocumented immigrants” currently in the U.S., including the so-called Dreamers who arrived in the U.S. illegally as children. A bipartisan immigration bill that sought to do the same thing passed the Senate in 2013 with the support of 14 Republicans, including Sens. Lindsey Graham and Marco Rubio, who co-sponsored the bill. Ossoff’s policy similarly calls for creating “a path to legal status for undocumented immigrants who are already here and otherwise follow the law.”

But that’s different from allowing “voting rights for illegal immigrants.” As we have written, it would likely take more than a dozen years under such legislation for immigrants to gain full citizenship, and voting rights. But they would then be citizens, not “illegal immigrants.” Ossoff’s campaign says he opposes voting rights for noncitizens.

The ad is correct that Ossoff supports statehood for Washington, D.C., but it’s not clear that statehood for D.C. could be accomplished even with a simple majority in the Senate. Under Senate rules, legislation can be blocked if it fails to receive the 60 votes necessary to end debate and move to a vote.

“Any effort to get DC statehood would be filibustered,” Norm Ornstein, a congressional expert at the American Enterprise Institute, told us via email. “So the answer is that it would first require a change in the rules of the Senate to reform or end the filibuster, which is not going to happen with only 50 Democrats — at least not for some time. It could happen, if [Senate Majority Leader Mitch] McConnell’s Republicans used the filibuster to block everything — including COVID relief, infrastructure, and every other Biden initiative. But not for quite a while, and no sure thing at all.”

Ossoff’s Ad

The latest ad from the Ossoff campaign mirrors one it has been running since the summer, accusing Perdue of downplaying the coronavirus crisis. The runoff ad, called “Echo,” is updated to pair similar quotes from Perdue and Trump to make the case that Perdue “ignored the medical experts, downplayed the crisis and left us unprepared.”

We’ll just focus on the quotes attributed to Perdue. The quotes are accurate; however, they are misleadingly juxtaposed with a chart showing the rising COVID-19 death count. Some of Perdue’s comments were made early in the pandemic, long before the corresponding number of deaths reached the levels shown in the ad.

The first two quotes come from an interview Perdue did with The Valley’s Morning News podcast — a Georgia program  — on March 11. The bolded parts of the interview are included in the ad.

Perdue, March 11: It’s a balance between being precautionary and overreacting. And I think we have to realize that the risk of this virus in the United States right now still remains low. And the mortality rate is still being determined. The normal mortality rate of the normal flu is well under 1%. This so far is over 1%, but you know, so far, very, very few people have been exposed to it in the United States. […] So I think we’re doing what we should do right now. I don’t want to see America panic and overreact. But I do think it’s good for us to be precautionary and just take care of ourselves relative to whether we think we’re getting sick or have been exposed or anything like that.

Perdue went on to say that “the authorities are not taking this lightly. We’re presuming the worst and preparing for the worst. But at the same time, we’re hopeful this thing will burn itself out before we see a dramatic increase in the numbers here.”

The Perdue campaign also noted that in this interview, Perdue reiterated CDC guidance: “If you’re elderly or have a respiratory illness, be discretionary and stay away from large crowds. Use hand sanitizers, wash your hands frequently, try to stay away from people who are sick. And if you are sick, stay home. And if it feels like it’s getting serious, call a doctor, don’t go run to the emergency room right away but call a physician and get advice.”

To put these comments in the context of the moment, the day before the interview, there were about 1,500 COVID-19 cases in the U.S., with about 37 deaths, according to the COVID Tracking Project. At that time, the New York Times reported 17 cases in Georgia, and no deaths.

In comments on Feb. 29, less than two weeks before Perdue’s interview, Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said in an interview on NBC’s “Today” show that the risk from COVID-19 “is still low,” and he said there was no need for people to change their daily routines “at this moment.” But he warned that could change if “you start to see community spread.” Fauci said the virus could develop into a “major outbreak” or “it could be something that’s reasonably well controlled.”

On March 9, just two days before Perdue’s comments, Fauci was still talking about the coronavirus as “an evolving thing” and that holding campaign rallies “in a place where there is no community spread, I think the judgment to have it might be a good judgment.”

Things changed quickly though in the days after Perdue made those comments on March 11. The day of that interview, the World Health Organization declared the global outbreak a pandemic, and two days later, Trump announced a national emergency.

The ad then highlights a comment Perdue made at a Chamber of Commerce meeting on May 14: “We’ve had ordinary flu seasons with more deaths.” Perdue rightly noted that there were about 80,000 deaths from COVID-19 at that time, and there were an estimated 61,000 influenza deaths in the 2017-2018 flu season (though the average over the last decade has been fewer than 40,000 per year). But even at the time it was a flawed comparison and, of course, COVID-19-related deaths continued to mount through the summer and fall (and now stand at more than 247,000). We have repeatedly fact-checked the president for making faulty comparisons between the flu and COVID-19, which has proven to be much more deadly (as medical experts repeatedly warned).

The ad then uses a quote from Perdue at a different Chamber of Commerce meeting on April 28: “The numbers projected were supposed to be much worse.” Perdue credited Trump’s actions for keeping those numbers down.

As we have written numerous times in the past when Trump claimed to have averted some 2 million deaths, a forecast of 2.2 million deaths in the U.S. is based on a model from Imperial College London in March that predicted U.S. deaths if no mitigation measures were taken and no individual behavior changes occurred. The figure, therefore, was not intended to be an estimate of likely deaths.

And as we have written, research does support the idea that lockdowns — which were instituted by states, not Trump — saved lives earlier this year, although it’s hard to say how many. 

Finally, the ad uses a clip from Perdue being interviewed on CNBC on June 16 in which he was asked about the reopening plan in Georgia. “It’s going very well,” Perdue said.

Fauci and other medical experts were critical in May of Georgia and some other Republican-led states for opening too early. At the time, Perdue told Politico that he had recently eaten in restaurants twice in Georgia and, “We’ve got to get this economy open again. We’re on the back side of the cycle.” However, new cases spiked in Georgia in July and August.

Readers can make what they will of Perdue’s comments and decide for themselves if he downplayed the virus.

The Perdue campaign points to other comments and statements Perdue made around the same time that suggest he took the pandemic seriously and took measures to help protect the public.

For example, on March 2 after the first two cases of the coronavirus were reported in Georgia, Perdue and Loeffler issued a press release stating, in part, “We’re closely monitoring the cases of coronavirus in Georgia and urge everyone to take extra precautions. Governor Kemp and the Trump Administration are working with us to ensure we keep Georgians healthy and safe. It is of utmost importance that Georgia has the resources necessary to respond accordingly.”

And on March 23, Perdue released a public service announcement via video, which began: “First of all, I know this virus is causing a lot of concern, and rightfully so. Let me assure you of this: the world’s best public health officials are right here in Georgia at the CDC. They’re working around the clock to help contain this virus and to develop a vaccine.”

Perdue, March 23: The President’s early travel restrictions gave us time to prepare for the virus, and we’re continuing to take action to safeguard public health. We’re doing this by cutting red tape, partnering with the private sector to expand testing availability, and ensuring state and local officials have the resources they need. We’re also working on ways to help families and businesses that might be impacted financially.

Finally, please remember to follow the advice of public health officials: stay home if you are sick; wash your hands frequently with soap and water; keep a safe distance from others. If you are experiencing symptoms, call your health care provider right away. You don’t necessarily need to go there, just call them and give them your symptoms.

The Perdue campaign also pointed to a number of COVID-19-related actions Perdue has taken, including helping small businesses access the Paycheck Protection Program and helping to locate personal protective equipment for front-line workers.

The Perdue campaign also touted measures in the CARES Act, a nearly $2 trillion stimulus package to bolster the economy in response to the coronavirus pandemic. It included direct payments to Americans, loans for small businesses, support for hospitals and more. The bill passed unanimously in the Senate. Perdue, of course, voted for it, although he opposed two of its major provisions: the direct payment of $1,200 checks to qualifying individuals and the $600-per-week in additional unemployment payments.

One one front, Perdue has been out ahead of, and clearer than, the president: encouraging the public to wear masks.

Trump has waffled on his support for mask-wearing from the start — saying on April 3, the day the CDC issued recommendations for public mask-wearing, that he would not personally be wearing a mask. In an interview in early May, Perdue said that in Senate meetings the week before, “We all wore masks. We actually had a meeting before then (and) we had masks. And we have hand sanitizers, signs everywhere about washing hands and maintaining social distance. I think it’s very important that America sees that, that we are functioning, and that this is an essential part of life, that we work together.”

In an interview on Fox News on June 30, Perdue said, “I absolutely support wearing masks. We wear them here in the Senate. We’ve been back here for five weeks. We follow the protocols that the military and our essential workers have been following. We wash our hands, we use masks, and if we follow that, I believe the infection rate can be managed.”

And on July 9, Perdue tweeted a picture of himself wearing a mask and imploring the public to “wear a mask, wash your hands, practice social distancing.”

That was 11 days before Trump did the same thing.

In Ossoff’s ad, a chart shows the rising COVID-19 death count, while Trump and Perdue comment about the virus. But the chart is misleading. For example, when Perdue said “the risk of this virus … still remains low,” the chart shows the number of deaths increasing from about 15,000 to 83,000. But, as we said, that comment was made when there were about 1,500 cases and about 37 deaths nationwide (and just 17 cases and no deaths in Georgia). Similarly, the graphic shows the death count rising from about 180,000 to about 210,000 when Perdue said “the numbers projected were supposed to be much worse” — when, in fact, there were 54,761 deaths at the time of his remarks on April 28.

That puts Perdue’s comments in a worse light. Still, Perdue’s comments comparing COVID-19 to the flu, praising Georgia’s early reopening plan and crediting Trump for keeping the death count below projections are all flawed. But again, we’ll let readers determine for themselves if those comments prove Perdue “ignored the medical experts” and “downplayed the crisis.”

Editor’s note: FactCheck.org does not accept advertising. We rely on grants and individual donations from people like you. Please consider a donation. Credit card donations may be made through our “Donate” page. If you prefer to give by check, send to: FactCheck.org, Annenberg Public Policy Center, 202 S. 36th St., Philadelphia, PA 19104. 

The post Opening Ads in the Perdue-Ossoff Runoff appeared first on FactCheck.org.

In this week’s fact-checking video, CNN’s Jake Tapper examines efforts by Republican Sens. Tom Cotton and David Perdue to discredit Democratic Sen. Richard Durbin’s account of President Trump using profanity to disparage African countries at an immigration meeting in the Oval Office. They said Durbin has a “history” of misrepresenting what was said at White House meetings.

As we wrote, they are referring to a 2013 Facebook post in which Durbin wrongly claimed a GOP leader had told then-President Barack Obama, “I can’t even stand to look at you.”

But there’s more to that story than Cotton and Perdue presented, and there’s a big difference between what happened then and now.

Durbin was not in the 2013 White House meeting. Rather, he shared a secondhand report he received from White House staffers that turned out to be inaccurate. The White House press secretary at the time said the misquote resulted from a “miscommunication in the readout of that meeting between the White House and Senate Democrats.”

This time, Durbin provided a firsthand account of what he heard at the Jan. 11 meeting. Durbin and Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham were at the White House to discuss their bipartisan plan to save an Obama-era program known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, which Trump is phasing out. A day after the meeting, Durbin quoted Trump as saying of African nations, “‘Those shitholes send us the people that they don’t want.’”

The video about the claim by Sens. Cotton and Perdue, which can be found on CNN’s website, is part of our fact-checking collaboration with CNN’s “State of the Union.” Previous videos can be found on our website.

The post Video: Durbin’s ‘History’ of Distortions appeared first on FactCheck.org.