GREENSBORO, N.C. — If you haven't seen President Donald Trump's "Coup" ad on your Facebook yet, you could soon. The commerical in response to the impeachment inquiry is part of the biggest online ad buy of the 2020 election so far. And it makes three claims. Let's go through each one and fact check it.
CLAIM 1: President Donald Trump did not break any laws
"Well we know it's not illegal. What crime violated? Can you name one?" the ad says.
Right now it's unclear if that's a fact or not. When it comes to impeachment, the President doesn't have to break the legal definition of a crime. Instead Congress can decide if Trump committed a high crime, often thought of as an abuse of power. And Congress has not made its ruling yet.
CLAIM 2: The whistleblower had no firsthand knowledge
"The entire whistleblower complaint is based on hearsay," the ad said.
That is False. The Intelligence Community Inspector General issued a statement refuting that claim. The statement reads that the whitsleblower checked two boxes on their complaint saying he or she has both firsthand and second information.
CLAIM 3: Making **** up
The ad goes on to talk about Adam Schift, the Democratic in charge of one of the committees investigating the President.
"Fabricating evidence. Adam Schift in the middle of a committee hearing, making crap up," the ad says.
This statement is True but needs context.
During opening statements, Schift gave his interpretation of the call summary from the White House.
"Shore of it's rambling character and in not so many words, this is the essence of what the President communicated," Schift said.
So Schift clearly says he's not quoting the summary word for word. And politifact writes: "Schiff's statement was not entirely made-up. His summary of the readout was mostly accurate save for a few strays and exaggerations."
Here's the main points Schiff got wrong: Trump never directly asked the president of Ukraine to "make up dirt" and he did not repeat that seven times as Schiff exaggerated. Again Schiff said that was his interpretuation. You can see exactly was said according the White House summary here.