The Associated Press took a look at recent misstatements by President Trump on various issues. Here are a few relating to criminal justice: On border security, Trump said, “People with tremendous medical difficulty and medical problems are pouring in, and in many — in many cases it’s contagious. They’re pouring into our country. We have to have border security.” AP says Trump provided no evidence that people coming into the U.S., including the caravan at the U.S.-Mexico border, are carrying contagious diseases at a higher rate than the U.S. population. A study published this month by the UCL-Lancet Commission on Migration and Health called scares about contagion one of the most pervasive myths about migrants. The study found no evidence that migrants pose a significant public health risk to countries such as the U.S. that have good health systems.
Trump also said that at the border, “We caught 10 terrorists … These are very serious people.” AP said the statement “is a mangling of federal statistics” showing that U.S. Customs and Border Protection stopped an average of seven to 10 people a day in 2017 year who were denied entry to the U.S. because they were on a watch list. The statistics do not show how many might have been arrested or charged with anything. On the special counsel’s Russia probe, Trump said, “Wow, 19,000 Texts between Lisa Page and her lover, Peter S … were just reported as being wiped clean and gone.” Actually, the Justice Department’s watchdog found no evidence the FBI intentionally destroyed text messages of former agent Peter Strzok and former lawyer Lisa Page, who were involved in the Hillary Clinton email investigation. The inspector general faulted an FBI-wide software failure that resulted in large portions of FBI text messages not being archived.