A botch Washington Post 'fact check' is typical of a media outlet mired more in Trump hatred than a search for the truth

Newsbusters:
Two days after airing a Super Bowl commercial that depicts journalists as people of great importance and integrity, The Washington Post published an error-ridden fact check of President Trump’s State of the Union address. Written by Glenn Kessler, Salvador Rizzo, and Meg Kelly, it contains an array of half-truths, straw men, and outright falsehoods.

During his address, Trump said: “The lawless state of our southern border is a threat to the safety, security, and financial wellbeing of all America.” In retort, The Post writes: “By any available measure, there is no new security crisis at the border.”

That is a straw man argument, or a rebuttal to a point that wasn’t made. Trump did not say this is a “new” crisis. In fact, he portrayed it as a longstanding problem by saying, “Year after year, countless Americans are murdered by criminal illegal aliens.”

Trump’s claim is correct. A 2011 Government Accountability Office study of 249,000 non-citizens in U.S. prisons and jails during 2003 to 2009 found that they had been arrested for 25,064 homicide-related crimes committed in the U.S. throughout their criminal careers. This isn’t even a full count because the study:
  • examined only “a portion of the total population of criminal aliens who may be incarcerated” in the U.S. 
  • doesn’t include homicides that didn’t result in arrests, which comprise about 40% of all murders in the U.S. and higher rates for murders by minorities.

Like most government crime data, the study doesn’t isolate legal non-citizens from illegal ones, but legal immigrants must pass full criminal background checks and are very law-abiding. Thus, the vast bulk of these murderers were undoubtedly in the U.S. illegally.

The Post also tries to refute Trump’s statement about the dangers of open borders by implying that visa overstays are a greater threat. According to The Post, border barriers won’t stop “travelers overstaying their visas,” and these are “far more” common “than southern border apprehensions.” That argument is often used by activists and the media, but it is a classic half-truth. This is because it ignores the crucial fact that visa entrants are screened for criminality and other risks, while illegal border crossers are not.

Under federal law, “aliens” who pose threats to the public are “ineligible to receive visas and ineligible to be admitted to the United States.” This includes, for example, foreigners who:
  • have committed serious crimes.
  • are drug abusers or addicts.
  • have dangerous communicable diseases or mental disorders.
  • are “likely … to become primarily dependent on” government welfare.

In stark contrast, illegal border crossers evade all of these standards and the vetting that is done to enforce them. Hence, The Post’s comparison of the numbers of illegal border crossers to visa overstays is irrelevant to the point that Trump raised, which is the safety and wellbeing of Americans.

Moreover, The Post’s numbers are deceitful. First, they downplay the scale of illegal border crossings by counting only “apprehensions.” This overlooks all illegal border crossers who are not caught. Second, they exaggerate visa overstays by failing to account for visitors who leave the U.S. after their visas expire.
...
There is much more.

The Washington Post has some fact checking to do on its own reporting not only on this story but also on its coverage of what has turned out to a Russian collusion hoax which they helped to perpetuate.   After years of multiple investigations, Congress and Mueller have failed to find evidence of Trump colluding with Russia to steal the election.  Mueller has used the investigation to manufacture some process crimes and demonstrate a two-tier criminal justice system where he prosecutes Trump associates for doing the same thing Democrats were doing at the same time.

Now that neither the FBI, CIA or Congress have been able to verify the material in the Steele dossier which started this hoax does the Post still think Glenn Simpson of Fusion GPS is a reliable source?  Does it think Steele is?  Does it think John Brennan and Clapper are reliable sources on this story?  How about McCabe, Strzok, Page, or Comey?  They all engaged in misleading leaks that proved to be wrong about the central issues of the hoax.

To get its credibility back the Washington Post needs to do some investigative reporting on its own conduct.

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