Trump Says Obama, Clintons Were Reckless, Too—But His Claims Don’t Pan Out

Claim: Trump shared an article alleging a “double standard” between the FBI’s investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private server and personal email address while serving as secretary of state and the Bureau’s discovery of classified documents Trump stored at his Mar-A-Lago estate.

Facts: The FBI ultimately found that Clinton’s use of the private email and server to transmit some classified documents was not enough to constitute a violation of federal record-keeping laws, characterizing the breach as “careless,” rather than intentional—and a Senate investigation into the matter found no deliberate mishandling—and while there are many unknown facts in Trump’s case, he clashed with the National Archives previously over his penchant for tearing up documents, and records found at Mar-A-Lago were clearly labeled as “classified.”

Claim: Trump shared a column from the right-leaning New York Post comparing Obama’s efforts to digitize classified and unclassified presidential records to build the Obama Presidential Library with his own storage of classified documents at Mar-A-Lago.

Facts: Right-wing social media ran away with the claim that the Obama Foundation is storing some 30 million Obama-era records in an “abandoned” Chicago furniture warehouse, when in reality, the National Archives and Records Administration has said it has full control over the documents housed at a secure facility in Hoffman Estates, Illinois.

Claim: In recent weeks he’s also claimed—as detailed and debunked by the Washington Post—that former presidents George H.W. Bush (storing documents in a building with a “broken front door and broken windows”), Bill Clinton (“left the White House with recordings in his sock”) and Jimmy Carter (“sent the nuclear codes to his dry cleaner”) all recklessly handled documents.

Facts: All are erroneous, with the first two stories inflammatory exaggerations, and the last on based on an apocryphal rumor.