False statements in DOJ address by Trump: Immigration, Biden, Ukraine exaggerated or unfounded
In a candid speech at the Department of Justice last Friday, President Donald Trump tossed around various unsubstantiated claims and allegations about a multitude of topics, including immigration, the ongoing war in Ukraine, and former President Joe Biden. He frequently accused Biden of wielding the legal system against him without any concrete evidence.
Trump's Prosecutions and Biden:Time and again, Trump recurrently propagated his unfounded assertion that Biden utilized his office to manipulate the legal system against him.
"Justifying the inscriptions on these building walls by John Locke, 'Where law ends, tyranny begins.' I’ve seen it, and I experienced it during the past four years when someone was permitted to mercilessly attack, with this department and the FBI, his political opponent. How did that work out? It did not turn out too well, but it wasn't pleasant. I was targeted by a political adversary," Trump declared.
It's crucial to note that there has never been any evidence suggesting that Biden personally used the Department of Justice or the FBI to attack Trump. Trump's two federal prosecutions - one concerning his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results and another pertaining to his retention of classified documents post his first presidency - were instigated by a special counsel, Jack Smith. Smith, who was assigned in November 2022 by Attorney General Merrick Garland, might have been a Biden appointee, but this does not imply that Biden was involved in the prosecution effort. In 2023, Garland stated that he would resign if asked by Biden to act against Trump, and he emphasized that such a scenario would never take place.
Trump's two other prosecutions were initiated by local district attorneys in Manhattan, New York, and Fulton County, Georgia. Both are Democrats; however, there is still no evidence hinting at Biden or his White House's direction of their decisions. Notably, Trump was convicted of falsifying business records in the Manhattan case, while the Georgia case was put on hold in June 2024 when an appeals court considered whether the district attorney, Fani Willis, should be disqualified from the case. The two federal cases were dropped by Smith due to Trump's 2024 electoral victory. The documents case had previously been dismissed by a Trump-appointed federal judge; however, Smith had appealed her ruling that his appointment as a special counsel was unconstitutional.
Biden Documents Investigation:In his speech, Trump inaccurately claimed that "former President Joe Biden was essentially found guilty, but they said he was incompetent and therefore let's not find him guilty, I guess." He further added, "Nobody knows what the ruling was." In reality, Biden was not found guilty, and there was no judicial ruling against him, as he was not even charged with a crime.
Trump may have been alluding to a situation where Hur, the special counsel who investigated Biden's handling of classified documents, wrote in his public report that "the evidence does not establish Mr. Biden’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt," and added that "several defenses are likely to create reasonable doubt as to such charges." However, Hur did not mean that he would have brought charges against Biden if not for this observation. Hur provided a detailed analysis of the case and possible Biden defenses that made it difficult for the government to secure a unanimous guilty verdict.
Immigration under Trump:During his presidency, Trump repeated two false statements regarding immigration statistics.
First, he claimed that "In our first full month in office, we achieved the lowest level of illegal border crossings ever recorded." While it is true that the number of migrant apprehensions by the Border Patrol in February 2025 was the lowest in many decades, it is not the lowest number on record. Official federal statistics reveal that there were fewer Border Patrol encounters with migrants at the southwest border in some months of the early 1960s and in years prior.
Second, he stated that "by the time I got out" of office the first time, "we had the lowest numbers ever." However, the chart he referenced does not depict illegal immigration at its lowest level when Trump left office. In fact, the arrow on the chart actually indicates April 2020, when Trump still had more than eight months left in his first term and global migration had slowed significantly due to the Covid-19 pandemic. After hitting a roughly three-year low (not an all-time low) in April 2020, migration numbers at the southern border increased each month through the end of Trump's first term.
US and European Aid to Ukraine:Trump continued to propagate his debunked claim that the US has spent "$350 billion" aiding Ukraine compared to $100 billion from Europe.**
Neither claim is correct. The "$350 billion" figure Trump persistently cites is particularly inaccurate. According to the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, a German think tank that closely monitors wartime aid to Ukraine, Europe - the European Union plus individual European countries - collectively committed more total wartime military, financial, and humanitarian aid to Ukraine through December 2024 ($269 billion at current exchange rates) than the US committed ($129 billion). Europe had also allocated more military, financial, and humanitarian aid ($144 billion) than the US allocated ($124 billion).
It's possible to obtain varying totals using different counting methodologies, but there seems to be no basis for Trump's "$350 billion" figure. The US government inspector general overseeing the Ukraine response states on its website that the US had appropriated approximately $183 billion for the Ukraine response through December 2024, including approximately $83 billion actually disbursed - and this figure includes funding spent within the US or sent to countries other than Ukraine.
US Elections:Trump, promising to restore "fairness" in the nation, baselessly questioned the integrity of US elections, stating, "The elections, which were totally rigged, are a big factor." However, there is no factual basis to support a broader claim that recent "elections" in this country, plural, have been "totally rigged."
Iran and Terror Groups:Trump also spread the false narrative that, when he was president, Iran was "totally broke" and therefore "they weren't giving any money to Hamas or Hezbollah." In reality, Iran's funding for terror groups did decline in the second half of his presidency as a result of his sanctions on Iran, which had a major adverse impact on the Iranian economy; however, the funding never ceased entirely, as four experts told CNN in 2024. In fact, Trump's own administration declared in 2020 that Iran was still providing financial support to Hezbollah. You can read a more extensive fact check here.
"Manhattan district attorneys, despite being Democrats, have yet to present any evidence of Biden's direction or manipulation in their investigations against Trump, as depicted in the President's speeches. Nonetheless, Trump's claims of Biden wielding the legal system for his political advantage remain unsubstantiated, despite numerous prosecutions. In a stark contrast, Trump was found guilty of falsifying business records in the Manhattan case."
"Despite his claims that 'former President Joe Biden was essentially found guilty,' there was no judicial ruling against Biden, and he was not even charged with a crime. On the contrary, there is no evidence suggesting Biden utilized the Department of Justice or the FBI to attack Trump, as repeatedly asserted by Trump."
"In spite of Trump's persistent assertion that the US has spent "$350 billion" aiding Ukraine compared to $100 billion from Europe, the data from the Kiel Institute for the World Economy suggests European countries collectively committed more total wartime aid to Ukraine than the US, both in total and in military, financial, and humanitarian aid."
