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An ABC News “fact-check” conducted during the presidential debate last month has since been completely and utterly debunked.
Recall that during the debate between former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris, the former president RIGHTLY pointed to the rise in crime under the Biden-Harris administration.
“All over the world crime is down – all over the world except here,” he said. “Crime here is up and through the roof. Despite their fraudulent statements that they made. Crime in this country is through the roof. And we have a new form of crime. It’s called migrant crime. And it’s happening at levels that nobody thought possible.”
Seconds later, debate moderator David Muir, a supposed journalist, interrupted Trump to “fact-check” him.
Watch:
Flashback: David Muir “fact checks” President Trump by saying FBI data shows violent crime was down.
Trump compared it to the 818,000 job downward revision.
Turns out, yet again, that Trump was right.
Will Trump get an apology? pic.twitter.com/j6SASC3GYO
— Daniel Baldwin (@baldwin_daniel_) October 16, 2024
“President Trump, as you know, the FBI says overall violent crime is coming down in this country,” Muir said.
To his credit, he did at least allow Trump a chance to briefly respond before moving on to the next question.
“Excuse me,” Trump said. “The FBI — they were defrauding statements. They didn’t include the worst cities. They didn’t include the cities with the worst crime. It was a fraud. Just like their number of 818,000 jobs that they said they created turned out to be a fraud.”
Now, in fairness to Muir, the FBI did originally claim that crime was down. The problem is that the FBI’s numbers were obviously wrong. The proof? A recent but quiet FBI revision updated the numbers to reveal a 4.5 percent increase in violent crime in 2022.
“The new data includes thousands more murders, rapes, robberies, and aggravated assaults,” according to John R. Lott Jr. of RealClearInvestigations, who was the actual journalist who discovered the stealthy revision.
Stealth Edit: FBI Quietly Revises Violent Crime Stats
The actual changes in crimes are extensive. The updated data for 2022 report that there were 80,029 more violent crimes than in 2021. … should the FBI’s 2023 numbers be believed?https://t.co/lO1M9QaYUB#crime @FBI
— John R Lott Jr. (@JohnRLottJr) October 16, 2024
What’s weird is that the revision was made so quietly that nobody except him even noticed it, including the corporate propaganda media stooges who’d rushed to report the FBI’s original numbers, i.e., the wrong ones.
Also strange is that whereas a handful of revisions have been made in the past, never has a revision been THIS large.
“I have checked the data on total violent crime from 2004 to 2022,” Carl Moody, a professor at the College of William & Mary who specializes in studying crime, told Lott.
“There were no revisions from 2004 to 2015, and from 2016 to 2020, there were small changes of less than one percentage point. The huge changes in 2021 and 2022, especially without an explanation, make it difficult to trust the FBI data,” he added.
No kidding!
As for ABC News and Muir, neither has yet acknowledged the revision. In their bubble world, it’s as if the revision never even occurred.
Trump for his part has repeatedly slammed both for violating an alleged deal in which they weren’t supposed to “fact-check” him at all.
“Now you don’t know this, but we had a deal with ABC that there will be no corrections of any kind, and they violated the deal,” he said on Sept. 26th. “Why? Because they’re bad people, and they’re fake news. So he did it many times to me during the debate. He violated the deal. That’s the deal, because you can take anything and try and make up stories with it.”
“We had a deal where that wouldn’t happen. You could do whatever you wanted as soon as the debate was over, but he did it in total violation of what our agreement was. And a lot of people standing right over there [as he looked toward his staff] will tell you exactly what it was, will show you what it was. David Muir has lost all credibility,” he added.
Muir, meanwhile, is facing massive pressure on social media to stop the bull and just admit that he’d gotten it wrong already.
Look:
Have you seen the FBI crime stats? you were wrong in the debate. you need to apologize and correct your “fact checking” abilities
— Elizabeth (@JoriThielen) October 19, 2024
@DavidMuir when will you apologize to the American public about providing an INCORRECT fact check to Trump about violent crime data? FBI data shows crime is UP by 4.1%. Shame on you.
— Carol Paquette (@OHIOBucks43085) October 19, 2024
@DavidMuir
When are you going to admit you were wrong about the FBI crime data when you tried to fact check Trump? Lost a lot of respect for you and your ABC companions.— S Words (@trgwolverine) October 19, 2024
@DavidMuir, on national television during the Presidential Debate, you factchecked Donald Trump about the crime rate.
New FBI data shows your fact check was incorrect.
Will you admit you were wrong?
— brantley norwood (@BrantleyNorwood) October 19, 2024
@ABCWorldNews FBI stats were revised to include higher numbers than @DavidMuir reported at the debate. The least he could do is apologize to us for his blatant mistake. But no he won’t!
— Pacific Flora (@CannabisAdviso2) October 19, 2024
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