The Seahawk fact-checks claims made by Pence in Jacksonville rally

James LaPorta | Staff Writer

JACKSONVILLE, North Carolina — “What a difference a week makes,” Indiana Gov. Mike Pence told a crowd of hundreds this past Saturday in Onslow County as news surfaced a mere 24-hours earlier that, with less than a week before Election Day, FBI Director James B. Comey had sent a letter to notify Congress that an investigation was underway of additional emails that appear relevant to the Hillary Clinton email scandal.

The letter to Congress drew sharp criticism from the Clinton presidential campaign chairman John Podesta and from Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid of Nevada, who wrote a letter of response to Comey, claiming that the FBI director may have broken the Hatch Act, according to congressional documents obtained by The Seahawk.

The Hatch Act of 1939 is a piece of federal regulation that prohibits government officials from using their authority to shape the outcome of an election.

While elected officials can campaign for members of Congress as we have seen with President Barack Obama supporting Clinton’s campaign, they are barred from using their Constitutional powers to influence government employees, and government employees, including members of the armed forces, are restricted from full participation in politics.

The FBI vowed to review the new emails as quickly as possible, however, most pundits and subject matter experts familiar with FBI procedures inside the beltway predict that the outcome of the investigation will not be settled until after Election Day.

The additional Clinton emails were discovered during a separate FBI investigation into disgraced former Congressman Anthony Weiner (D-NY), who is currently estranged from his wife, Huma Abedin, a senior Clinton advisor.

In Jacksonville, N.C., Pence covered a wide array of issues that are important to conservatives in this election season.

Among those were national security, the economy, foreign policy, the Wikileak emails, the divide between disenfranchised communities and law enforcement, the Affordable Care Act or what is commonly referred to as Obamacare, Iraq and the 2012 attack on the U.S. Embassy in Benghazi, Libya.

With less than a week before Election Day on Nov. 8, The Seahawk investigated the claims made by Pence on the main theme of his rally—national security. The Seahawk is also investigating the statements made from the Clinton campaign in order to provide accurate information to our readership.

The Seahawk chose to fact check Pence on the issue of security, as 80 percent of registered voters say that the issue of terrorism is “very important” to their vote in 2016, with 75 percent of voters saying foreign policy is paramount, according to the Pew Research Center.

ON SECURITY

 

Pence told the Onslow crowd on Saturday that, “The world is more dangerous today,” since Obama and Clinton took office, accusing Clinton of setting the conditions to allow the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria to gain prominence because of the 2011 Status of Forces Agreement or SOFA.

The Seahawk examined the most comprehensive data available, comparing Obama’s first term in office (2009 -2012) to his second term (2013 – 2016) in the areas concerning security and the wellbeing of Americans.

1,544 U.S. soldiers were killed during military operations between 2009 and 2012, according to iCasualties, a non-partisan organization that tracks coalition fatalities. However, between 2013 and 2016, 216 soldiers were killed, which represents an 86 percent decrease in combat fatalities—better than before.

Between 2009 and 2012, there were 54 terrorist attacks in the U.S., resulting in 29 deaths including the perpetrators. However, between 2013 and 2015, there were 83 terrorist attacks, killing 85 people, including the terrorists themselves, according to START at the University of Maryland, which studies terrorism and responses to terrorism. Data for 2016 has not been integrated, as the year has not concluded—still, worse than before.

National violent crime incidents reported by the FBI—which include murder and non-negligent manslaughter, rapes, robbery and aggravated assaults—show that between 2009 and 2012, there were more than five million. However, when compared to the 3.51 million violent crimes during Obama’s second presidential term, 2016’s number of violent crime incidents would need to exceed more than 1.48 million to be worse than before Obama took office.

The last time the national violent crime rate came close to 1.48 million was during former President George W. Bush’s administration, where in 2001 there were 1.43 million violent crimes. Additionally, the national violent crime rate was more than 1.48 million during three years of former President Bill Clinton’s administration (1996 – 1998) until 1999 when it dropped to 1.42 million, according to FBI statistics.

The infant mortality rate, the average lifespan of the citizenry and the number of Americans diagnosed with HIV have all improved since Obama first took office, according to the Centers for Disease Control.

However, what has gotten worse is the number of Americans who died from cancer, car accidents and drug overdoses, according to the American Cancer Society, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the CDC.

The issue of Clinton failing to keep U.S. troops in Iraq—a claim Pence made during the vice presidential debate with Democrat Tim Kaine in October—refers to a period in 2011, when the Obama administration was negotiating new terms with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to keep a contingent force in Iraq after American combat units withdrew from the region under a new status of forces agreement, or “SOFA.”

At the time, the White House was working on a deadline to negotiate a new SOFA under an order signed by President George W. Bush in 2008, which called for 10,000 troops to remain behind in Iraq at the end of 2011, according to The Los Angeles Times.

However, negotiations fell through after the U.S. demanded immunity from prosecution by the Iraqi government—a sensitive political issue for the Iraqi Parliament that would block the Iraqi government from trying American soldiers in Iraqi courts, a frequently compromised system.

While it is true that the State Department is largely responsible for negotiations between countries, the key decisions regarding Iraq were made by the Obama Administration, with the president on the phone himself with Prime Minister al-Maliki, according to Politifact, a fact-checking website run by the Tampa Bay Times.

Politifactconcluded that while this claim has “an element of truth,” it leaves out key information that would change the perspective, as too much emphasis is placed on Clinton and the outcome of the negotiations. Politifact ultimately ruled this claim to be “mostly false.”

ON ISIS

Another claim of Pence and the overall campaign of the Republican nominee is that Clinton created a vacuum for the creation of the Islamic State; however, the roots of the Islamic State can be traced back to 2004. While Clinton did vote for the use of military force in Iraq when she was a senator in 2002, she was not a part of President George W. Bush’s administration and would not become secretary of state until 2009 under Obama.

ON BENGHAZI

 

Another claim made by Pence that was determined to be “mostly false” in July by Politifact writer Linda Qiu is the claim that Clinton left four Americans to die in Benghazi, Libya and after their deaths said, “What difference at this point does it make?”

“As a parent of a proud marine,” Pence said to the crowd, “If you said that, you have no right to be president. You don’t say that.”

However, Politifact pointed out several inaccuracies with this claim, noting that Clinton did not have authority to send a quick reaction force in order to repel the attack on the U.S. consulate; that job fell to the Department of Defense.

Moreover, Qiu wrote, “It’s undeniable that officials in Libya repeatedly asked for better security, but there’s no evidence that Clinton herself was aware or that she willfully denied them.”

Additionally, Clinton’s comment, “What difference at this point does it make?” did not come after the four Americans were killed and was not an expression of indifference, according to the same Politifact article.

The comment was made during a response to Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) on why State Department officials did not contact their counterparts in the Libyan government to determine the causation of the attack in Benghazi.

While the State Department can bear some of the responsibility for the attack in Libya, based on all the available evidence, Politifact determined that the allegation that Clinton was solely responsible for the deaths of the four Americans in Libya is false.