WaPo Updates Clinton Fact-Check to Worst Possible Rating Following FBI Disclosures

After FBI director James Comey announced the findings of the FBI investigation into Hillary Clinton‘s use of an unauthorized private email server, The Washington Post updated their fact-check of one of Clinton’s frequent claims about her email use to give her the worst possible score.

In August of 2015, WaPo‘s Glenn Kessler rated Clinton’s claim that “I did not e-mail any classified material to anyone on my e-mail.” Clinton was only awarded Two Pinocchios, indicating that she created a false and misleading impression but didn’t lie outright. At the time, information about Clinton’s emails was still scarce and there was no evidence that Clinton had sent emails that were classified at the time.

Flash-forward to Tuesday. Comey announced during his mid-day press conference that 110 of Clinton’s emails were found “to contain classified information at the time they were sent or received.” What’s more, contrary to Clinton’s protestations, some of the emails were explicitly marked classified at the time.

That reveal was enough to convince WaPo to go back and bump up their ruling to Four Pinocchios, reserved only for the worst, most bald-faced lies. In addition, WaPo ran another fact-check of Clinton’s claim that she used a private email out of “convenience,” and gave it Three Pinocchios based on Comey’s new information.

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