Judge who halted travel ban fact-checked on claim that no one from affected countries has been arrested

Brett T. | 10:35 PM on February 06, 2017

The Associated Press has chosen to dive in headlong to the fact-checking end of the pool, churning out a piece daily that exposes fake news. Sure, some days the AP tackles viral stories, such as the man who lost his testicles in an explosion while trying to make a scuba bong, but most are political in nature and focus on the Trump White House.

Surprisingly, President Trump came out on top in an AP fact-check Monday, which found that Judge James Robart’s claim that no foreign nationals from the seven majority-Muslim nations named in Trump’s executive order had been arrested since 9/11 was incorrect, and that the president therefore had “no support” for his travel ban.

AP FACT CHECK: Judge wrong in saying no Muslims from 7 targeted #travelban nations arrested in US since 9/11. https://t.co/ItqedUJCcq @AP

— David Beard (@dabeard) February 6, 2017

Oops. Turns out there have been dozens of terror-related convictions–not just arrests–from the 7 countries. https://t.co/QPnK8pepGH

— Byron York (@ByronYork) February 6, 2017

The Washington Examiner’s Byron York also corrected the judge in a piece Monday.

Last summer, [the Justice Department provided] the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration and the National Interest … with a list of 580 people who were convicted — not just arrested, but tried and convicted — of terror-related offenses between Sept. 11, 2001 and Dec. 31, 2014.

The subcommittee investigated further and found that at least 380 of the 580 were foreign-born and that an additional 129 were of unknown origin. Of the 380, there were representatives — at least 60 — from all of the countries on the Trump executive order list. And with 129 unknowns, there might be more, as well.