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A Project of The Annenberg Public Policy Center

Video: White House Talking Point on Russia


In this week’s fact-checking video, CNN’s Jake Tapper reviews a recent statement made by Vice President Mike Pence about the 2016 presidential campaign.

In a Feb. 14 interview with Axios, a political website, Pence said U.S. intelligence agencies came to the “universal conclusion” that Russia’s campaign interference had no impact on the election results. But that’s not what the intelligence agencies said. 

On Jan. 6, 2017, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence released a declassified intelligence report that outlined the extent of Russia’s meddling in the U.S. election. But that report specifically said that the intelligence community “did not make an assessment of the impact that Russian activities had on the outcomes of the 2016 election.” 

In a Senate Select Intelligence Committee hearing on Jan. 10, 2017, then-Director of National Intelligence James Clapper reiterated that the report “does not — repeat does not assess the impact of Russian activities on the actual outcome of the 2016 election or draw any conclusions in that regard one way or the other.”

FactCheck.org and CNN’s “State of the Union” have been collaborating on fact-checking videos since September 2015. All of the videos can be found on FactCheck.org.