The Hill repeated President Donald Trump’s false suggestion during a rambling and falsehood-laden joint press conference with the Italian president Wednesday that Republicans never subpoenaed the Obama administration -- even though The Hill has debunked a similar claim from Trump earlier in October.
The Trump White House has vowed not to cooperate with the House’s impeachment inquiry spurred by Trump’s abuse of power regarding Ukraine, and the administration has attempted to block several officials from testifying. But some officials have testified after Congress issued subpoenas to compel their appearances.
Yesterday, The Hill’s Twitter account posted a short video clip from Wednesday’s press conference five separate times in which Trump complained about the Democratic-led House issuing subpoenas for its investigation, saying, “Paul Ryan would never issue a subpoena,” while “Nancy Pelosi hands them out like cookies.”
But The Hill already published an article on October 2 debunking a similar claim from Trump.
The article, titled “Amash: Trump incorrect in claiming Congress didn't subpoena Obama officials,” reported on tweets from Rep. Justin Amash (I-MI) referencing the 2012 vote by the GOP-led House to hold then-Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt “for failing to turn over documents.” According to The Hill, Amash had also linked to a 2018 article about Ryan “threatening to hold former FBI lawyer Lisa Page in contempt if she failed to comply with a subpoena.” The article also included a tweet from former GOP House Oversight Committee spokesperson Kurt Bardella, who explained the committee issued more than 100 subpoenas to the Obama administration. House Republicans also issued subpoenas to the Trump administration while Ryan was speaker.
Mainstream media outlets have repeatedly pushed Trump’s misinformation about the Ukraine scandal and the impeachment inquiry since news reports surfaced in September about an intelligence community whistleblower. The Hill has been especially guilty of uncritically repeating false claims from Trump and those close to him; Media Matters looked at tweets from 32 national news organizations repeating false Trump remarks during a three-week period earlier this year and found that The Hill was the worst offender: More than 40% of the tweets in the study uncritically repeating Trump’s misinformation were sent from the outlet’s handle.
