President Joe Biden has been awarded “Four Pinocchios” by The Washington Post for his recent claim about being arrested.
Fact-checker for the Post, Glenn Kessler, penned an article titled, “Biden claims yet another arrest for which there’s little evidence.”
Opening the piece, Kessler mentioned a statement made by Biden during a speech in Atlanta, Georgia, on voting rights.
“I did not walk in the shoes of generations of students who walked these grounds. But I walked other grounds. Because I’m so damn old, I was there as well. You think I’m kidding, man. It seems like yesterday the first time I got arrested,” Biden said.
Kessler pointed out it is not the first time Biden said he was arrested.
“But there’s no evidence we can find that Biden was ever arrested,” Kessler wrote.
Fact Checker: Biden claims yet another arrest for which there’s little evidence https://t.co/tAFsyevN0i
— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) January 13, 2022
According to the fact-check, Biden’s statement refers to a story he has told at least five times.
Biden shared different variations of the story where his mother told him about the time he was arrested as a teenager during a protest that broke out after a Black family bought a house close to where his family lived.
Kessler mentioned differences in the stories, including Biden’s age at the time of the arrest and where the protest took place.
Additionally, Kessler explained Biden’s 2017 memoir does not mention the arrest. After a search of newspapers, mentions of the protest were found but not in 1956 or 1957 when Biden was 13 or 14 years old.
“The primary source for this story is Biden — and we’ve learned over the years that he is not always a reliable source,” Kessler wrote.
He added, “He appears to be citing his mother to enhance his civil rights credentials — which we have noted he has exaggerated before — but too many elements do not add up to give this ‘arrest’ more credibility than his previous claims of getting in trouble with the law.”
Concluding his piece, Kessler said, “The president earns Four Pinocchios. If any new evidence turns up, we’re always willing to revisit this fact check.”
