Republican National Convention 2016: Fact-Checking the Speakers

PHOTO: Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus addresses the start of the first session of the Republican National Convention in Cleveland, Ohio, July 18, 2016.PlayAaron Josefczyk/Reuters
WATCH Republican National Convention Day Three in a Minute

ABC News is fact-checking selected speakers at the 2016 Republican National Convention taking place in Cleveland.

This page will be updated with new fact checks throughout the week:

DAY THREE: Wednesday, July 20

Claim: Hillary Clinton Took Money from Saudi Government

Rating: Misleading. The Clinton Foundation has received donations from the Saudi government, but Hillary Clinton has not taken that money.

Background: Newt Gingrich said, “So when you hear about Hillary’s dishonesty, of the emails, or taking millions from the Saudis and other Middle Eastern dictatorships--remember: this is not about politics.”

Republicans have pointed to donations that the Clinton Foundation received from the Saudi government to imply that Hillary Clinton personally benefited from the donations. Politifact did a thorough analysis of the claim after Donald Trump posted on Facebook that the foundation had received over $25 million from the Saudi government.

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has given a total of between $10 million and $25 million, since the foundation started back in 1997, according to its website. However, Hillary Clinton became a board member of the foundation only after she left government office in 2013. According to Politifact, the foundation did not receive donations from Saudi Arabia while Clinton served as secretary of state.

There is no evidence that Hillary Clinton personally “took” money from the Saudi government, as Gingrich’s statement implies. The foundation that bore her name beginning in 2013 after she left public office has received money from Saudi Arabia, but it is important to note the distinction between Clinton and the Clinton Foundation, as well as the timing of the donations and their purpose.

Fact Check: Donald Trump Set Aside His Company and Global Brand to Run for President

Claim: Donald Trump set aside his company and global brand to run for president

Status: False. Donald Trump has not transferred his commercial assets, continues to engage in corporate litigation and has even touted Trump brand wines, steaks and bottled spring water at a press conference during the course of his presidential run.

Background: Eric Trump said: “My father made the courageous decision to set aside a company to which he has dedicated his entire life, to set aside a global brand that he has made synonymous with success, with quality, with uncompromising, just the best.”

According to ethics lawyers, if Trump becomes president and wants to avoid a conflict of interest, he would need to sell off his businesses, place his assets into a blind trust and cutoff communication with his chief financial advisor.

Until then, however, no such ethical requirements bind presidential candidates, which has allowed Trump to continue advancing his commercial interests during his presidential campaign.

Headlines abound showing Trump commingling politics and business, and using the political stage to further his commercial ventures (“Trump Leverages Campaign to Talk About D.C. Hotel,” “Donald Trump Touts Trump Brands From Steaks to Wine”), and two months into his campaign, Trump slapped restaurateur Jose Andres with a $10 million breach-of-contract lawsuit, which is currently ongoing.

Fact Check: Obama Administration Lied About the Iran Deal

Claim: The Obama administration -- including Hillary Clinton -- lied about the Iran deal

Rating: Questionable. Critics made such claims after NYT profiled Ben Rhodes and his spinning of the deal, but it’s not clear anyone lied.

Background: Newt Gingrich said: “Hillary Clinton has been right at the center of this dishonesty. We know this administration and its allies lied to us about the Iran nuclear deal. We know it because they openly bragged about it to the New York Times.”

In NYT’s much-discussed profile of him in May, Obama aide Ben Rhodes admitted he and the White House created an “echo chamber” of positive commentary on the controversial nuclear deal with Iran. He voiced contempt for the U.S. foreign-policy establishment and bragged a bit about the public selling of the deal.

The notion that Obama and others lied stems from the writer, David Samuels, who reported that the public story about Iran was “largely manufactured” because it was “politically useful” to Obama. The apparent lie? That Iran was on the verge of turning a political corner toward moderation and liberalism. Former CIA chief Leon Panetta told the Times, in the same story, that there wasn’t really much hope that liberal voices in Iran would gain strength.

But no one in the administration told Samuels the story was manufactured, noted Iran expert Suzanne Maloney of Brookings points out. Furthermore, Obama and John Kerry said publicly that the deal was not supposed to lead to Iran becoming a democracy and gave some appropriately nuanced descriptions of Iran and its hardline politics.

The notion that Iran was politically divided also happens to have been true, Maloney notes. The election of Rouhani, following the Green Revolution protests against the hardliner Ahmadinejad, were the precursors for negotiating the deal.

So there was some bragging in the NYT about the successful campaign to sell the deal, but it’s not clear the administration lied and publicly celebrated over it.

Fact Check: Clinton Lied About Benghazi

Claim: Hillary Clinton turned her back on American officials in Benghazi and lied about the attack

Rating: Questionable. No investigation has shown Clinton ignored the attack. It’s impossible to know whether Clinton intentionally lied later, but her references to protests and a controversial video were in keeping with emails obtained by ABC.

Background: Scott Walker said Clinton “turned her back on the fallen heroes in Benghazi...and then she lied about it to the American people. ”This mixes together two claims, both of which are dubious.

That Clinton “turned her back” on the Benghazi victims appears to be an allusion to the supposed “stand-down order,” oft repeated by Clinton critics. No investigation, including House Republicans’, has found that Clinton (or anyone) ordered U.S. security forces to “stand down” as the attack unfolded, although some who have claimed direct knowledge of the attack, including a CIA contractor who fought that night, have stood by that claim.

That Clinton “lied” about Benghazi stems from the claim by Patricia Smith that Clinton told victims’ families that the attack was inspired by protests sparked by a controversial video—a claim Clinton disputes—and a public statement by Clinton referencing that video after the attack.

State Dept. emails obtained by ABC News in 2013 show that, as U.S. diplomatic, defense, and intelligence agencies crafted talking points to explain the attack in its immediate aftermath, all versions of that explanation did include references to protests inspiring the attack.

Fact Check: The U.S. Government Admits ISIS Terrorists as Refugees

Claim: The U.S. government admits ISIS terrorists as refugees

Rating: False. While intelligence gaps abroad means there's a degree of risk in resettling refugees from Syria and elsewhere, the U.S. employs a thorough, multi-stage vetting process. Recent historical data further undermines this claim.

Background: Ted Cruz said: “We deserve an immigration system that puts America first, and yes, builds a wall to keep America safe. A government that stops admitting ISIS terrorists as refugees.

”The typical vetting process for resettling refugees in the U.S. comprises a series of hurdles, the first of which is to meet the legal definition of a “refugee” (roughly 1 percent of applicants is deemed eligible), which can take up to 10 months.

The U.S. then vets refugees through multiple federal intelligence and security agencies, with roughly half being approved at this stage, according to the State Department. Then the names, biographical information and fingerprints of these refugees are processed through FBI, State Department, Homeland Security and Defense Department databases.

Finally, in the case of Syrian refugees, there’s an added step of having their information cross-referenced with classified and unclassified information. Syrian refugees are also reportedly vetted through a secret national security screening program.

The vetting process typically takes from 18-24 months. To expedite the process for Syrian refugees, the Obama Administration launched a surge operation with the hopes of reducing the time to three months in hopes of resettling some 10,000 refugees by fall 2016. According to the New York Times, however, the “onerous and complex web of security checks and vetting procedures” has hampered the expedited process.

U.S. officials have expressed concerns over intelligence gaps in Syria, and the accuracy of the failed state’s criminal and terrorist databases. As FBI Director James Comey told congressional panel in October 2015: "If someone has never made a ripple in the pond in Syria in a way that would get their identity or their interest reflected in our database, we can query our database until the cows come home, but there will be nothing show up because we have no record of them."

Despite concerns about the vetting process, the data show the vast majority of individuals charged in the United States with "homegrown terrorism" were U.S.-born citizens. Between 2001 and August 2015, of the 497 individuals charged, nine had refugee status, while 320, were U.S.-born citizens, according to reporting by ABC News' Serena Marshall and Jordyn Phelps

Fact Check: Obama Gave Iran the Bomb, Vilified Israel

Claim: Obama’s deal will give Iran nuclear weapons and Obama vilified Israel

Rating: Questionable. The jury remains out on the Iran deal. Reports have suggested Iran has not cheated, although German intelligence says Iran has sought sensitive equipment. Obama’s administration has criticized but not ‘vilified’ Israel.

Background: Oil Mogul Harold Hamm said: “Instead, he turned on Iranian oil, gave them the bomb, billions of dollars, and vilified Israel. Why would he do that?"

The administration finalized its Iran nuclear deal in 2015, promising to incrementally unfreeze Iranian assets in exchange for the destruction or downgrading of nuclear material and meeting a series of benchmarks.

In July, The New York Times and Associated Press reported that, so far, Iran had abided by the deal, shutting down thousands of centrifuges and exporting almost its entire stockpile of material that could be used to make nuclear weapons.

However, in its report covering 2015, Germany’s Interior Ministry reported that Iran had sought to procure a “quantitatively high level” of “items which can be used in the field of nuclear technology.” It expects Iran to continue procurement in Germany using “clandestine” activities. Critics have focused on this report.

The jury is still out on whether Iran will ultimately obtain a nuclear weapon under the relaxed sanctions regime, but so far, it has given up nuclear materials and reportedly lived up to the deal.

On vilifying Israel, Obama’s administration has been critical of Israel, particularly for civilian casualties during the Gaza war. Obama has also had a frosty relationship with Prime Minister Netanyahu, as has been widely reported. But the label “vilify” is an interpretation on the part of the speaker and sounds more like a rhetorical device than a stated fact.

DAY TWO: Tuesday, July 19

Fact Check: Hillary Clinton Paid Women Less Than Men

Claim: Hillary Clinton’s Senate office and the Clinton Foundation paid male employees more than it paid female ones.

Rating: Questionable, but supported by some data. The claim about Clinton’s Senate office is supported by data, but it doesn’t include other work women were doing. The claim about the Clinton Foundation is true about high-ranking employees, but it doesn’t count lower-level employees.

Background: On their face, both claims are supported by data, but those data have been thrown into question by incompleteness and counterclaims by Clinton’s staff.

Actress and businesswoman Kimberlin Brown said, “In both Sen. Clinton’s office and the Clinton Foundation, men have been paid better than women.”

In Clinton’s Senate office, The Free Beacon found in a study of then publicly available salary data, women were paid 72 cents on the dollar compared with men. As PolitiFact reported, Clinton aides noted that some staffers took leave from Clinton’s Senate office to do work for PACs or campaigns, and when that other work is taken into account, female employees were paid the same as men. For instance, PolitiFact wrote, Huma Abedin made $20,000 working for Clinton’s Senate office but $150,000 working for her campaign in 2008. Other staffers worked for assorted Clinton political groups.

For the Clinton Foundation, higher pay for men is evident in its 990 forms, PolitiFact has pointed out — although those forms list salaries only for high-level employees. In each year, about eight to 12 employee salaries are listed for the foundation. Women were paid about 77 cents on the dollar compared with men.

The gender pay gap is important at the lower end of the wage scale too, and it’s important to show a full picture. These data don’t do that. At the same time, the publicly available data show the Clinton Foundation paying men more than women and support the claim.

Fact Check: Clinton Against and for Sanctuary Cities

Claim: Clinton was against sanctuary cities before supporting them.

Rating: Mostly true. Clinton criticized San Francisco for not facilitating the deportation of a man who would eventually murder a woman. Later her representative claimed Clinton supports so-called sanctuary cities, or municipalities that do not always hand over undocumented immigrants to federal immigration authorities for deportation.

Background: Mitch McConnell said of Clinton, “She used to be against sanctuary cities. Then she claimed to be for them.”

In the wake of a case in San Francisco last summer where it was discovered that an undocumented man who killed a woman had been deported in several instances but was able to stay in the city after returning and avoiding deportation, Clinton said on June 7, 2015, to CNN, “Well, what should be done is any city should listen to the Department of Homeland Security, which, as I understand it, urged them to deport this man again after he got out of prison another time. Here’s a case where we’ve deported, we’ve deported, we’ve deported. He ends back up in our country, and I think the city made a mistake. The city made a mistake not to deport someone that the federal government strongly felt should be deported.”

On June 9, a Clinton representative clarified Clinton’s position, saying, “Hillary Clinton believes that sanctuary cities can help further public safety, and she has defended those policies going back years.”

PHOTO: Republican Vice Presidential candidate Mike Pence acknowledges the crowd as he walks on stage to deliver a speech on the third day of the Republican National Convention on July 20, 2016 in Cleveland.
SLIDESHOW: The 2016 Republican National Convention

Fact Check: Clinton Is an Apologist for Boko Haram

Claim: Clinton is an “apologist” for Boko Haram. She and President Barack Obama responded to its kidnapping of more than 200 girls with a “hashtag campaign.”

Rating: False. It is based on the fact that Clinton’s State Department declined to list Boko Haram as a terrorist group out of concern that doing so would raise the group’s profile. But publicly Clinton has denounced the group, and she was not the secretary of state when the kidnapping happened.

Chris Christie said, “In Nigeria, Hillary Clinton amazingly fought for two years to keep an al-Qaeda affiliate off the terrorist watch list … The schoolgirls are still missing today. What was the solution from the Obama-Clinton team? A hashtag campaign. Hillary Clinton, as an apologist for an al-Qaeda affiliate in Nigeria resulting in the capture of innocent young women, guilty or not guilty?”

Background: In 2011, Clinton’s State Department declined to list Boko Haram, the terrorist group that would abduct more than 200 schoolgirls from Chibok in 2014, as a foreign terrorist organization, against the recommendations of the DOJ, the FBI, the CIA and lawmakers, Josh Rogin reported for The Daily Beast in 2014.

That move, however, appears to have been based on a disagreement over whether listing Boko Haram would elevate its status. A State Department official said as much to Rogin in the same story. The assertion that she is an apologist appears to be a rhetorical exaggeration criticizing that decision. But publicly, Clinton has denounced Boko Haram.

As a former State Department official points out, the criticism of Clinton’s response to Boko Haram’s 2014 kidnapping is anachronistic, as she was no longer secretary of state when the kidnapping happened:

Fact Check: Clinton Lied About Her Own Name

Claim: Clinton lied about why her parents named her Hillary.

Rating: Questionable. It’s not clear that Clinton lied, but Clinton repeated a story, which turned out to be not true but “family legend,” about being named after Everest climber Edmund Hillary.

Background: In 1995, after visiting Nepal, Clinton recounted that her mother had “always told me” she was named after Edmund Hillary.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said, of Clinton, “She even lied about why her parents named her Hillary.”

It turned out that story wasn’t true, and The New York Times added a correction in 2006 after presenting it as fact.

“An article on Wednesday about an addition to the Clinton household in Washington — Dorothy Rodham, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s mother — mistakenly perpetuated a story that Mrs. Rodham had named her daughter for the mountaineer Sir Edmund Hillary. That statement was based on a 1995 interview with Mrs. Clinton during her visit to Nepal, in which she met Sir Edmund and related the story, as told to her by her mother. As it turns out, the tale was just a family legend. An article today takes a look at how that yarn came to be,” the correction read.

The New York Times followed up with a story noting that Hillary and his Sherpa guide reached the Everest summit in 1953 — six years after Clinton was born in 1947.

“It was a sweet family story her mother shared to inspire greatness in her daughter, to great results, I might add,” Clinton campaign spokeswoman Jennifer Hanley told the Times in 2006.

Fact Check: Democrats in the Senate Blocked Zika and Defense Funding Bills

Claim: Senate Democrats blocked Zika and defense funding bills.

Rating: Technically true but omits key facts.

Background: McConnell, said, “As we sit here tonight, a terrifying mosquito-borne illness threatens expectant mothers and their babies along the Southern Coast. And just last week, Clinton Democrats in the Senate blocked a bill aimed at eradicating that virus before it spread. They blocked a defense funding bill, a bill that would support the brave men and women who are right now defending us overseas.”

While it’s technically true Senate Democrats blocked both bills, the reality is more complicated.

Senate Democrats rejected the Zika bill because Republicans included a provision that would have effectively excluded Planned Parenthood from receiving Zika funding, as well as a provision to allow Confederate flags to be flown at Veterans Affairs hospitals, which would overturn existing law. Senators will vote again on the Zika bill on their first day back in session in September.

On the Defense Department funding bill, Senate Democrats voted — almost as a bloc — to defeat the bill as part of their pledge to block any spending bill until McConnell promises to abide by last year’s budget agreement and refrain from adding partisan so-called poison pill provisions to bills.

Fact Check: Emails Clinton Sent to Other Individuals From Private Email Server Were Hacked

Claim: Emails of people with whom Clinton communicated were hacked.

Rating: True. The FBI could not confirm whether Clinton’s private email server was hacked, but the emails of others to whom she sent messages from her private server were hacked.

Background: Michael Mukasey, a former United States attorney general, said, “Although her system was so remarkably primitive, the FBI could not figure out whether or not it had been hacked, we know that the emails of people with whom she communicated were hacked.”

In the spring of 2013, Sid Blumenthal’s email was hacked, which revealed the existence of Clinton’s private server.

So while it is true that emails Clinton sent to other individuals from her private email server were hacked, James Comey, in announcing the FBI’s decision not to recommend criminal charges for her or her staff, said that investigators could not conclude whether Clinton’s email server was hacked for certain. He said, “It is possible that hostile actors gained access to Secretary Clinton’s personal e-mail account.”

Fact Check: Clinton Said, ‘What Difference ... Does It Make?’ About Deaths of Americans in Benghazi

Claim: Clinton said, “What difference, at this point, does it make?” in discussing the deaths of four Americans in Benghazi, Libya.

Rating: False. Clinton said this at a hearing in response to a question about the cause of these American’s deaths. This was not a question she asked about their deaths writ large.

Background: Mukasey said in his speech, “About her emails, we have to ask ourselves the infamous question that she asked about the death of four Americans in Benghazi – ‘What difference, at this point, does it make?’”

At a hearing Clinton said “With all due respect, the fact is we had four dead Americans. Was it because of a protest or because or was it because of guys out for a walk one night who decided they’d go kill some Americans? What difference, at this point, does it make? It is our job to figure out what happened and do everything we can to prevent it from ever happening again, senator.”

In context, she was voicing her frustration about questions over the cause of these Americans’ deaths, not about whether the deaths themselves were significant, as Mukasey suggests in his speech.

DAY ONE: Monday, July 18

Fact Check: ISIS Is Present in All 50 States

Claim: ISIS terrorists are present in all 50 states.

Rating: Questionable. Rep. Michael McCaul said that there have been ISIS-related investigations in all 50 states. In this sense, there have been investigations into possible ISIS supporters in all 50 states, but it is not possible to confirm whether ISIS terrorists are actually present.

Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, said that “In fact, according to the FBI, ISIS is present in all 50 states. Think about that for a moment. Terrorists from ISIS are in every one of our 50 states.”

Background: Bret Baier in March asked McCaul, the chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, “At one point there was talk that there were investigations into ISIS in all 50 states. Is that still the case?” McCaul responded, “That’s still the case. We’ve arrested over 80 ISIS followers.”

Last year James Comey said that the FBI had opened investigations into individuals “in various stages of radicalizing” in all 50 states, in connection to concerns about homegrown terrorism.

Radicalization often happens online and from afar, according to recent studies. Being in various stages of radicalization does not necessarily mean that person is an ISIS member or a terrorist. The New York Times has profiled people in such stages, such as a young woman in Washington state who was attracted to an ISIS community on Twitter but did not act on her affinity for ISIS recruiters.

Comey’s and McCaul’s statements generally support Ernst’s statement, but the senator’s characterization is broader than what we can factually conclude.

Fact Check: American Trade Deficits with China and South Korea Have Multiplied

Claim: U.S. trade deficits with South Korea have doubled, deficits with China have risen fivefold.

Rating: Mostly true. The South Korea deficit has more than doubled since a free-trade agreement in 2011. The U.S. trade deficit with China has risen threefold since the permanent normalization of trade relations in 2000, adjusting for inflation.

Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., said trade deals “have not worked for the American people. When those agreements were signed, President [Bill] Clinton and Obama promised our dangerous trade deficits with China and Korea would be reduced, but the deficit with China has increased fivefold, and the deficit with Korea has more than doubled in just four years.”

Background: Criticizing trade deals has been a central argument for Trump and his backers. Here, Sessions’ statement is mostly accurate.

After Obama enacted a free-trade agreement with South Korea in 2011, the U.S. deficit with South Korea grew from $13.2 billion in 2011 to $28.3 billion in 2015, the last full year of statistics maintained by the U.S. Census Bureau. Even adjusting for inflation, Sessions is correct.

After Bill Clinton signed a law granting normal trade relations to China in 2000, the U.S.deficit with China grew from $83.8 billion in 2000 to $367.1 billion in 2015 — a more than fourfold increase. In nominal dollars, Sessions is close to correct, but adjusting for inflation, he is farther off the mark: According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ inflation calculator, $83.3 billion in 2000 dollars is worth $115.3 billion in 2015 dollars. Taking inflation into account, the increase is closer to threefold.

Other trade agreements present a mixed bag. The U.S. trade surplus with Mexico skyrocketed from $1.6 billion in 1993, when NAFTA was passed, to $60.6 billion in 2015. The Central America Free Trade Agreement turned deficits with Honduras and El Salvador into surpluses. A 2011 deal with Panama hasn’t meant much change.

Fact Check: Hillary Clinton Supports Influx of Syrian Refugees

Claim: Clinton supports “surge of Syrian refugees.”

Rating: True. Clinton said she would like to move from Obama’s goal of 10,000 Syrian refugees to 65,000

Rep. Mike McCaul said, “And now Hillary Clinton is promising more of the same. Open borders, executive amnesty and a surge of Syrian refugees.”

Background: After Obama directed his administration in September 2015 to accept at least 10,000 additional Syrian refugees, Clinton went further, saying, “I would like to see us move from what is a good start, with 10,000, to 65,000.”

Fact Check: Clinton’s Immigration Policy Promises ‘Open Borders’

Claim: Clinton’s immigration policy promises “open borders.”

Rating: False. Clinton’s immigration plan calls for U.S. border protection and the deportation of violent criminals.

McCaul said, “Tonight, we heard powerful testimony from people who have been devastated by Obama’s reckless immigration policies. Haven’t we had enough?”

Background: A signature feature of Donald Trump’s tough-on-immigration stance is his promise to build a wall on the southern border of the United States and make Mexico pay for it. To underscore the contrast between him and Clinton, Trump has caricatured her immigration policy by saying it would create “open borders.” This claim was ruled false by PolitiFact and repeated last night by McCaul.

In fact, Clinton’s plan for immigration reform includes a call to protect U.S. borders and a focus on “detaining and deporting those individuals who pose a violent threat to public safety.” While on the campaign trail, she has touted her support for border security. “I voted numerous times when I was a senator to spend money to build a barrier to try to prevent illegal immigrants from coming in. And I do think you have to control your borders.”

Fact Check: Clinton lied about the cause of the Benghazi attack

Claim: Clinton lied to families of Benghazi victims, telling them the attack was inspired by protests over a controversial video.

Rating: Questionable. Clinton disputes Patricia Smith’s claim that Clinton told her that a video was the reason for her son’s death.

“When I saw Hillary Clinton at Sean’s coffin ceremony just days later, she looked me squarely in the eye and told me a video was responsible,” said Pat Smith, the mother of Benghazi victim Sean Smith.

Background: At a Washington Post–Univision debate in March, Jorge Ramos showed Clinton a clip of Pat Smith speaking on Fox News, in which she said that Clinton and other administration officials “all told me it was a video when they knew, they knew it was not a video” in explaining the reason for the Benghazi attack. Ramos asked, “Secretary Clinton, did you lie to them?”

Clinton responded, “I certainly can’t even imagine the grief that she has for losing her son. But she’s wrong. She’s absolutely wrong. I and everybody in the administration — all the people she named: the president, the vice president, Susan Rice — we were scrambling to get information that was changing literally by the hour. And when we had information, we made it public. But then sometimes we had to go back and say we have new information that contradicts it.”

Vox captured this moment from the debate:

State Deptartment emails obtained by ABC News in 2013 show a changing story about the Benghazi attack, as administration talking points were developed. All versions of those talking points include references to protests inspiring the attack, but references to CIA warnings of a terrorist threat and the CIA’s belief that a terrorist group was involved in the attack were removed.

Fact Check: US Military Responders Were Ordered to Stand Down During the 2012 Benghazi Attack

Claim: U.S. military responders were ordered to stand down during the 2012 Benghazi attack.

Rating: Highly questionable. Every investigation ever done on Benghazi concluded there was no stand down order.

John Tiegen, one of the six U.S. military responders to the 2012 Benghazi attack, said, “We immediately got our gear ready to go, got the vehicles ready, and on three separate occasions, we got told to wait by the chief of base, Bob, and we got told to stand down. Next thing we know, we hear the State Department over the radio saying ‘Hey, if you guys don’t get here, we are all going to die!” Stand down order be damned. The consulate’s under siege. We took off. We left. We weren’t waiting no more.”

Background: Republicans often cite the 2012 Benghazi attack that killed four Americans, including the U.S. ambassador to Libya, as an emblem of the national security failures of the Obama administration and the State Department under Clinton. One of the more politically potent claims is that the CIA station chief in Benghazi ordered U.S. military responders to stand down as the attack on the U.S. Consulate and CIA annex was underway.

But according to ABC News’ Justin Fishel, every investigation ever done on Benghazi has concluded there was no stand down order, including the House Intelligence report and the most recent House Select Committee on Benghazi, an investigation that lasted two years and cost more than $7 million.

Yet even as investigators said no stand down order was given, some people who claimed to have direct knowledge have furthered this claim, which was also portrayed in the movie “13 Hours.” Former Special Forces Officer Kris Paronto, one of the CIA contractors who fought that night, told Politico in January, “There is no sensationalism in that. We were told to stand down … Those words were used verbatim — 100 percent.”

Fact Check: No One Was Held Accountable for Operation Fast and Furious

Claim: No one was held accountable for the failures of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives’ Operation Fast and Furious.

Rating: False. Some people at the Department of Justice were punished over the controversial gun-tracking program.

Kent Terry, the brother of slain border patrol agent Brian Terry, said, “Two weapons recovered from the scene were traced back to Obama’s failed Fast and Furious gun-tracking operation. Guns were used against Americans on American soil, and yet no one in [the] Obama administration has been held accountable.”

Background: Brian Terry’s death is a significant point of criticism in the scandal over Operation Fast and Furious, a program to track guns trafficked to violent criminal gangs in Mexico. The operation went awry and caused a scandal for Attorney General Eric Holder and the Obama administration, as U.S. agents were attacked with U.S. weapons and civilians were massacred with the guns, according to reporting by Univision’s investigative unit in 2012.

Critics called for more severe measures, but some officials faced consequences. A DOJ Office of the Inspector General report in 2012 recommended disciplinary and administrative review for 14 DOJ and ATF officials, including the head of the DOJ’s criminal division. After the report’s release, Deputy Assistant Attorney General Jason Weinstein resigned for failing to share information on the program with top DOJ officials. In 2011 three ATF officials were reassigned, resigned or otherwise left the ATF in a shakeup.

Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, raised questions in 2015 about why an ATF agent was not fired for whistleblower abuse after that consequence was recommended, The Washington Times reported.

Fact Check: Security Denied in Benghazi

Claim: “All security had been pulled from the embassy” in Benghazi.

Rating: False. Security requests were denied, but there was U.S. security in Benghazi. The consular facility in Benghazi, not the embassy in Tripoli, was attacked.

“All security had been pulled from the embassy, he explained, and when he asked why, he never received a response,” said Patricia Smith, the mother of Sean Smith, one of four Americans killed at the U.S. consular facility in Benghazi.

Background: The State Department did deny requests for additional security in Libya, but it is not accurate to say all security was pulled.

Internal emails obtained by ABC in 2012 showed requests for additional security were denied. The security team at the U.S. Embassy in Tripoli wanted to retain a DC-3 airplane for security purposes. Emails reflected that a State Department official denied the request.

But there was security at the facility in Benghazi, and, ABC News’ Justin Fishel notes, there was a fight when the facility was attacked.

ABC News’ Justin Fishel and Ali Rogin contributed to this report.