The spin at the Mueller hearings False and misleading attacks were the backdrop to Robert Mueller's investigation for more than two years. This week, we saw the former special counsel and FBI director respond to some of those attacks in real time. In back-to-back appearances before the House judiciary and intelligence committees, Mueller reaffirmed the central findings of his investigation on Russian election interference and President Trump: The Russians wanted to help Trump win, the Trump campaign welcomed their help and sought to exploit it, but there was not enough evidence of a criminal conspiracy, and despite the evidence that Trump obstructed justice during the investigation, Mueller for several reasons declined to reach a decision on bringing charges. Mueller declined to exonerate Trump. Rep. John Ratcliffe (R-Tex.) suggested that under Justice Department rules, the special counsel should have refrained from commenting on Trump's guilt or innocence once he reached the decision not to bring charges. Mueller in response said he was in a "unique situation." The Justice Department has a long-standing policy that prevents the indictment of a sitting president, on the one hand, and Mueller's team found substantial evidence of obstruction, on the other. The special counsel regulations required Mueller to explain his prosecution or declination decisions to the attorney general in a confidential memo. The attorney general, not Mueller, made the decision to release the report to the public. Rep. Greg Steube (R-Fla.) pressed Mueller on Trump's claim that he was interviewing for the FBI director position the day before he was appointed special counsel. (Trump alleged this posed a conflict of interest.) But Mueller has maintained that he met with Trump to give an institutional perspective on the role of the FBI director, not to seek the job for himself. Mueller has already served a full 10-year term as FBI director and Congress in July 2011 passed legislation allowing Mueller to serve an additional two years, so he appears to be legally barred, in any event. "It was about the job and not about me applying for the job," Mueller told Steube. His statement was made under oath, and backed up by Steve Bannon, who told the FBI that "although the White House thought about beseeching Mueller to become Director again, he did not come in looking for the job."  Enjoy this newsletter? Forward it to someone else who'd like it! If this e-mail was forwarded to you, sign up here. Hear something fact-checkable? Send it here, we'll check it out. Biden tells half the story on withdrawing troops from Iraq As a senator, Joe Biden voted for the Iraq War. It was an unpopular vote among many of the Democrats he's now courting for the presidential nomination. When his vote came up at the Democratic debate June 28, Biden said he could be trusted on questions of war because, as vice president, he was tasked with withdrawing all combat troops from Iraq. "I made sure the president turned to me and said, 'Joe, get our combat troops out of Iraq,'" Biden said. "I was responsible for getting 150,000 combat troops out of Iraq." Biden had a lead role in winding down the Iraq War during President Barack Obama's administration. But he is airbrushing out all the inconvenient developments after troops withdrew in 2011. The Islamic State took advantage of the power vacuum left in the wake of the U.S. troop withdrawal and began to take control of parts of Iraq after 2011. Obama eventually sent thousands of U.S. troops back into the country after 2014. For giving half the story, we gave Two Pinocchios to Biden.  New look, same cat GIFs Notice anything different? We've redesigned this newsletter to make it cleaner and easier on the eyes. Many thanks to our colleagues on The Post's newsletters team and in the design department for the sleek new look. Too much change can be off-putting, though, so we're keeping the cat GIFs. We're always looking for fact-check suggestions. You can also reach us via email, Twitter (@GlennKesslerWP, @mmkelly22, @rizzoTK or use #FactCheckThis), or Facebook (Fact Checker). Read about our rating scale here, and sign up for the newsletter here. Scroll down for this week's Pinocchio roundup. | 
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