Trump Awarded 2019 'Lie Of The Year' For His 'Completely Wrong' Whistleblower Claims

For the third time since 2015, Donald Trump has won notoriety as the teller of the "Lie of the Year," an annual award given to "liars" by the fact-checking website PolitiFact.com.

PolitiFact’s 2019 Lie of the Year is Trump's claim the "Anonymous Whistleblower" got his phone call with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky "almost completely wrong." PolitiFact disagreed with Trump's claim and said the whistleblower got it "completely right."

"Every year, PolitiFact editors review the year’s most flagrant inaccuracies in search of a significant false claim that can be elevated to Lie of the Year," said the editors explaining their selection.

"The distinction is awarded to a statement that is more than ridiculous and wrong. The Lie of the Year -- the only time PolitiFact uses the word 'lie' -- speaks to a falsehood that proves to be of real consequence and gets repeated in a virtual campaign to undermine an accurate narrative."

PolitiFact said that since the whistleblower's complaint was made public on September 26, Trump has insisted more than 80 times the whistleblower’s report is "fake," "fraudulent," "incorrect," "total fiction," "made up," "ridiculous," "partisan," and "sooo wrong," to name a few allegations.

"Everything he wrote in that report, almost, was a lie," said Trump on November 8.

On the other hand, PolitiFact confirms the whistleblower got it "completely right" when he made these allegations in his report to the Inspector General of the Department of Justice.

"We know this from the very record of the call the president released," said PolitiFact. "We know this from testimony under oath from career diplomats and other officials. And the president and his allies have told reporters that Trump did what the whistleblower suggested -- urged the Ukrainian president to investigate political rival Joe Biden. Their argument is that there was nothing inappropriate or unreasonable about it. Trump on Oct. 3 asked China to look at Biden and his son, Hunter, too."

The whistleblower's written complaint to the justice department last August has led to impeachment charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress being filed against Trump last week. Trump will likely be impeached by the Democrat-controlled House this Wednesday.

The whistleblower cited officials who listened in on the call between Trump and Ukrainian Zelensky, saying Trump "sought to pressure the Ukrainian leader to take actions to help the President's 2020 reelection bid."

Trump won PolitiFact's Lie of the Year in 2015 and 2017. PolitiFact's 2015 Lie of the Year was the "various statements" made by Trump (then the GOP candidate for president). PolitiFact found 76 percent of Trump's statements it reviewed were rated "Mostly False," "False" or "Pants on Fire."

Statements rated "Pants on Fire" included Trump's assertion the Mexican government sends "the bad ones over" the border into the United States. It also included Trump's claim he saw thousands and thousands of people cheering the collapse of the World Trade Center on 9/11.

PolitiFact's 2017 Lie of the Year was Trump's claim Russian election interference is a "made-up story." The fact-checking site cited many occasions where Trump asserted Russia didn't interfere with the election despite multiple U.S. government agencies claiming otherwise.

A statement by former White Houser press secretary Sean Spicer said that "(Trump's audience) was the largest audience to witness an inauguration, period," was voted the third top lie of 2017.