US president offered litany of misleading and false claims during Thursday speech on alleged threats to US elections

Donald Trump offered a litany of misleading and false claims during his Thursday speech on threats to US elections, and released previously classified documents to try to support his specious claims. In some cases, his claims were not supported by those documents. Here is a look at some of the key claims that could mislead the American public.

US president using office and intelligence agencies to try to undermine confidence in elections before midterms

Donald Trump used the imprimatur of the presidency and United States intelligence agencies to try to undermine confidence in American elections in a presidential address on Thursday that seemed bluntly aimed at laying the groundwork for further destabilizing the electoral system before November’s midterm elections.

In his address from the East Room at the White House, Trump attempted to give the impression that his administration had uncovered new bombshell findings about vulnerabilities in the US’s election system. China, he claimed, had illicitly acquired voter information on 220 million Americans (many states allow anyone to buy voter roll information; Trump did not say the means by which the nation acquired the data). He claimed that China interfered in other ways to undermine his 2020 campaign and that the information had been suppressed by intelligence officials.

Chesley Sullenberger, 75, safely landed a US Airways flight carrying 155 people in New York’s Hudson River in 2009

Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger – the pilot known for the “Miracle on the Hudson” after safely landing a US Airways flight in New York City’s Hudson river during a 2009 emergency – announced on Tuesday that he was recently diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease.

“For now, this means a name may not come easily to me, I forget a story I have recently told, or I don’t sleep as well, but I am in the beginning of this long journey,” Sullenberger, 75, said in a statement. “This new phase of my life has challenged what it means to be of service. And the answer is to speak up. It is my hope that by sharing this, other families living in the shadows with this disease will feel they too can step forward.”

An immigration officer shot and killed the 26-year-old Colombian man after reportedly ramming into his car

The man killed by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents in Maine on Monday has been identified as Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero, an ICE spokesperson said in a statement.

An immigration agent shot and killed the 26-year-old Colombian man on Monday morning in Biddeford, Maine, after reportedly ramming into his car.

Kathleen Williams sanctions president’s lawyers and says $10bn suit against IRS was brought for ‘improper purpose’

A federal judge on Monday nullified an agreement the government reached with Donald Trump and his sons over the leak of his tax returns. The judge lambasted the government and president’s lawyers for using the judicial process to try to concoct a beneficial arrangement for the president.

The ruling from US district judge Kathleen Williams in the southern district of Florida blocks a widely criticized arrangement the government and the president’s attorneys reached earlier this year to resolve a $10bn lawsuit by Trump and his sons over the leak of the president’s tax returns. The government never responded to the lawsuit and then announced it was settling the suit by creating a $1.8bn slush fund to compensate victims of “government weaponization” and giving the president, his family, and related entities immunity from tax audits.