A Tuesday fact check from The Washington Post attempted to prove that claims from Republican candidate Ed Gillespie were “false” and “misleading,” but totally proved Gillespie’s point instead.
Gillespie, who is running for governor in Virginia, has repeatedly claimed that there are more than 2,000 MS-13 gang members in Fairfax County, Virginia’s wealthiest county. WaPo contested this claim and clarified that while there are an estimated 2,000 members of 80 different gangs in Fairfax county, only 1,400 of those belong to MS-13.
The article later quotes Jay Lanham, a former executive director of the Northern Virginia Regional Gang Task Force (NVRGTF), who said Gillespie’s 2,000 number is “probably pretty accurate.” The newspaper nevertheless gave Gillespie’s claim two Pinocchios.
WaPo cites numbers from the Fairfax County Police Department that say there are only 1,400 MS-13 members, but Lanham argued the NVRGTF’s numbers were more accurate, as “most of the estimates from the police department are going to be on the low side.”
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