The Washington Post’s fact-checker gave Rep. Beto O’Rourke, D-Texas, “four Pinocchios” for claiming he did not try to leave the scene of a crash while he was intoxicated.
O’Rourke made the claim during a debate against Republican Sen. Ted Cruz earlier this year.
“I did not try to leave the scene of the accident, though driving drunk, which I did, is a terrible mistake for which there is no excuse or justification or defense, and I will not try to provide one,” he said about the 1998 crash.
But the Washington Post cited police records that said otherwise.
A police officer who responded to the scene wrote in his reports that O’Rourke “almost fell to the floor” when asked to get out of his vehicle. His Blood/Breath Alcohol Concentration levels were 0.136 and 0.134.
A witness to the crash told a police officer that O’Rourke had driven by him at a high rate of speed in a 75 mile per hour zone, then lost control of his vehicle and “struck a truck traveling the same direction.” O’Rourke’s vehicle then crossed the center median and came to a stop.
“The defendant/driver then attempted to leave the scene,” the police officer reported.
A separate document, the incident and crime report, said O’Rourke “attempted to leave the accident but was stopped by the reporter.” The witness, who was not identified, twice told police that O’Rourke tried to flee the scene.
The fact-checker decided for those reasons that O’Rourke was not telling the truth.
“O’Rourke was so drunk that he could barely get out of the car without falling, so perhaps he would not have gotten far – or he was simply confused. Perhaps in his memory, O’Rourke believes he did not try to leave. But, given his BAC level at the time of the accident, O’Rourke’s memory 20 years after the fact is not nearly as credible as the police reports written just hours after the accident,” the fact-checker said.
