US election: Donald Trump keeping fact-checkers busy

America's top picks for president

Republican Donald Trump nailed one falsehood - that President Barack Obama is not US-born - by declaring a second one and then a third one. No wonder fact-checkers are having their busiest election campaign ever.

After five years of raising questions about the president's birthplace, the hotel developer finally said the words: "Barack Obama was born in the United States, period."

But he then falsely accused his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton of starting the so-called birther movement, and inaccurately said he had "finished" the issue when the president produced his birth certificate in 2011. On the contrary, he continued to question the document's authenticity for years afterwards.

Claims touted by Mr Trump and his opponents have researchers furiously working behind the scenes to corroborate, validate, and verify thousands of statements.

Eugene Kiely, Director of Factcheck.org, says he would describe this political season as "exhausting".

"This year there were a lot of candidates who had never run for public office before - they didn't have an understanding of how fact-checking works. It's been hard to have a working relationship with them."

Here are some of Mr Trump's most brazen claims made during this campaign.

I was against war in Iraq

"I'm the only one on this stage that said, 'Do not go into Iraq. Do not attack Iraq.' I said it loud and clear, 'You'll destabilize the Middle East.'"

Donald Trump claimed numerous times he did not support the US going to war in Iraq in 2003. He even claimed his opposition to the war was so strong he was visited by White House personnel who tried to silence him.

But Buzzfeed uncovered a 2002 radio interview in which he supported the invasion. He did express concerns about the cost of the war, after it started - but the White House wasn't trying to silence him prior to 2003.

I'm self-funding my campaign

"I am self-funding my own campaign. I have no people giving me money. I don't need other people's money. I have no people, in terms of special interest donors, any of this. I have none of them."

In 2015, Mr Trump repeatedly repeatedly claimed that, thanks to his billionaire status, he was funding his own campaign and no one was giving him money.

There is a large red "CONTRIBUTE" button on his campaign page, which raised $3.7m (£2.79m) in the last half quarter of 2015, according to the New York Times.

In 2016, Mr Trump has repeatedly held fundraising events and has the backing of several Super PACs, groups that can raise unlimited sums of money independently of a campaign and then spend that money in support of a particular candidate.

I saw thousands cheering during 9/11 attacks

This photo, taken from New Jersey on September, 11, 2013, shows the lights commemorating the attacks

"I watched when the World Trade Center came tumbling down, and I watched in Jersey City, New Jersey where thousands and thousands of people were cheering as that building was coming down."

At a campaign rally in Birmingham Alabama in November 2015, Mr Trump claimed he saw thousands of people cheering as the World Trade Center crashed to the ground on September 11, 2001, saying the area had a "large Arab population".

Trump, who said he was in his Manhattan apartment during the attacks, said he saw the cheers on TV.

Fact checkers found no evidence to support Mr Trump's claim, only two unsubstantiated claims were mentioned in the Washington Post and The Associated Press of citing "rumours of rooftop celebrations of the attack by Muslims".

There was no evidence of "thousands and thousands" of people celebrating, nor was there any video evidence to back it up.

And Clinton too...

FBI Director James Comey recommend not to prosecute Mrs Clinton

"I did not email any classified material to anyone on my email. There is no classified material."

At a press conference in March 2015, Mrs Clinton claimed she had never sent any classified material on her personal email account during her time as secretary of state. She also said a separate system was used for all classified transmissions.

But four months later, the FBI confirmed Mrs Clinton sent classified materials on her personal email and called for an investigation into "potential compromise of classified information".

The investigation concluded that Mrs Clinton had handled classified information.

"Only a very small number of the emails containing classified information bore markings indicating the presence of classified information," said FBI Director James Comey, who did not recommend that charges be brought.