When does bombing power plants constitute a war crime? According to PolitiFact, the answer may depend less on international law than on who's making the argument.

The fact-checking organization found itself in an awkward position this week after publishing two assessments on the same question — President Trump's threat to strike Iranian power plants — that reached strikingly different conclusions based on the political affiliation of the speaker.

On April 2, PolitiFact's Louis Jacobson and Zoe Weyand awarded Democratic Representative Seth Moulton a "mostly true" rating for claiming Trump's threats against Iranian infrastructure would likely constitute war crimes. Five days later, Jacobson authored a separate piece examining Fox News host Jesse Watters' assertion that such strikes would be legal under international law — but conspicuously declined to give Watters a "true" or "mostly true" rating, despite citing historical precedents that supported his argument.

The discrepancy has reignited long-standing debates about potential partisan bias in fact-checking operations, particularly regarding how identical claims are evaluated when made by different political actors.

The Legal Framework

At the heart of both assessments lies Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions, which prohibits attacks on civilian infrastructure. The protocol "would make the bombing of civilian targets, including those in Iran, 'a flagrant violation of international humanitarian law,'" according to Milena Sterio, a Cleveland State University law professor specializing in international law, whom PolitiFact quoted in the Moulton piece.

However, there's a significant caveat: the United States has never ratified Protocol I. More importantly, the protocol contains exceptions for "dual-use" targets — facilities that serve both civilian and military purposes, such as power plants that supply electricity to military installations.

In their assessment of Moulton's claim, Jacobson and Weyand acknowledged this nuance but still awarded the congressman a "mostly true" rating. The only factor preventing a full "true" rating was the admission that "there is some nuance in the rules dictating how the attacks are classified by the UN."

Historical Precedents

When Watters made his case on Fox News' "The Five," he cited specific historical examples: "Bill Clinton destroyed Serbia's entire energy infrastructure. Both Bushes took out Iraq's electricity grid. Rolling Thunder, North Vietnam — Lyndon Johnson took out the power plants. You do it under the laws of warfare. Proportionality, dual-use systems. It can be done humanely."

In his April 7 piece, Jacobson provided detailed historical context that largely validated Watters' examples. During the 1999 Balkan Wars, NATO forces under Democratic General Wesley Clark — who later ran for president as a Democrat — deliberately targeted power infrastructure, though using specialized weapons designed to minimize permanent damage.

Clark himself told CNN this week that "bridges and power plants with military connections are fair targets."

Similarly, Jacobson noted that U.S. forces attacked power plants during operations in Iraq, though "it tried to limit the destruction, including by using graphite bombs." University of North Carolina Professor Joseph Stieb, quoted in the piece, stated unequivocally: "Overall, I would not say the Iraq bombing campaigns were riddled with war crimes" and "Most of the attacks on infrastructure fit within the ambiguities of what you are allowed to bomb for military purposes."

The Rating Gap

Despite PolitiFact's own experts confirming the historical accuracy of Watters' examples and the legal framework he described, Jacobson declined to award him a favorable truth rating.

The justification appeared to hinge not on the substance of international law or military precedent, but on Trump's social media rhetoric. Jacobson quoted Texas A&M University historian Gregory Daddis, who noted that past military operations "included internal adjudication over proportionality and limiting civilian casualties" — care that might not be "guaranteed when the commander-in-chief is threatening that 'a whole civilization will die tonight' if his demands are not met."

This reasoning introduces a new variable into fact-checking: assessing not just whether a statement is factually accurate, but whether the speaker might hypothetically implement policy in a manner consistent with their rhetoric.

Critics argue this represents a fundamental departure from fact-checking's stated mission. The question PolitiFact ostensibly set out to answer — whether striking power plants would constitute a war crime under international law — has a factual answer rooted in legal precedent and expert consensus. Instead, the organization appeared to evaluate Trump's temperament and communication style.

A Pattern of Inconsistency?

The episode fits into a broader pattern that media critics have identified in fact-checking operations. When assessing similar claims made by politicians from different parties, fact-checkers sometimes apply different standards or emphasize different aspects of the underlying facts.

In this case, the dual-use exception to international humanitarian law — which PolitiFact acknowledged but downplayed when rating Moulton — became central to the assessment of Watters' claim. Yet even after establishing that historical precedent and expert opinion supported Watters' position, PolitiFact withheld a positive rating based on concerns about Trump's rhetoric rather than the factual accuracy of the legal claim itself.

The inconsistency is particularly notable given that both pieces were written or co-written by the same fact-checker, Louis Jacobson, within a five-day span.

The Broader Implications

Fact-checking organizations have become influential arbiters in political discourse, with their ratings frequently cited by social media platforms, news organizations, and political campaigns. When these organizations apply inconsistent standards based on partisan affiliation, they risk undermining their own credibility and the broader project of holding public figures accountable to factual accuracy.

The question of whether attacking power plants constitutes a war crime has a complex but ultimately answerable legal framework. Multiple U.S. administrations of both parties have concluded that such strikes can be lawful when conducted against dual-use infrastructure with military significance, provided they adhere to principles of proportionality and discrimination.

PolitiFact's own reporting confirmed this legal and historical reality. The decision to rate that reality as "mostly true" when asserted by a Democrat but to withhold a truth rating when asserted by a conservative — based not on the facts themselves but on speculation about future implementation — suggests that something beyond pure fact-checking is influencing these assessments.

As fact-checking continues to play an outsized role in shaping public understanding of complex policy debates, the need for consistent, transparent standards becomes ever more critical. When the same organization reaches different conclusions on identical factual questions within the same week, it raises legitimate questions about whether fact-checkers are checking facts — or checking their preferred political outcomes.