“Elijah Cummings’ house was broken into after Trump publicly attacked him on Twitter.”

President Donald Trump might have stirred some confusion when he tweeted days after the fact about an attempted break-in at Rep. Elijah Cummings’ Baltimore home.

“Really bad news! The Baltimore house of Elijah Cummings was robbed,” Trump wrote. “Too bad!”

Without more context, Trump’s tweet made the incident seem like breaking news. That could explain why some people have been pinning blame on the president, who spent the week attacking Cummings on Twitter over the condition of his Maryland district.

“Elijah Cummings’ house was broken into after Trump publicly attacked him on Twitter and Republicans say nothing,” comedian Chelsea Handler said in an Aug. 2 tweet that’s amassed thousands of likes and retweets. 

“Our president bullies someone and then has an intruder in his home,” Handler wrote. “The president of the United States. The lows keep coming.”

We saw other similar reactions, but that’s not what happened. According to Baltimore police, the attempted burglary took place roughly four hours before Trump’s initial tweet-storm.

Cummings described the incident, which occurred early in the morning on July 27, in a statement to the Baltimore Sun.

“An individual attempted to gain entry into my residence at approximately 3:40 a.m. on Saturday, July 27,” he said. “I was notified of the intrusion by my security system, and I scared the intruder away by yelling before the person gained entry into the residential portion of the house.”

Cummings’ account matches what the Baltimore police department said in a statement and wrote in a police report, a copy of which we received. 

The police report said no property was reported stolen, meaning Trump’s tweet that Cummings’ house was “robbed” was inaccurate.

More to the point, Trump’s initial Twitter attacks — in which he called Cummings a “brutal bully” and described the congressman’s district as “a disgusting, rat and rodent infested mess” — also began on July 27. But the time-stamp for the president’s first tweet is 7:14 a.m.

As of Aug. 2, police are still investigating the incident and it is not known if the break-in was politically motivated. 

Our ruling

Handler said, “Elijah Cummings’ house was broken into after Trump publicly attacked him on Twitter.”

An intruder did attempt to enter Cummings’ home, but that was almost four hours before Trump tweeted the first of several attacks on the congressman and his district.

We rate this statement False.