Russian warships conducted simulated military exercises on their way to Cuba in June. But social media posts share clips from a 2018 Russian video of missile tests in the White Sea to claim the warships fired live missiles “off the coast of Florida” before arriving in Havana. A Department of Defense spokesperson said the claim is “not true.”
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A four-ship Russian convoy, including a military frigate and a nuclear-powered submarine, the Kazan, arrived in Cuba on June 12 for a five-day visit, CNN reported. Russian state media said that on the way to Cuba, the warships conducted military exercises “using computer simulation for naval targets, designating ship groupings of a simulated enemy,” CNN also reported.
But posts on social media shared clips of a years-old video to falsely claim the Russian ships fired live missiles “off the coast of Florida” on their way to Cuba.
A June 12 Instagram post by an account called packingpatriot.2 bears a caption that claims, “Russia is showing off its naval firepower right off the coast of Florida today thanks to Joe Biden and his useful idiots.”
The narrator on the post claims the Biden administration is “pushing us to the brink of World War III with their support of Ukraine.” He then shows a video of four missiles apparently launching from a ship through roiling smoke and into the sky. Those images are followed by a submarine on the surface of the water, then submerging, as Russian-speaking crew members are seen operating inside the ship. The text overlaid on the video says, “Russians showing off their firepower right off the coast of Florida.”
The post had received more than 6,800 likes as of June 14.
A similar Instagram post also shared on June 12 has text that claims, “Breaking[:] Russia conducting marine exercises with nuclear submarines just 66 miles off the coast of Florida…” That post also shows the video of the missiles blasting off and the Russian crew inside the submarine.
But a Google search of images from the Instagram posts shows that a longer version of the video was shared six years ago on YouTube with the title, “Russia’s Nuclear Submarine Successfully Test-Fires 4 Bulava intercontinental Ballistic Missiles.”
An image from that video also appeared in an article on the Indian news site The Week on May 24, 2018. That article reported, “As a warning to the western nations, and in particular the US, Russia test-fired four Bulava intercontinental ballistic missiles from the nuclear submarine Yuri Dolgoruky on May 22. Fired from the submarine in a submerged position from the White Sea, the missiles successfully hit targets on the Kura range in the Kamchatka Peninsula.”
An Associated Press story that appeared in the Navy Times on Oct. 14, 2019, also shows the image used on the Indian news site, and the caption reads: “In this photo made from the footage taken from Russian Defense Ministry official web site on Thursday, May 24, 2018, the Russian nuclear submarine Yuri Dolgoruky test-fires the Bulava missiles from the White Sea.”
So the video in the Instagram posts does not show Russian missiles being fired “off the coast of Florida” in June 2024. Rather, the video — provided by the Russian Ministry of Defense — shows missiles being fired by a different submarine in the White Sea toward Kamchatka in eastern Russia in 2018.
We asked the U.S. Department of Defense for a response to the social media claim that a Russian ship fired missiles near the Florida coast while en route to Cuba, and a spokesperson emailed a one-line reply: “That is not true.”
The Russian frigate Admiral Gorshkov did fire a 21-gun salute as it arrived in Havana harbor, CNN reported.
U.S. officials told the New York Times that the Russian warships posed no threat and were not carrying nuclear weapons. The Department of Defense has been monitoring the movement of the ships through the Atlantic Ocean, a spokesperson told the Times. The Russian Ministry of Defense said the warships practiced locating targets and used precision missiles to simulate destroying those targets at distances of more than 350 miles, according to the Times.
The Russian-Cuban alliance goes back further. In October 1962, an American U-2 spy plane captured images of nuclear missile sites being built by the then-Soviet Union in Cuba. Then-President John F. Kennedy placed a naval blockade around Cuba to prevent more Soviet supplies from arriving and demanded that the missiles be removed. The Americans and Soviets reached a deal in which the missiles were dismantled and the U.S. promised not to invade the island, ending the 13-day Cuban Missile Crisis.
Editor’s note: FactCheck.org is one of several organizations working with Facebook to debunk misinformation shared on social media. Our previous stories can be found here. Facebook has no control over our editorial content.
The Kansas City Chiefs offer a “Pride Collection” of merchandise for the team’s LGBTQ+ fans. But social media posts are making the unsupported claim that the team “Refuses to Participate in Pride Month” this year. The claim apparently originated in a satirical article, and we could find no announcement from the team regarding this year’s Pride Month.
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Pride Month commemorates the Stonewall Uprising for gay rights in Manhattan on June 28, 1969, and celebrates the contributions of LGBTQ+ people with parades and other events throughout June.
But this year’s observance of Pride Month has been met in the U.S. with increasing anti-gay hostility, following passage last year of what ABC News said were a record number of state laws negatively affecting the LGBTQ+ community. The anti-gay sentiment has also been reflected in misinformation on social media, as we’ve written before.
The text on a June 8 Facebook post falsely claimed, “NFL Team Kansas City Chiefs Refuses To Participate In Pride Month, ‘It’s Extremely Woke.’” The post received more than 34,000 likes. A post with the same photos of a Pride parade juxtaposed with uniformed Chiefs players was shared on Threads, also claiming the team refused to participate in Pride Month, and carried the caption, “KANSAS CITY CHIEFS STANDING FOR RIGHTEOUSNESS AND TRUTH WITH THE WORD OF GOD IN JESUS CHRIST NAME.”
The kicker for the Super Bowl champion team, Harrison Butker, criticized the celebration of Pride Month — among other controversial remarks he made about women and cultural values — during his commencement address at a private Kansas college on May 11, as we wrote. In that speech, Butker referred in passing to Pride Month as “the deadly sin sort of pride that has an entire month dedicated to it.”
But we could find no statement issued by the Chiefs team about the celebration of Pride Month on the Chiefs’ website, X account or other socialmedia. In fact, the Chiefs’ website includes what it calls a “Pride Collection” of merchandise for fans. Many of the items incorporate the team logo with the symbolic Pride rainbow, including hats, flags, signs and T-shirts that say, “LOVE WINS.”
A headline identical to the wording on the social media posts appeared June 6 on the website SpaceXMania. The article included a “SATIRE” label above the headline. The website includes a “Disclaimer” that states, in part, “All the information on this website – SpaceXMania.com – is published in good faith and for general information purposes only. SpaceXMania does not make any warranties about the completeness, reliability, and accuracy of this information.”
The social media posts do not include a “satire” label, however.
The June 8 Facebook post includes a link to an online article published on a website called News Today as evidence of its claim about the team’s stance on Pride Month. The headline on the article reads, “Breaking: The Kansas City Chiefs, an NFL franchise, declines involvement in Pride Month festivities, citing them as overly ‘woke.’” The article is a nearly word-for-word reprint of the satirical story that appeared on the SpaceXMania site.
We reached out to the Chiefs for a response to the claim, but we didn’t receive a response.
Editor’s note: FactCheck.org is one of several organizations working with Facebook to debunk misinformation shared on social media. Our previous stories can be found here. Facebook has no control over our editorial content.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg announced the conviction of former President Donald Trump on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records on May 30. Now Bragg has become the target of viral social media posts that claim, without evidence, that he has a net worth of $42 million or more and baselessly imply that Bragg is corrupt.
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Former President Donald Trump was found guilty on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records as part of a scheme to influence the 2016 election by concealing payments he made to an adult-film star. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who guided the prosecution of the case against Trump, announced the verdict reached by a New York State Supreme Court jury on May 30.
Bragg’s role in the historic case, in which Trump became the first current or former U.S. president to be convicted of a criminal offense, has made him a target of unsupported claims on social media about his financial holdings.
A widely shared meme posted May 30 on Facebook, showing a photo of Bragg, claims, “Net Worth: $42 Million[.] His Net Worth Has Grown 300% The Past 5 Years[.] He Owns 12 Properties, 8 Cars, and 3 Luxury Yachts[.] How Did DA Bragg Become So Wealthy?” Comments on the post call Bragg “crooked” and “corrupt.”
A May 31 Facebook post inflates Bragg’s purported net worth even more, saying, “How on earth did Alvin Bragg amass wealth of nearly $45 MILLION NET on an annual salary of app. $220,000 +- as DA?”
The May 30 post cites @RickyDoggin, a social media account titled “A Man of Memes,” who describes himself as a “Patriot – Fighting Back Against Liberal Insanity One Meme At A Time… Views expressed here are MY Opinions and nothing more.”
The posts are not marked as opinion, however, and cite no other sources for the claims about Bragg’s net worth.
New York City’s Annual Disclosure Law requires elected officials to file yearly reports listing their financial interests. Bragg’s most recent New York City Conflicts of Interest Board financial disclosure report for 2022 showed his financial holdings were nowhere near the claims in the posts.
The report showed Bragg received $100,000 to $249,999.99 for his annual income as district attorney; $5,000 to $54,999.99 in retirement plan distributions from the City University of New York; and $5,000 to $54,999.99 in dividends and distributions from a TIAA retirement account. The report also listed a Charles Schwab managed account valued at $5,000 to $54,999.99; an individual retirement account valued at $60,000 to $99,999.99; an IRA valued at $100,000 to $249,999.99; an IRA valued at $250,000 to $499,999.99; another IRA valued at $250,000 to $499,999.99; a retirement plan valued at $60,000 to $99,999.99; and “$500,000 or more” in a trust or estate, which Bragg wrote was “money that was in a bank account for the estate of my late mother.”
The report also showed two real estate holdings — a property in New York City that Bragg wrote was owned by his late mother and was sold in 2022 for “$500,000 or more” and a property in Petersburg, Virginia, that was owned by his grandmother and was valued at $100,000 to $249,999.99. New York City records show that Bragg’s mother’s house was sold in April 2022 for $2,250,000.
The conservative website the Dispatch debunked the recent posts about Bragg’s personal finances on June 3, and reported that similar claims appeared on social media in July 2022 and April 2023, shortly after Trump was indicted in New York.
We could find no reports or evidence that Bragg owns “12 Properties, 8 Cars, and 3 Luxury Yachts,” as the meme claimed. And his total financial holdings, based on his disclosure forms and the sale of his mother’s property, add up to about $4.6 million — not $42 million.
We reached out to the Manhattan district attorney’s office for comment on the social media posts, but we didn’t receive a response.
Editor’s note: FactCheck.org is one of several organizations working with Facebook to debunk misinformation shared on social media. Our previous stories can be found here. Facebook has no control over our editorial content.
New York City Department of Finance. Office of the City Register. Document ID 2022040700872001. Deed for the Estate of Sadie Chavis Bragg. Accessed 7 Jun 2024.
Antarctica is losing ice mass to the ocean, contributing to global sea level rise. But a popular video misrepresented work focused on Antarctic ice shelves — which float in the sea at the edges of the continent — to incorrectly suggest that “it is unclear if Antarctica is losing any ice on balance.”
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The Antarctic ice sheet is a vast mass of ice, accumulated over millennia via snowfall, that sits atop bedrock, covering nearly all of Antarctica. As the ice spreads outward and meets the ocean, some of it begins to float. These floating ice platforms, which surround about three-quarters of Antarctica, are called ice shelves.
Antarctic land ice loss into the ocean is an increasinglyimportantcontributor to global sea level rise. In contrast, ice shelf loss doesn’t directly cause sea level rise, as the ice is already floating in the ocean and displacing water. However, ice shelf changes can contribute to land ice loss, as ice shelves in some areas buttress land ice and slow its descent into the ocean.
A popular video from the Heartland Institute — which has a long history of casting doubt on climate science — minimized the significance of Antarctic ice loss and then questioned whether it’s happening at all. “The truth is, it is unclear if Antarctica is losing any ice on balance or if it’s currently experiencing a net gain,” the video’s narrator inaccurately said, citing two scientific papers.
“The statement is false,” Chad Greene, a glaciologist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, told us in an email. “Antarctica has been losing sea ice, grounded ice, and floating ice shelf mass over the past few decades. Satellite analysis from NASA groups show trends of ice loss, and the same trends have been reported by independent research groups from around the world.”
We reached out to the Heartland Institute with questions about the video but have not gotten a reply. The video was originally posted on Facebook and YouTube but is no longer available on Facebook.
The first paper mentioned in the video to back up the claim is a 2015 study by NASA researchers. They found that from 1992 to 2001 and 2003 to 2008, Antarctica gained ice mass.
But other studies disagree with the finding that Antarctica was gaining ice, and a NASA press release about the study now contains a message saying, “The findings reported here conflict with over a decade of other measurements, including previous NASA studies.”
“[M]ore recent work shows clearly that on balance Antarctica is losing mass,” Jonathan Kingslake, who studies ice sheet evolution at Columbia Climate School’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, told us in an email.
According to measurements from NASA satellites, since 2002 Antarctica has been losing an average of 140 billion metric tons of ice mass per year.
An ice shelf at the edge of the Antarctic Peninsula. Photo by Daniel / stock.adobe.com
The Heartland Institute video went on to incorrectly state that a 2023 paper looking at data from 2009 to 2019 confirmed the 2015 NASA findings. However, that paper looked at Antarctic ice shelf area — the floating ice at the edges of the continent, as we explained — and not ice sheet mass overall. Saying that the 2023 paper confirmed the earlier NASA findings “is totally misleading,” Kingslake said.
Additionally, data from a longer time frame does show loss of Antarctic ice shelf area, Greene said.
The Sixth Assessment Report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change — the latest report from this United Nations body — found that both the Greenland and the Antarctic ice sheets have been “losing mass since at least 1990, with the highest loss rate during 2010–2019” — a statement made with “high confidence.” And the ice sheet mass loss is expected to continue.
Antarctic Ice Loss Is Consequential
Earlier in the Heartland Institute video, the narrator did acknowledge Antarctic ice loss but minimized its importance.
“The media claims that Antarctica is losing ice six or more times faster than it was a few decades ago,” the video said. “But Antarctica was barely losing ice back then and it still is barely losing ice compared to its overall ice mass. Some satellite measurements estimate that the total ice loss each year from Antarctica is 3/10,000 of 1% of the continent’s ice mass. That’s not much.”
Media outlets have reported, based on various studies, that the Antarctic ice sheet as of the 2010s was melting six times faster than in the 1980s, or that the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets combined were losing ice six times faster in the 2010s than in the 1990s.
It’s correct that Antarctica “is barely losing ice compared to its overall ice mass,” as the video said, given that Antarctica’s total ice mass is very large, Helen Amanda Fricker, a professor at UC San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography, told us in a written response to our questions. But “I would turn this around and say that even a small % of a large number is not inconsequential,” she said. The Antarctic ice sheet contains enough ice — if it all melted — to raise sea level by 57 meters, or 187 feet, she said.
Oceanographer Laurence Padman, president and senior scientist at Earth and Space Research, a nonprofit research institute, told us that he couldn’t argue with the fraction of ice lost given in the video, based on rough calculations and given variation and uncertainties in annual ice loss. But “the important number is the sea level rise, not the fraction of the Antarctic ice sheet that is lost,” he said in a written response to our questions.
As of 2018, the global average sea level had risen by 7 to 15 centimeters (almost 3 to 6 inches) since 1971, according to the latest IPCC report, and was projected to rise by 10 to 25 centimeters (about 4 to 10 inches) more by 2050, even if greenhouse gas emissions are reduced. Melting of the Antarctic ice sheet caused 7% of sea level rise between 1971 and 2018, but its contribution to sea level rise has increased and will continue to increase.
Since 2016, the Antarctic ice sheet has been responsible for 14% of sea level rise, according to the IPCC report. In a low-emissions scenario, the Antarctic ice sheet could contribute to more than 20% of sea level rise by 2100, according to a graphic in the report’s FAQ section.
Lizz Ultee, a glaciologist at Middlebury College, explained that sea level rise is driven by two main processes: ocean water expansion as it gets warmer and melting of ice into the ocean.
Mountain glaciers melt more quickly due to warming temperatures than ice sheets because mountain glaciers are smaller, Ultee explained.But the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets are playing an increasing role in sea level rise.
Currently, Greenland, which has a smaller ice sheet than Antarctica, is losing ice mass at a faster rate, but in the long term, Antarctica “has the most potential to contribute to very large sea level changes,” Ultee said.
Antarctic ice sheet loss will probably lead to up toabout 0.3 meters, or nearly 1 foot, of sea level rise by 2100, she said, and total sea level rise could be about half a meter to a meter (1.6 to 3.3 feet) by that time. Even if humans were to stop contributing to climate change by 2100, she said, Antarctica would continue to lose ice mass and contribute to sea level rise for centuries.
About a meter of sea level rise in 2100 would flood the homes of about 4 million people in the U.S., Ultee said, an estimate that doesn’t include people who would be at risk from higher storm surges or more frequent tidal flooding, or who would be cut off from essential services.
The Eastern Gulf of Mexico — from the Mississippi Delta to Florida — has already experienced some of the fastest rates of local sea level rise in the U.S., according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
The Important Role of Ice Shelves
As we’ve said, the Heartland Institute video also misrepresented data on ice shelves, incorrectly claiming a 2023 paper confirmed that the Antarctic ice sheet is gaining mass.
The 2023 paper, published in the Cryosphere, used satellite data to analyze the area of Antarctic ice shelves between 2009 and 2019, finding that 16 ice shelves grew in area and 18 got smaller. This translated to a net gain of 5,305 square kilometers in total ice shelf area, representing an increase of 0.4%.
But “this paper is about Antarctic ice shelves, which are only the floating portions of the ice in Antarctica,” Ultee said. Ice shelves are made up of ice that has flowed from the continent outward to the ocean and is floating. (Sea ice, which forms seasonally from the ocean and also floats, is distinct from ice shelves.)
Antarctic ice shelves, in white, are seen at the edge of the continent, which is largely covered in the ice sheet (grey). Credit: Agnieszka Gautier, National Snow and Ice Data Center
The work “does not support the assertion that the Antarctic ice sheet is not losing mass,” Ultee said.
Padman also said that the Cryosphere paper looked at one specific time period that doesn’t represent the full history of Antarctic ice shelf loss. Prior work, published in Nature in 2022, showed that Antarctic ice shelves lost 35,000 square kilometers of area between 1997 and 2004. The Cryosphere paper showed the ice shelves regaining “only about 15% of the earlier loss,” he said.
Greene, the NASA scientist, co-authored the Nature paper. In that study, “we used a longer, 24 year baseline and found overwhelming loss of ice shelf area since 1997,” he said. “We then looked at the calving history of the biggest ice shelves and found that they are all on track for major calving events in the next 10 or 15 years … meaning Antarctica as a whole is losing ice shelf mass overall.” (Ice shelf calving occurs when chunks of ice break off into the ocean.)
Additionally, ice shelf loss in specific areas is significant and indirectly influences sea level rise, experts told us.
“Ice shelves don’t directly contribute to sea level rise when they melt but rather, they act like buttresses to glaciers, keeping the ice from simply sliding into the ocean,” Greene said.
Padman added that “some areas of ice shelves affect ‘buttressing’ of grounded ice, while other areas don’t.” The ice shelves shown to be losing ice in the Cryosphere paper — many in West Antarctica — tend to be more important for buttressing the ice sheet than the ice shelves that are gaining ice.
“Even if East Antarctic ice shelves are gaining area and the West Antarctic is losing area, we still really care about the West Antarctic ice shelf area,” Ultee said.
Editor’s note: SciCheck’s articles providing accurate health information and correcting health misinformation are made possible by a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The foundation has no control over FactCheck.org’s editorial decisions, and the views expressed in our articles do not necessarily reflect the views of the foundation.
Sources
“Ice Sheets.” National Snow and Ice Data Center. Accessed 5 June 2024.
Fox-Kemper, B. et al. “2021: Ocean, Cryosphere and Sea Level Change.” Climate Change 2021: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, edited by Masson-Delmotte, V. et al. Cambridge University Press, pp. 1211–1362.
A photo taken in January shows a large tunnel under Gaza’s northern border with Israel, reportedly used in the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas. But recent social media posts falsely claim that the photo shows a tunnel connecting Egypt with the southern Gaza city of Rafah — where Palestinians displaced by the Israel-Hamas war have been sheltering.
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More than a million people fleeing the Israel-Hamas war had been sheltering in Gaza’s southern city of Rafah when, on May 26, the Israeli military struck a refugee encampment, killing at least 45 — most of whom were women and children — according to the Gaza health ministry.
That strike, which Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called a “tragic mishap,” and worsening conditions in Rafah have kept the area in the news. Now, it is the target of misinformation.
Israel closed the border with Egypt on May 7, shutting off a major route for humanitarian aid and depriving people there of food and medicine. On May 24, the International Court of Justice in The Hague ordered Israel to end military operations in Rafah and open the border, which Israel has not done.
A photo taken on Jan. 7 shows the inside of a tunnel that Hamas reportedly used on Oct. 7 to attack Israel through the Erez border crossing in Northern Gaza. Photo by Noam Galai via Getty Images.
Now, postsarecirculating on socialmedia that claim to show a picture of “One of 50 Tunnels the size of motorways Israel has discovered connecting Rafah to Egypt.”
Social media users are responding to the posts with messages that indicate the tunnel justifies Israel’s actions in Rafah. For example, one user wrote, “No wonder they resisted Israel’s invasion of Rafa! They all new what was under cover there! Go for it Israel, consume anything along your path to victory!”
The caption accompanying the original photo, as shown on the Getty Images website, says: “A view inside a tunnel that Hamas reportedly used on October 7th to attack Israel through the Erez border crossing on January 07, 2024 in Northern Gaza. As the IDF have pressed into Gaza as part of their campaign to defeat Hamas, they have highlighted the militant group’s extensive tunnel network as emblematic of the way the group embeds itself and its military activity in civilian areas.”
The Israeli military said it has found multiple tunnels on the southern end of Gaza, which borders Egypt. That corridor “served as the oxygen line of Hamas through which Hamas carried out weapons smuggling into Gaza on a regular basis,” Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, Israel’s military chief spokesperson, said in May.
But the photo circulating in these social media posts does not show one of those tunnels.
Editor’s note: FactCheck.org is one of several organizations working with Facebook to debunk misinformation shared on social media. Our previous stories can be found here. Facebook has no control over our editorial content.
International Court of Justice. Order. APPLICATION OF THE CONVENTION ON THE PREVENTION AND PUNISHMENT OF THE CRIME OF GENOCIDE IN THE GAZA STRIP. 24 May 2024.
Social media posts seeking to discredit the judge who presided over former President Donald Trump’s criminal case in New York have been circulating online. Contrary to a popular meme, the judge’s wife works for a Republican district attorney, not the Democratic state attorney general, and his daughter was not personally paid by a high-profile Democrat.
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A jury found former President Donald Trump guilty of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records to cover up hush money payments to a porn star in an attempt to influence the 2016 election. The judge overseeing the New York criminal case, Justice Juan Merchan, has been the target of severalfalse or misleadingclaims, many of them from Trump himself.
Another claim is circulating online, this time saying that Merchan’s family is “corrupt.”
The New York court building where Justice Juan Merchan presided over former President Donald Trump’s criminal trial is in Manhattan. Photo by Rainer Mirau/stock.adobe.com
The meme, which has been shared on various social media platforms, references Rep. Adam Schiff — a Democrat from California who has been a frequent target of partisan misinformation since he led the first Trump impeachment proceedings — and New York Attorney General Letitia James — another Democrat who has also been targeted with misinformation after she brought a civil fraud case against Trump and his organization that resulted in a judgment of more than $450 million. The meme claims that Merchan’s “daughter was paid $4M by Adam Schiff” and “his wife works with Letitia James.”
Schiff’s 2020 campaign paid the political marketing firm run by Merchan’s daughter, Loren Merchan, and Lara Merchan, the judge’s wife, used to work for the state attorney general’s office but no longer does.
The claim connecting Loren Merchan to Schiff has been made by conservative online outlets before. For example, conservative commentator Julie Kelly laid it out in an April 1 post on her substack.
There, she accurately says that Schiff’s campaign paid $4 million in the 2020 election cycle to Authentic Campaigns, the political marketing agency where Loren Merchan works. Merchan is listed as the president on the company website, and Justice Merchan wrote in an August 2023 ruling that his daughter is the president and chief operating officer at Authentic.
But the meme goes even further, suggesting that Schiff paid Loren Merchan directly, which is inaccurate, and claiming it is evidence of a “corrupt” family.
According to records from the Federal Election Commission, it’s true that Schiff’s House campaign committee spent about $4 million on digital advertising and consulting with Authentic in 2019 and 2020. His Senate campaign so far has spent more than $12 million with Authentic during the 2024 election cycle, FEC records show.
On May 31, 2023, Trump’s legal team had raised the issue of Loren Merchan’s political work in an effort to get the judge to recuse himself. About six weeks earlier, Justice Merchan sought an opinion on the issue from the New York State Advisory Committee on Judicial Ethics, which found no reason for recusal.
“[T]he matter currently before the judge does not involve either the judge’s relative or the relative’s business, whether directly or indirectly,” the committee wrote in its May 4, 2023, opinion. “They are not parties or likely witnesses in the matter, and none of the parties or counsel before the judge are clients of the business. We see nothing in the inquiry to suggest that the outcome of the case could have any effect on the judge’s relative, the relative’s business, or any of their interests.”
And, as we’ve written before, one of Trump’s own lawyers has said that he saw no bias on Merchan’s part. In an interview on CNN in April 2023, Joe Tacopina — who withdrew in January from representing Trump in the New York criminal case — said Merchan “has a very good reputation.”
“I have no reason to believe this judge is biased,” Tacopina said, before Trump’s legal team unsuccessfully sought Merchan’s recusal.
So, the potential conflict of interest posed by Loren Merchan’s job has already been discredited by the judicial ethics committee, and a former Trump lawyer on the case has said there’s no reason to think the judge is biased.
Regarding the meme’s claim about Merchan’s wife’s current job — that’s inaccurate.
According to Lara Merchan’s LinkedIn profile, she did work in the New York state attorney general’s office from November 2000 to March 2022. That means she would have worked for about three years under James, who took office in January 2019, and has been working for Donnelly for more than two years.
Merchan’s LinkedIn page says that she had worked as a “special assistant attorney general,” and, according to the attorney general’s website, the office has more than 1,700 staff members and more than 700 assistant attorneys general.
But, as we said, she left that job in 2022 and has been working for the Nassau County district attorney since then.
So, both claims made in the meme stretch the facts to make the unsupported claim that Merchan’s family is “corrupt.”
Editor’s note: FactCheck.org is one of several organizations working with Facebook to debunk misinformation shared on social media. Our previous stories can be found here. Facebook has no control over our editorial content.
A Michigan town clerk pleaded no contest in 2023 to a charge of misconduct in office. Social media posts misleadingly highlight her case to push the false narrative that the 2020 presidential election was “rigged.” The clerk’s case was related to her local primary race, not the presidential election.
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Kathy Funk, who was up for reelection as a townclerk in Michigan, in 2020, took a plea deal in a case accusing her of hampering the recount in her primary.
Prosecutorsaccused her of breaking the seal on a canister of election ballots so that they couldn’t be recounted.
In January 2023, Funk pleaded nocontest to one count of misconduct in office, which means that she accepted the punishment but didn’t admit guilt. The punishment, in this case, was two years of probation and six months of house arrest. Prosecutors dropped a charge of ballot tampering.
Funk’s primary election in August 2020 was not related to the general election in November or the Michigan presidential primary, which was held on March 10, 2020.
But the Epoch Times, a conservative publication with a history of spreading misinformation, has posted a video on social media suggesting that this case — which received newscoverage when it was resolved a year ago — is new. The video also vaguely refers to Funk’s crime “during the 2020 election cycle,” leaving some viewers to wrongly conclude her actions affected the 2020 presidential election.
A shorter, promotional video for the full five-minute video doesn’t identify Funk — who had left her job as clerk in 2021 to become the elections supervisor for Genesee County. She was placed on administrative leave from her county job when criminal charges were filed against her, and she was terminated in late 2022.
The promotional video uses vague language, saying only, “A woman who was both a county election official as well as a former township clerk, she was convicted of tampering with ballots during the 2020 election cycle.”
It goes on to say, “Specifically during a recount process, this woman, using her official access, spoiled a batch of ballots in order to make them ineligible to be recounted.”
Posts on social media sharing links to the video falsely suggested that Funk’s behavior impacted the 2020 presidential election, a claim that contributes to the ongoing false narrative that the election was “stolen” from former President Donald Trump, who is a primary proponent of this falsehood.
One post on Facebook, for example, said, “TRUMP WAS RIGHT Election Official busted for rigging the 2020 election!!” The page that shared the post is run by a Minnesota-basedmarketing company called Making Web, which runs conservative digital properties — including a website called Trending Politics that has published false claims we’ve writtenabout before and a website that sells pro-Trump merchandise, such as a flag with the slogan, “make votes count again.”
Another Facebook post said, “RIGGED FROM THE START Election Official busted for rigging the 2020 election!!”
Both of those posts linked to the Epoch Times’ video hosted on the outlet’s website, which requires users to sign in to watch.
The title of the video says only, “Former Election Official Convicted for Ballot Tampering.” The full video gives more details, including Funk’s name and the fact that her case involved only her own primary election. But the comments on the Epoch Times’ video and the socialmedia posts indicate that the details were lost on users, many of whom expressed anger at the outcome of the 2020 presidential election.
President Joe Biden won that election with 306 electoral votes, compared with 232 for Trump, according to the Federal Election Commission. Biden also won the popular vote, 51% to 47%.
But the false narrative that the election was stolen has persisted, and claims like the ones made in social media posts about Funk contribute to its longevity.
Editor’s note: FactCheck.org is one of several organizations working with Facebook to debunk misinformation shared on social media. Our previous stories can be found here. Facebook has no control over our editorial content.
Sources
State of Michigan v. Kathy Funk. Docket. Accessed 22 May 2024.
FBI agents who searched for classified documents held by former President Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago in 2022 followed standard protocol. But Trump supporters and social media posts now falsely claim the search was an “attempted assassination” of Trump. The claim is based on a misquote of FBI policy in a legal motion — and Trump wasn’t in Florida during the search.
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The standard policy of the U.S. Department of Justice on the use of deadly force is spelled out in the department’s Justice Manual.
The section on deadly force begins by stating, “Law enforcement officers and correctional officers of the Department of Justice may use deadly force only when necessary, that is, when the officer has a reasonable belief that the subject of such force poses an imminent danger of death or serious physical injury to the officer or to another person.”
That basic policy is reiterated on the FBI website in its section on frequently asked questions.
But lawyers for former President Donald Trump misquoted the policy in a motion, which was unsealed on May 21, in Trump’s classified documents case, the Associated Press reported. The motion said the operations order for the FBI’s search of Mar-a-Lago in August 2022 stated that “law enforcement officers of the Department of Justice may use deadly force when necessary” — omitting the word “only.”
The release of the unsealed motion, with the misquoted order, was then shared by Julie Kelly, a writer with RealClear Investigations, according to Washington Post Fact Checker Glenn Kessler. Kelly posted on X, “Oh my god. Armed FBI agents were preparing to confront Trump and even engage Secret Service if necessary. … Gestapo.”
But the operations order was just repeating standard Department of Justice policy, and there was no plan to “confront Trump,” who was in New York City during the search for classified documents at Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s resort in Palm Beach, Florida.
“The FBI followed standard protocol in this search as we do for all search warrants, which includes a standard policy statement limiting the use of deadly force,” the FBI said in a statement to the Associated Press. “No one ordered additional steps to be taken and there was no departure from the norm in this matter.”
In his fact-checking article for the Post, Kessler noted that Steven D’Antuono, a former FBI assistant director in charge of the Washington field office when the FBI searched Mar-a-Lago, told the House Judiciary Committee in a June 7, 2023, interview that the FBI coordinated the search with the Secret Service “to make sure we could get into Mar-a-Lago with no issues.” D’Antuono said he was “adamant” that there would be no show of force — let alone use of force — at the former president’s resort.
“It wasn’t even a show of force, right, because we were all in agreement. We didn’t do a show of force, right. I was adamant about that, and that was something that we agreed on, right, the FBI agreed on, right. No raid jackets, no blazed FBI,” D’Antuono, who has since retired, said. “We made sure we interacted with the Secret Service to make sure we could get into Mar-a-Lago with no issues. We’re not banging down any doors. We weren’t bringing any like FBI vehicles, everything that was reported about helicopters and a hundred people descending on, like a Die Hard movie, was completely untrue, right. That is not how we played it.”
The release of the motion, with its mention of “deadly force,” sparked a firestorm from the former president and his allies.
A May 21 post on Trump’s Truth Social account claimed, “Joe Biden’s DOJ, in their Illegal and UnConstitutional Raid of Mar-a-Lago, AUTHORIZED THE FBI TO USE DEADLY (LETHAL) FORCE.” A fundraising appeal on the Trump National Committee web page said, “BIDEN’S DOJ WAS AUTHORIZED TO SHOOT ME!”
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a supporter of Trump, posted on X on May 21, “The Biden DOJ and FBI were planning to assassinate Pres Trump and gave the green light.”
The claim spread on other social media accounts associated with Trump adviser Steve Bannon, including a May 22 Instagram post by the account @bannonswarroom, which said, “The FBI Raid At Mar-A-Lago Was An Attempted Assassination On President Trump.”
But, as we said, the DOJ order contained standard language for a search like the one conducted at Mar-a-Lago in 2022, and the FBI coordinated its operation with the Secret Service.
Trump and two of his employees, Walt Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira, were indicted in 2023 on charges of mishandling sensitive classified documents and obstructing federal officials who tried to retrieve them, as we’ve written. The case is being heard in Florida by U.S. District Judge Aileen M. Cannon, who has not yet set a date for the trial.
Editor’s note: FactCheck.org is one of several organizations working with Facebook to debunk misinformation shared on social media. Our previous stories can be found here. Facebook has no control over our editorial content.
College commencement remarks by Kansas City Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker on the roles of women drew widespread criticism, including from Pearl Jam singer Eddie Vedder. Social media posts falsely claimed Arrowhead Stadium, where the Chiefs play, then canceled concerts by the band. A team spokesperson said Pearl Jam was “never scheduled to perform” at the venue.
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Harrison Butker, the kicker for the Super Bowl champion Kansas City Chiefs, made a series of controversial remarks while delivering the commencement address at Benedictine College in Atchison, Kansas, on May 11.
In his over 20-minute address at the Catholic private college, Butker took swipes at President Joe Biden’s position on abortion, the celebration of PRIDE Month, and “degenerate cultural values in media.”
Butker also offered his views on the roles of women.
Butker, May 11: For the ladies present today, congratulations on an amazing accomplishment. You should be proud of all that you have achieved to this point in your young lives. I want to speak directly to you briefly because I think it is you, the women, who have had the most diabolical lies told to you. How many of you are sitting here now about to cross this stage and are thinking about all the promotions and titles you are going to get in your career? Some of you may go on to lead successful careers in the world, but I would venture to guess that the majority of you are most excited about your marriage and the children you will bring into this world.
I can tell you that my beautiful wife, Isabelle, would be the first to say that her life truly started when she began living her vocation as a wife and as a mother. I’m on the stage today and able to be the man I am because I have a wife who leans into her vocation. I’m beyond blessed with the many talents God has given me, but it cannot be overstated that all of my success is made possible because a girl I met in band class back in middle school would convert to the faith, become my wife, and embrace one of the most important titles of all: homemaker.
Butker received a standing ovation at the end of his address, the Associated Press reported. But his remarks were also widely criticized — including by the Benedictine Sisters of Mount St. Scholastica, a sponsor of Benedictine College, who said they “do not believe that Harrison Butker’s comments in his 2024 Benedictine College commencement address represent the Catholic, Benedictine, liberal arts college that our founders envisioned and in which we have been so invested,” The Athletic reported.
Pearl Jam Singer Kicks Back
Butker’s views on women’s roles came under fire from Eddie Vedder, the lead singer of Pearl Jam, during a May 18 concert in Las Vegas, Variety reported. Vedder praised the show’s opening act, Deep Sea Diver, which includes two women. “The singer, Jessica, and the keyboard player, Patti, they must not have believed that ‘diabolical lie’ that women should take pride in taking a back seat to their man,” Vedder said, referring to Butker’s remarks.
“There should be pride in homemaking if you’re a man or a woman … it’s one of the hardest jobs and you should definitely take pride in it, but you’re going to benefit by giving up your dreams?” Vedder said, later adding, “There’s nothing more masculine than a strong man supporting a strong woman.”
Social mediaposts then fabricated a claim about repercussions to Vedder’s comments.
“After Pearl Jam’s Eddie Vedder went on an anti-Harrison Butker rant, the front office at Arrowhead Stadium canceled three of the band’s upcoming shows. ‘We stand with Harrison and his admirable moral values. Vedder and his band can find somewhere else to play.[‘] The move will cost the band around $14 million,” read a May 20 Facebook post, referring to the stadium used by the Kansas City Chiefs. The post received more than 150,000 likes.
But the post was concocted by America’s Last Line of Defense, a “satire/parody” website that frequently spreads bogus stories and misinformation, as we’ve previously written. The May 20 Facebook post did not include a label identifying the content as satire.
A Kansas City Chiefs team spokesperson told us in a phone interview on May 23, “I can confirm that Pearl Jam was never scheduled to perform [at Arrowhead Stadium] this year. They were not on our concert slate.”
We reached out to Pearl Jam for comment on the claim, but we didn’t receive a response.
Editor’s note: FactCheck.org is one of several organizations working with Facebook to debunk misinformation shared on social media. Our previous stories can be found here. Facebook has no control over our editorial content.
Republican Sen. Katie Britt has introduced a bill that would create a government website to help connect pregnant people with resources, excluding abortion services. Some Democrats and partisan websites have misleadingly claimed the proposed law would create a federal database of pregnant people. The bill doesn’t require users to provide any personal information.
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As Republicans face an uphill battle on their restrictive abortion policies for the 2024 election, GOP Sen. KatieBritt — who opposes abortion — has introduced a bill that she says seeks to support pregnant women.
But critics have spun the draft legislation into a claim that the senator from Alabama is proposing a government-run database that could track pregnant people.
The bill — called the More Opportunities for Moms to Succeed Act, or MOMS Act — has three sections:
The first would create a website called Pregnancy.gov that would list “relevant resources” to pregnant people and parents of young children, including health services (not including abortion), nutrition assistance, and recovery and mental health services.
The second would offer grants to organizations that provide prenatal and post-natal services — such as housing assistance, adoption services, and child care assistance — and to organizations that would use telehealth to improve prenatal and post-natal health care to people in remote or underserved areas.
The third would require states to impose child-support payments through pregnancy.
Within days of the bill’s introduction, partisan media outlets, including the MeidasTouch Network and HuffPost, panned the proposal, misleadingly claiming that it would create a federal database of pregnant people.
Some Senate Democrats, led by Sen. Patty Murray of Washington, also opposed the bill. In a statement issued on May 13, they characterized the bill as a means to “push anti-abortion propaganda” through “a new government-run website to collect data on pregnant women and direct them to anti-abortion crisis pregnancy centers and other ‘resources’ to pressure women into carrying pregnancies to term, no matter their circumstances.”
And posts have proliferated on socialmedia, repeating the claim that Britt had proposed creating a “national database of pregnant women.”
But the bill includes no such proposal.
The claim appears to be based on the first section of the bill, which would create a new government-run website. But nowhere in the text of the proposed law does it say that people who use the site would be required to enter their personal information. Rather, it says that users would be able to opt in to give their contact information and receive follow-up emails or phone calls with “additional resources that would be helpful for the users to review.”
The bill doesn’t specify where or for how long the contact information provided by users would be kept, so we asked Britt’s spokesman Sean Ross for further details. He pointed out that the website would function under existing federal privacy guidelines.
“Nothing in this bill alters existing federal data privacy laws or regulations related to government agencies, including the Privacy Act of 1974, the E-Government Act, and existing HHS regulations,” Ross said in an email, referring to the Department of Health and Human Services.
He also highlighted existing rules for websites maintained by the HHS, which Britt’s proposed website would follow.
“Submitting personally identifiable information (PII) such as name, address, telephone number, email address, etc. is voluntary and is not required to access information on our website,” the HHS privacy policy says. “We retain the information only for as long as necessary to respond to your question or request, in most cases no longer than three months. We maintain and destroy information submitted electronically as required by the Federal Records Act and the National Archives and Records Administration’s (NARA) records schedules. It may be subject to disclosure in certain cases (for example, if required by a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, court order, or Congressional access request, or if authorized by a Privacy Act SORN).”
The bill doesn’t mention anything about creating a database with users’ personal information.
It does say that within six months of the site’s launch, the secretary of Health and Human Services would be required to report to Congress on website traffic and feedback. The bill specifies that “the report … shall not include any personal identifying information regarding individuals who have used the website.”
So, the bill proposes listing pregnancy-related services, except for those involving abortion, on a website where users could choose to share their contact information in order to get more customized results. It does not describe the creation of a nationwide database detailing the whereabouts of pregnant people.
Editor’s note: FactCheck.org is one of several organizations working with Facebook to debunk misinformation shared on social media. Our previous stories can be found here. Facebook has no control over our editorial content.
Adult film star Stormy Daniels recently testified at the criminal trial of former President Donald Trump, who is charged with falsifying records during his 2016 campaign to conceal an affair with Daniels. Social media posts falsely claim to show evidence of the affair by sharing a fake, digitally altered photo of Donald and Melania Trump with Daniels.
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The first criminal trial of a former U.S. president is winding down in a Manhattan courtroom, where Donald Trump is charged with 34 felony counts of falsifying business records to keep extramarital affairs from becoming public during his 2016 presidential campaign.
The trial, which began April 15, has included the testimony of adult film star Stormy Daniels, who described her sexual encounter with Trump and $130,000 in payments she received from attorney Michael Cohen on behalf of Trump as part of an agreement not to disclose their relationship. The former president has pleaded not guilty to the charges and denied having an affair with Daniels.
Social media users have weighed in with their own purported evidence of Trump’s relationship with Daniels. A May 16 Instagram post, which has received more than 5,000 likes, purports to show an image of Donald and Melania Trump with Daniels, all of them in formal wear, and text that reads: “A Bible salesman, his pregnant wife, and the woman he never ever ever ever met, but paid her $130,000 for something they never ever ever ever did…..”
A Facebook post shares the same image and text, with the caption: “Boooooooom (I got the receipts).”
But the “receipts” aren’t real. The picture shared in the posts was digitally altered using two photos to create a fake composite image. The original photo of the Trumps showed them with Donald Trump’s daughter Ivanka in a Daily Mail article, photographed at a 2005 event. The photo of Daniels was lifted from coverage of a 2009 awards show.
The Snopes fact-checking website debunked posts that shared the same manipulated image in 2018.
Testimony in Trump’s criminal trial may wrap up and the jury could begin deliberations the week of May 20.
Editor’s note: FactCheck.org is one of several organizations working with Facebook to debunk misinformation shared on social media. Our previous stories can be found here. Facebook has no control over our editorial content.
A recent deal involving a prisoner swap and the extension of a Trump-era waiver have freed $16 billion in previously frozen Iranian funds. Social media posts distort the sources of the money to falsely claim “Joe Biden gave 16 billion to Iran.” The Iranian money has been unfrozen with restrictions that it be used for humanitarian purposes.
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Two separate agreements in the fall allowed Iran to access up to $16 billion of its previously frozen assets, including a reported $10 billion as the result of an extension of a Trump-era waiver that allows Iran to access funds for humanitarian purposes.
Posts on social media have misrepresented those agreements, claiming, “Joe Biden gave 16 billion to Iran.” One early version of the claim, which spread widely on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, showed a picture of President Joe Biden with this text: “Anyone remember when this guy handed $16,000,000,000 to Iran last year?” It came from an account that describes itself as “Conservative populist.” When the post went viral, the account added a marketing link to a survivalist goods company.
“This use of the word ‘gave’ is certainly intended to mislead,” Heather Williams, a senior policy researcher at RAND who specializes in Middle East regional issues, told us in an email. “[P]eople often try to portray this issue in a way that gives the impression that America is giving funds to Iran.”
The agreements don’t provide any U.S. money to Iran, as the posts suggest. Rather, they allow Iran to access its own assets that had been frozen in foreign banks due to earlier sanctions. The money can only be used for humanitarian purposes.
It’s also not clear how much of the $16 billion – which is held in accounts in Qatar and Oman – has been spent. As of December, U.S. officials said no Iranian money held in Qatar had been spent, but there were two transactions from the funds in Oman. The amounts of the transactions have not been disclosed.
Williams said she isn’t as familiar with the details of the money held in Oman. But as for Qatar, “There is no clear evidence Iran has used any of this money,” she said — although there are still questions about how Qatar plans to enforce the restrictions on the money, and Iran has claimed to have access to the money.
Here’s the deal with each of the two agreements.
$6 Billion in Foreign Banks
In September, the U.S. and Iran exchanged prisoners in a deal that also included the unfreezing of $6 billion in Iranian assets.
Five Americans were released from Iranian jails and returned to the U.S., and five Iranians who had either been charged or convicted in the U.S. received clemency. The other part of the deal freed up $6 billion in previously frozen Iranian assets.
As we’ve explained before, none of it was U.S. money. It was Iranian money that had been held in South Korean banks.
The money was from South Korea’s purchases of Iranian energy products. It was held in the bank accounts after then-President Donald Trump announced the withdrawal of the U.S. from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, better known as the Iran nuclear deal, in May 2018. Months later, the administration reinstated sanctions on Iran that were lifted after Iran agreed to the nuclear deal, which was negotiated by the U.S., China, France, Germany, Russia, the United Kingdom and the European Union. Those sanctions included a partial ban on oil exports, and the next year, the Trump administration made it a total ban. The sanctions were also aimed at stopping “transactions by foreign financial institutions with the Central Bank of Iran.”
In October 2019, the Trump administration made the money in those accounts available to Iran for limited humanitarian purposes, although the banks didn’t use that accommodation much due to the increased reporting it required.
As the Washington Institute for Near East Policy explained, “participants and observers complained that the ‘enhanced due diligence’ requirements were too much of a burden.”
So, even though there were mechanisms to disperse Iranian assets, “the South Koreans weren’t interested,” Patrick Clawson, director of research at the Washington Institute, told us last year. “From the beginning, South Korean banks were reluctant to use it because they feared the U.S. could change its mind and come back and fine them.”
The prisoner swap deal in September moved that money from South Korea to Qatar, although it is available only for humanitarian purposes. John Kirby, spokesman for the National Security Council, said in October that Iran hadn’t accessed any of the money.
Abram Paley, the State Department deputy special envoy for Iran, said the same thing in December during a House Financial Services Committee hearing.
“Not a penny of this money has been spent and these funds will not go anywhere anytime soon,” Paley said, although he didn’t explain what mechanism was keeping the funds static.
After the Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7, Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo reportedly told House Democrats in a closed-door meeting in October that the U.S. and Qatar had reached an agreement to prevent Iran from accessing the $6 billion that had been unfrozen as part of the prisoner swap, according to ABC News.
The Biden administration was under pressure to act because of Iran’s support for Hamas. “The Iranian government has backed Hamas for decades, going back nearly to the group’s inception in the 1980s,” according to a Congressional Research Service report on the history of U.S. policy toward Iran.
The CRS report, which was last updated on April 22, cited the same news reports and noted that the apparent agreement was “for an unspecified period of time.”
We reached out to the State Department for more information but didn’t get a response.
At the same December House hearing, Elizabeth Rosenberg, the assistant secretary for terrorist financing and financial crimes at the Treasury Department, also confirmed that no money had left those accounts. “There have been no transfers out of this, from the $6 billion sum held in Qatari financial institutions,” she said.
$10 Billion in Energy Sales to Iraq
In 2018, after Trump pulled the U.S. out of the Iran nuclear deal and reinstated sanctions, his administration issued a waiver that allowed Iraq to continue purchasing electricity from Iran, with restrictions that Iran only use the proceeds for humanitarian purposes.
On Nov. 14, Secretary of State Antony Blinken signed another waiver, “the twenty-first such waiver across multiple administrations,” Paley, the State Department’s deputy special envoy, said at the hearing. That waiver expired in March and was, again, renewed.
News stories noted the estimated reserve of money that had built up from the sale of energy from Iran to Iraq was about $10 billion.
The decision to extend the waiver was criticized by some conservative politicians, who highlighted the $10 billion figure, including Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina and Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina. And that number has now found its way to social media posts.
It’s unclear exactly how much has accrued from the sale of Iranian energy to Iraq, though. It’s also unclear how much has been accessed by Iran, which, as we said, can use the money only to fund humanitarian purchases.
The $10 billion figure — which has been referenced by many U.S. officials over the last several months — appears to have come up over the summer, in an Iranian media report.
When the previous waiver was renewed in July, the State Department allowed for money to be held in bank accounts outside of Iraq to prevent Iran from pressuring Iraq to give it access to the funds. That money is now largely held in Oman. As of December, there had been two transactions from those accounts, according to Rosenberg, who declined to give details about them during the House hearing.
Also in July, the Persian-language broadcaster Iran International reported that the chairman of the Iran-Iraq chamber of commerce had estimated the amount of money in the Iraqi accounts for Iran was $10 billion, which is the earliest reference we could find to that amount.
A month earlier, in June, the U.S. had reportedly approved a payment of $2.7 billion from restricted funds held for Iran in Iraq.
Neither the State Department nor the White House responded to our requests for more details.
When the waiver was reissued in November, State Department spokesman Matthew Miller explained that the money “is held in accounts that are restricted where they can only be used to pay for food, medicine, humanitarian purposes, and other non-sanctionable activities.”
Referring to Iraq, Miller said, “We’ve had a number of policies we’ve worked with to try to ensure their energy independence, but in the meantime, they continue to buy Iranian electricity. And so we have in the past, as has the Trump administration, issued waivers to allow these funds to move to restricted accounts, or as I said, that can be used for humanitarian and other non-sanctionable purposes.”
And, more recently, Kirby, the NSC spokesman, answered a reporter’s question in April about the unfreezing of Iranian assets, saying, “none of those funds — funds set up in an account, by the way, by the previous administration — goes directly to the Supreme Leader of the [Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps]. It can only be used for humanitarian purposes. And we’re watching that account very, very closely to make sure that that’s what happens.”
So, saying only that “Joe Biden gave 16 billion to Iran” leaves the false impression that the administration has provided new, unrestricted money to Iran. That money already belonged to Iran, and its use is restricted. It’s also unclear how much of it Iran has actually accessed.
Editor’s note: FactCheck.org is one of several organizations working with Facebook to debunk misinformation shared on social media. Our previous stories can be found here. Facebook has no control over our editorial content.
While his criminal fraud trial is not in session on May 17, former President Donald Trump plans to attend the high school graduation of his son Barron in Florida as well as a campaign event in Minnesota. A post on Threads misleadingly claims he will “miss his son’s graduation for fundraiser.” The graduation is in the morning and the fundraising dinner in the evening.
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As former President Donald Trump’s criminal fraud trial opened in Manhattan on April 15, Trump asked that he be allowed to attend the high school graduation of his son Barron on May 17. As we’ve written, New York Supreme Court Judge Juan Merchan did not immediately rule on the request, leading Trump and conservative commentators to falsely claim the judge would not allow Trump to go to the graduation.
In fact, the judge announced on April 30 — two weeks into the trial — that Trump could attend Barron’s graduation in Palm Beach, Florida. Merchan said the court would not be in session on May 17.
Former President Donald Trump with his son Barron and wife, Melania. Official White House Photo by Tia Dufour.
In addition to his son’s graduation, Trump has other plans for that day.
The Republican Party of Minnesota announced on May 6 that the former president will speak at the party’s fundraising Lincoln Reagan dinner in St. Paul on the evening of May 17. President Joe Biden won Minnesota in 2020, but the Trump campaign believes it can flip the state in the November election.
In light of the Minnesota Republicans’ announcement, a May 7 post on Threads said that Trump’s attendance at the campaign event means he will not be going to Barron’s graduation, citing a Los Angeles Magazine article. “Trump Will Reportedly Miss His Son’s Graduation for Fundraiser: Judge Merchan canceled court proceedings on May 17 so Donald Trump could attend his son Barron’s graduation, but Trump is attending a GOP fundraiser that day,” the headline on the story and the text of the post said.
We asked Trump’s team for a response to the Threads post, and we received a one-line email from campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung saying the author of the social media post, a Democratic strategist, “is a fake news bitch.”
The liberal New Republic also ran a headline on May 7 claiming, “Trump Appears to Be Ditching Barron’s Graduation for a Fundraiser. Of course Donald Trump is bailing on his own son’s graduation.”
But the article later says, “Trump could use his private jet to attend both Barron’s graduation and the Minnesota dinner, assuming his son’s graduation isn’t later in the day.”
Similarly, the Los Angeles Magazine said “it’s unclear” whether Trump can attend Barron’s graduation.
It appears the former president can make it to both events. Barron’s graduation ceremony at the private Oxbridge Academy will begin at 10 a.m., People magazine reported. We reached out to the academy for confirmation of the time of the graduation but didn’t hear back.
The Republican Party fundraising dinner in St. Paul is scheduled for 6 p.m.
The new graduate will participate in his father’s likely ascension to Republican presidential nominee. The 18-year-old Barron was chosen as one of Florida’s delegates to the Republican National Convention, which will be held in July in Milwaukee.
Editor’s note: FactCheck.org is one of several organizations working with Facebook to debunk misinformation shared on social media. Our previous stories can be found here. Facebook has no control over our editorial content.
At a campaign rally in Michigan, former President Donald Trump promised to build an Iron Dome missile defense system for the U.S. that would serve as “a shield around our country.” A post on Threads falsely claimed Trump said the system would be used to “‘defend us’ from Canada.”
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On a day off from his criminal trial in New York City, former President Donald Trump traveled to the swing states of Wisconsin and Michigan on May 1 for campaign rallies in support of his effort to regain the White House.
A post shared on Threads on May 1 shows a clip from Trump’s rally that day in Freeland, Michigan, and the Thread user claims, “Donald Trump wants to build an ‘iron dome’ at the border of our country to ‘defend us’ from Canada. Yes, Canada.”
In the 22-second video in the Threads post, Trump says, “In my next term, we will build a great Iron Dome very much like Israel has, but even better. I’m saying, why don’t we have that? We should have that too. We have a lot of hostile people out there. We have a lot of bad actors out there. We’re going to build the greatest dome of them all.”
But Trump does not mention Canada in the short video on Threads. And a YouTube video of his entire remarks in Michigan shows he didn’t cite any need to “‘defend us’ from Canada.” Nor did he identify who he meant by “hostile people” or “bad actors.”
As he did in Michigan, Trump has advocated for an Iron Dome system for the U.S. in other recent speeches as well. But never as a defense against Canada.
Defense Against Short-Range Attack
Trump’s references are to a missile defense system first used by Israel in 2011 to shoot down short-range rockets fired from Gaza. The Iron Dome, along with the Arrow 3 system — an Israeli air defense system that can intercept ballistic missiles — successfully downed nearly all the 300 drones and missiles launched at Israel by Iran on April 14.
The U.S. Army acquired two Iron Dome batteries from Israel in 2020, but they “have subsequently been returned to Israel as part of US security assistance efforts to our Israeli partners,” a Pentagon spokesperson told us in a May 2 email.
Raytheon works with Rafael Advanced Defense Systems, an Israeli company, on the Iron Dome, which Raytheon describes as “the world’s most-used system, intercepting more than 1,500 incoming targets with a success rate exceeding 90 percent since being fielded in 2011.”
The system “detects, assesses and intercepts a variety of shorter-range targets such as rockets, artillery and mortars,” Raytheon’s website explains. “Iron Dome’s Tamir missile knocks down incoming threats launched from ranges of 4-70 km,” or 2.4 to 43.5 miles.
“Ten Iron Dome batteries protect the citizens and infrastructure of Israel, with each battery comprising three to four stationary launchers, 20 Tamir missiles and a battlefield radar. Each of the batteries can defend up to nearly 60 square miles, and are strategically placed around cities to intercept threats headed toward populated areas,” the Raytheon site also says.
But “against the normal threats to U.S. security, the Iron Dome is not a useful system,” Stephen Biddle, adjunct senior fellow for defense policy at the Council on Foreign Relations, told us in a phone interview. “Iron Dome is designed to deal with short-range threats, especially unguided rockets,” not long-range ballistic missiles that could be fired from adversaries like China or Russia.
The Congressional Research Service explains that “a ballistic missile leaves the atmosphere and follows an unpowered trajectory or flight path before reentering the atmosphere toward a predetermined target. Ballistic missiles have an effective range from a few hundred kilometers (km) to more than 10,000 km,” or 6,200 miles.
“If the North Koreans launched intercontinental ballistic missiles at the U.S., an Iron Dome would not be able to intercept reentry vehicles,” explained Biddle, who is also a professor of international and public affairs at Columbia University. Reentry vehicles are the parts of intercontinental ballistic missiles carrying warheads back into earth’s atmosphere before striking a target.
‘A More Sophisticated Version’
At the May 1 rally in Michigan, Trump touted the security and economic benefits of an Iron Dome system.
After the remarks quoted in the Threads clip about building “the greatest [Iron] Dome of them all,” the YouTube video of Trump’s full remarks show that he then said: “We’re going to have it all made right here in America. Some of it’s going to be made right here in Michigan. State-of-the-art missile defense shield that will be entirely built in America and will create jobs, jobs, jobs, and we’re going to have the greatest Dome of them all. … We’re going to have a more sophisticated version. We have the technology. We have the genius. We’re going to have a more, we’re going to build a great Iron Dome. We’re going to have a shield around our country and it’s made here, and it’s going to be a great day.”
Defense experts are skeptical that a missile defense system can “shield” the entire U.S., as Trump suggests. But Trump did not say such a system was needed to “defend us” from our neighbor to the north.
Editor’s note: FactCheck.org is one of several organizations working with Facebook to debunk misinformation shared on social media. Our previous stories can be found here. Facebook has no control over our editorial content.
Sources
Biddle, Stephen. Adjunct senior fellow for defense policy, Council on Foreign Relations. Phone interview with FactCheck.org. 2 May 2024.
Protesters against the war in Gaza raised three Palestinian flags on the Harvard University campus on April 27. Social media posts misleadingly claimed the university “replaced the American flag with the Palestinian flag.” The Palestinian flags were removed by Harvard staff shortly after they were raised by the protesters.
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The rising toll of the war in the Gaza Strip, which began after the Palestinian militant group Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, has sparked student protests on university campuses across the United States. About 1,200 Israelis were killed in the initial attack, about 250 people were taken hostage, and more than 250 Israeli soldiers have died in the ensuing war. In Gaza, more than 33,700 Palestinians have died as a result of retaliatory strikes by Israeli forces as of April 15, according to United Nations data, based on Gaza Ministry of Health reporting,compiled by Statista.
Students protesting the ongoing war in Gaza have held mostly peaceful but tense demonstrations and sit-ins and have set up encampments on campuses. College officials have sometimes responded with suspensions and expulsions, and police have arrested hundreds of students for trespassing or failure to disperse.
But the official response by Harvard University — where then-President Claudine Gay resigned in January amid conservative criticism of her handling of the protests and accusations of plagiarism — has been misrepresented on social media.
A person walks past an encampment in Harvard Yard on April 28 as Harvard University students protest the war in Gaza. Photo by Jessica Rinaldi/The Boston Globe via Getty Images.
An April 28 post on Facebook misleadingly claims, “Harvard has REPLACED the American flag with the Palestinian flag. Once Harvard and now Hamas University.” A 36-second video in the post shows several people raising a Palestinian flag over a statue of 17th-century college benefactor John Harvard on the campus.
Conservative commentator Graham Allen shared a similar message in an April 28 post on X, adding, “They are teaching students to HATE America. Pull their funding.” Allen’s post received more than 5 million views, according to the platform.
The university, however, did not hoist the Palestinian flag, as the posts claim.
Three Palestinian flags were raised by protesters on April 27 over the John Harvard statue, the Harvard Crimson reported. The first flag was raised at 6 p.m., the second at 6:18 p.m. and the third at 6:23 p.m.
University staff were called to remove the flags shortly after 6:30 p.m., the Boston Globe reported.
A spokesperson for the university emailed a statement to us saying, “The flags raised by protesters over University Hall were removed by Harvard facilities staff. The protesters’ actions are a violation of University policy and the individuals involved will be subject to disciplinary action.”
The statement, released on April 27, did not say what disciplinary action was being considered.
The Harvard statement also said, “The American flag was not flying on University Hall at the time the other flags were raised. University procedures are that the American flag is raised on University Hall each Monday through Friday at 7am and lowered at 4pm for proper storage.”
Editor’s note: FactCheck.org is one of several organizations working with Facebook to debunk misinformation shared on social media. Our previous stories can be found here. Facebook has no control over our editorial content.
Immigrants who are lawfully living or authorized to work in the U.S. are eligible for a Social Security number and, in some cases, Social Security benefits. But viral posts make the false claim that “illegal immigrants” can receive Social Security numbers and retirement benefits, and they confuse two programs managed by the Social Security Administration.
Another persistent yet false claim about immigrants in the country illegally and Social Security benefits is also circulating again. Immigrants who are not authorized to be in the United States are not eligible for such benefits, as we’vepreviously written.
An April 12 Facebook post, however, claims, “Illegal immigrants get BOTH social security numbers AND Social Security BENEFITS!! This massive story has been BURIED by the mainstream media!! This information can now be found right on the government’s website. If social security — that we as taxpayers have paid into our entire lives — is ‘broke’… then why are we expanding benefits to those are not citizens and not here legally???”
A nearly identical claim was posted on Instagram and received more than 2,500 likes.
The posts show two sections on the Social Security Administration’s website purportedly to back up their claims. But the posts misrepresent the government’s programs and who’s entitled to receive benefits.
In one section shown in the posts, titled “Social Security Numbers for Noncitizens,” the Social Security Administration says (emphasis ours), “Generally, only noncitizens authorized to work in the United States by the Department of Homeland Security” can get a Social Security number, which is “used to report a person’s wages to the government and to determine that person’s eligibility for Social Security benefits.”
Nilsa Henriquez, a spokesperson for the Social Security Administration, confirmed to us in an email, “In order for a person to be assigned a Social Security number (SSN), they must meet our evidence requirements and be a United States citizen; or an individual lawfully admitted to the United States for permanent residence; or an individual lawfully admitted to the United States on a temporary basis who has Department of Homeland Security (DHS) authorization to work.”
Social Security numbers can also be assigned to “an individual with a valid nonwork reason… For example, they need an SSN because of a federal or state law requiring an SSN to get a benefit or service,” Henriquez said.
Many of the immigrants arriving at the U.S. southern border in recent years have sought asylum, claiming they fear returning to their home countries because of persecution and other dangers.
“While asylum seekers who have come across the border do not have any kind of durable legal status in the United States, they are legally allowed to stay in the country while their asylum application is pending,” Julia Gelatt, associate director of the U.S. Immigration Policy Program at the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute, told us in an April 26 email. “It is legal to request asylum, no matter how one entered the United States.”
“Of all of the foreign-born people who enter the United States each year, most are coming with some kind of legal status – a green card for permanent residence, refugee status, or a temporary visa like a student visa, H-2A farmworker visa, or H-1B high-skilled work visa. Under the Biden administration, many people – but a smaller number than those entering with visas — are also entering the United States with humanitarian parole, which grants the temporary right to live and work in the United States,” Gelatt said.
“Asylum seekers whose application has been pending for more than six months who apply for and are granted work authorization can get SSNs,” Gelatt also said. “People who cross the border illegally who have not applied for asylum usually cannot get work authorization or an SSN.”
So, immigrants can receive a Social Security number, provided they are “authorized to work” in the U.S. and are “lawfully admitted” to the U.S. when they apply.
That section explains that noncitizens may be eligible for SSI payments if they are “lawfully admitted for permanent residence, granted conditional entry, paroled into the United States, admitted as a refugee, granted asylum, an alien whose removal is being withheld,” or if they fall into another classification of immigrants from specific countries such as Cuba, Haiti, Iraq or Afghanistan.
In addition, a noncitizen must be “lawfully residing” in the U.S. or fall into another specific category to receive SSI payments.
By citing the information about SSI, the social media posts confuse that program with Social Security retirement benefits. Both programs are managed by the Social Security Administration, but they are not the same.
SSI is a “needs-based program for people with limited income and resources” who are elderly or disabled, the Social Security Administration explains. The program is funded through general tax revenues, and the amount a person receives is based on federal and state laws which “take into account where you live, who lives with you and what income you receive.”
The social media posts refer to Social Security as a program “that we as taxpayers have paid into our entire lives” and “is broke.” The Social Security retirement program is the one workers pay into throughout their lives. It is an entitlement program funded through taxes paid by workers and employers and collected into trust funds. A recipient’s payments are based on work history and earnings.
Many critics warn the program is going broke, but that’s not accurate. Unless the program is changed or new revenues are raised, the reserves of the Social Security trust fund related to the retirement portion of the program are projected to become depleted in 2033. At that time the program would only have enough income to pay 77% of scheduled retirement benefits, according to the latest report from the trustees overseeing the program.
The Social Security Administration says on its website (emphasis ours), “Lawfully present noncitizens of the United States who meet all eligibility requirements can qualify for Social Security benefits.”
Henriquez, the SSA spokesperson, told us, “In terms of benefits, in addition to several specific eligibility requirements, each Social Security program also has a United States lawful presence payment provision which applies to retirement, survivors, or disability benefits and Supplemental Security Income (SSI).”
Gelatt, of the Migration Policy Institute, said, “Just because someone can get an SSN does not mean they are immediately eligible for Social Security benefits. … Someone in the US is not eligible for Social Security disability or old-age benefits until they have accrued enough work history in the United States – that’s usually at least about 10 years of work, and they have to be ‘lawfully present’ … to be eligible to receive the benefits even once they have that work history.”
Contrary to the claims in the social media posts, someone who is not authorized to be in the U.S. is not eligible for benefits of the Social Security retirement program that is financed by a payroll tax on employers and employees.
Editor’s note: FactCheck.org is one of several organizations working with Facebook to debunk misinformation shared on social media. Our previous stories can be found here. Facebook has no control over our editorial content.
During the April 8 eclipse, people in the path of totality were able to see solar phenomena, including the sun’s corona. But social media posts have shared altered or composite images of these phenomena, claiming one image was “captured by NASA.” It was actually an artist’s rendering of a composite photo of the 2017 eclipse.
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A total solar eclipse — in which the moon blocked Earth’s view of the sun — occurred April 8 in a narrow path across Mexico, the United States and Canada. Crowds gathered in cities along the path, including Dallas, Cleveland and Montreal, to witness totality, the brief period in which the sun’s light is completely obscured by the moon.
In addition to the sky darkening, those in the path of totality were able to see a part of the sun’s atmosphere, called the corona, which is otherwise impossible to see because of the sun’s bright light.
An actual photo provided by NASA shows the total solar eclipse seen in Dallas on April 8. Photo by NASA/Keegan Barber.
Gary Bernstein, a professor of astronomy and astrophysics at the University of Pennsylvania, explained the appearance of the corona in an email to us. “The sun is always in the process of ejecting a tenuous stream of gas into space. This gas emits a very faint light compared to the sun’s main body, so while it’s always present in the sky, we can’t see it on a normal day because it’s lost in the glare of the disk of the sun,” he said.
“During a total eclipse, the moon blocks the disk, and the sky becomes dark enough to see the corona. This only occurs during the totality phase,” Bernstein said.
Another phenomenon known as Baily’s Beads — beads of light that appear around the edge of the moon during an eclipse — occurs just as totality begins and ends. “They occur because the moon has mountains and valleys, and the last rays of the sun can pass through the valleys while the mountains block light. This breaks up the very thin final arc of light into pieces,” Bernstein explained.
But some social media posts have shared the painting of a composite image or an altered image of these phenomena, and misleadingly claimed they were photos of the recent eclipse.
A Digital Painting of a 2017 Composite Photo
One image, featuring a dramatic corona, was shared on Facebook on April 9 with the caption, “Most Detailed Image of the Solar Eclipse.” The post received 88,000 likes, but has since been removed.
Severalotherposts also shared the image on social media, falsely claiming it was a photo taken during the eclipse and “captured by NASA.” Through a reverse image search, we found this image is actuallya digital painting from 2020 by artist Cathrin Machin.
As she wrote in an Instagram caption on July 20, 2020, Machin based her painting on a picture created by astrophotographer Sebastian Voltmer in Wyoming during the 2017 total solar eclipse. Voltmer uploaded his original photo to Flickr in September 2017, and he wrote that the photo was a composite of 35 images taken during the eclipse.
Bernstein explained that many astrophotographers use composite images — that is, an image produced by combining two or more photos — “since we are taking pictures of things the human eye can’t see.” He added: “They’re not what your eye would see but they are ‘real’ in the sense of being an image of what’s truly in the sky.”
Alexei Filippenko, a professor of astronomy at the University of California, Berkeley, told us, “Cameras are good at capturing the solar corona, but only with composites made from images having many different exposures. A given exposure doesn’t have a large ‘dynamic range’ the way the human eye does. The human eye can see faint and bright things well simultaneously, but a photo cannot.”
Image ‘Appears to be Altered’
Another image, which shows both Baily’s Beads and the corona, was posted to Facebook on April 10 with a caption misleadingly claiming it was from the recent eclipse. The caption, originally in Spanish, claims that the photo is “one of the best shots of the solar eclipse.”
But a spokesperson for scientists at the National Solar Observatory told us that “this image appears to be altered.”
“The S-shape of the coronal streamers on the left and right of the corona is the most obvious problem,” the NSO spokesperson told us in an email. “The coronal magnetic field does not bend in such sinuous curves. They are angled and curved at times, but a 90-degree bend in the field lines is unrealistic.”
Filippenko also raised concerns about the waviness of the corona in this image. “Although it could in principle look curvy… I’ve never seen it that way. Always, or almost always, the coronal streamers basically go radially outward from the Sun; they don’t curve much.”
The NSO spokesperson also noted that the placement of the Baily’s Beads in this image were unlikely. “They appear all around the sun simultaneously, which is unrealistic except in a very special eclipse (when the moon was exactly the same size as the Sun, so a very brief eclipse). Also, when the Baily’s beads are still present, the corona is not yet so visible and prominent.”
But during the April 8 eclipse, the moon actually appeared significantly larger than the sun, Filippenko said.
Filippenko also told us the image in the April 10 Facebook post could be a composite photo of several previous eclipses, but not of the April 8 eclipse or any single eclipse.
Editor’s note: FactCheck.org is one of several organizations working with Facebook to debunk misinformation shared on social media. Our previous stories can be found here. Facebook has no control over our editorial content.
Sources
Bernstein, Gary. Professor of astronomy and astrophysics, University of Pennsylvania. Email to FactCheck.org. 15 Apr 2024.
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SciCheck Digest
O.J. Simpson, a football star who was acquitted in the murder of his ex-wife and her friend, died of cancer on April 10 at age 76. Misinformation spread online within hours of the news. Social media posts falsely claimed that the cancer was related to his COVID-19 vaccination. Simpson was vaccinated, but there is no evidence that vaccination causes cancer or that it was to blame for his death.
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Conspiracy theorists and vaccine opponents quickly spun the death of O.J. Simpson into anti-vaccination fodder, even though his death was unrelated.
Simpson, a football star who was acquitted in 1995 of the murder of his ex-wife and her friend, died of cancer at age 76 on April 10, his family announced on social media the following day.
Within hours of the announcement, posts began circulating online claiming that his death was related to his vaccination against COVID-19.
Some of them advanced the widespread but false claim that COVID-19 vaccines cause “turbo cancer.”
“How’d that vaccine safety belt work out for ya OJ? #TurboCancer,” said one post on Instagram.
O.J. Simpson speaks during his parole hearing on July 20, 2017, in Lovelock, Nevada. Simpson was serving a nine- to 33-year prison term for a 2007 armed robbery and kidnapping conviction. Photo by Jason Bean-Pool via Getty Images.
Simpson received the COVID-19 vaccine shortly after it became available, sharing a picture of himself getting the shot in January 2021. He also advocated for others to get vaccinated.
But there’s no link between COVID-19 vaccination and “turbo cancer,” which is a made-up term used by vaccine opponents online. There has been no link between the vaccines and any kind of cancer, for that matter, including prostate cancer, which is what Simpson reportedly had.
We’ve written before about the false claim that COVID-19 vaccines cause “turbo cancer.” It’s worth noting that people who have cancer are at a heightened risk for severe disease and death from COVID-19, and the vaccines can offer protection.
This tactic used by social media influencers to tie high-profile deaths, such as Simpson’s, to vaccination has been happening since the COVID-19 shots first rolled out. Here are some examples that we’ve written about before:
Henry “Hank” Aaron — In the first full month that the vaccines were available, January 2021, baseball legend and civil rights activist Hank Aaron died. He died from natural causes, according to the medical examiner’s office in Fulton County, Georgia, and there was no evidence that his death was a result of being vaccinated against COVID-19. But claims falsely connecting his death to the shot swirled online.
Betty White — The actress best known for her role in the television sitcom “The Golden Girls” died at age 99 on Dec. 31, 2021. White died of natural causes, according to her agent, but various falsehoods appeared on social media about White, including claims that she died after getting a COVID-19 booster shot.
Doug Brignole — A 62-year-old bodybuilder who had heart disease died on Oct. 13, 2022, after contracting COVID-19. “Mr. Brignole’s underlying medical conditions, including heart disease from atherosclerosis would have made him less able to tolerate the effects of COVID-19, contributing to his death,” according to the Los Angeles County Department of Medical Examiner-Coroner’s report. But vaccine opponents falsely suggested that he died from the COVID-19 vaccine. He didn’t. He had been vaccinated 18 months before his death, and there was nothing linking his death to the vaccine.
Jake Flint — The country singer died unexpectedly on Nov. 27, 2022, hours after his wedding. Social media posts baselessly suggested that Flint died because of the COVID-19 vaccine, but the 37-year-old singer received his second dose more than a year before his death. His representative said Flint’s death was “not related in any way” to the vaccine.
Grant Wahl — Wahl, who was a sportswriter, died unexpectedly while covering the soccer World Cup in Qatar on Dec. 9, 2022. Purveyors of vaccine misinformation suggested that his death was caused by COVID-19 vaccination, but he died from the rupture of an aortic aneurysm that he didn’t know he had, his wife, Dr. Céline Gounder, wrote in a post on his Substack on Dec. 14, 2022.
In fact, misinformation purveyors are so quick to try to tie any death to vaccination that, in one case, they declared a death that hadn’t even happened. When Damar Hamlin, a 24-year-old safety for the Buffalo Bills, collapsed on the field during a nationally televised game, conspiracy theorist StewPeterssuggested that Hamlin had “#DiedSuddenly,” a reference to the widespread, but completely unsupported conspiracy theory that COVID-19 vaccines are killing people in large numbers.
As we’ve explained before, Hamlin said his doctors told him he suffered from a cardiac arrest caused by a blow to his chest.
So, the use of Simpson’s high-profile death to perpetuate bogus anti-vaccination claims is nothing new.
Editor’s note: FactCheck.org is one of several organizations working with Facebook to debunk misinformation shared on social media. Our previous stories can be found here. Facebook has no control over our editorial content.
Clarification, April 12: We updated this story to clarify that Hamlin said his doctors told him he suffered from a cardiac arrest caused by a blow to his chest.
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Quick Take
A claim on social media misrepresents the number of people who have registered to vote in three states in 2024 and suggests the new voters are immigrants in the country illegally. There have been 194,000 newly registered voters in those states — not 2 million — and there’s no evidence they are immigrants in the U.S. illegally.
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About 194,000 new voters have registered since the beginning of 2024 in three states — Pennsylvania, Arizona and Texas. That’s in line with the number of new registrations at this point in 2020.
It’s also far short of the 2 million new voters claimed in socialmediaposts that have been circulating recently, one of which was amplified by billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk.
On X, the social media platform that he owns, Musk reposted a claim from a far-right account that said: “The number of voters registering without a photo ID is SKYROCKETING in 3 key swing states: Arizona, Texas, and Pennsylvania. Since the start of 2024: TX: 1,250,710 PA: 580,513 AZ: 220,731.”
It’s true that Pennsylvania and Arizona, which went to former President DonaldTrump in 2016 and to President JoeBiden in 2020, are swing states, but Texas isn’t generally considered to be in play for presidential elections. Trump won Texas in 2016 by 9 percentage points and 2020 by 6.5 points and is comfortably ahead in the polls for 2024.
The post cited data from the Help America Vote Verification system run by the Social Security Administration and suggested that the new voter registrations it counted were for “illegals.” The HAVV system is a tool used by states to verify the identity, but not the citizenship, of “new voters who do not present a valid driver’s license during the voter registration process.”
Musk wrote that the claim in the post was “Extremely concerning.” Musk recently advanced another inaccurate claim about immigration’s impact on elections, as we reported.
Another popular conservative account also spread the inflated voter registration claim, summarizing it this way: “Over 8 million illegal aliens have invaded America under Biden[.] Now we learn more than 2 million voter registrations have been completed *WITHOUT VOTER ID* in the past 3 months in 3 crucial states for 2024[.] Arizona, Pennsylvania, and Texas[.] Now you know why the border is open.”
But those aren’t the numbers of new voters who have been registered in those states.
We reached out to the secretaries of state in each of those three states and were told by all of their offices that the numbers in the social media posts were wrong.
In Pennsylvania, “As of April 3, there have been more than 76,000 new voter registrations in 2024,” a statement provided to us by spokesperson Amy Gulli said. “That is compared to nearly 102,000 new voter registrations in that same time frame in 2020.”
JP Martin, spokesperson for Arizona’s secretary of state, called the claims “spurious” and pointed us to Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer’s response to Musk, which said the number of new voters registered in the state so far this year is about 60,000.
And a statement from Jane Nelson, the Texas secretary of state, said, “It is totally inaccurate that 1.2 million voters have registered to vote in Texas without a photo ID this year. The truth is our voter rolls have increased by 57,711 voters since the beginning of 2024. This is less than the number of people registered in the same timeframe in 2022 (about 65,000) and in 2020 (about 104,000).”
The data that one post cited came from a system run by the Social Security Administration that checks the accuracy of new voters’ information using their Social Security numbers.
The Help America Vote Act, which became law in 2002, requires states to verify identity information for newly registered voters with their respective motor vehicle authority. For voters who don’t have a driver’s license, the law said that the motor vehicle authority must verify the last four digits of the voter’s Social Security number with the Social Security Administration.
Two years after HAVA passed, the Social Security Administration developed the Help America Vote Verification system. That system allows state motor vehicle licensing departments to submit the last four digits of a voter’s Social Security number to the Social Security Administration for verification. Data on the number of requests from each state and the outcome — including whether the information was matched and whether the matches were for a person who is alive or dead — is public.
But it doesn’t show the number of new voters who have actually been registered.
Pennsylvania, for example, “uses the Help America Vote Verification to check partial social security numbers (SSN) not only for voter registration applications, but also for absentee and mail ballot applications,” the statement from the secretary of state’s office explained. “In many cases, the same voter’s partial SSN is being checked more than once in a single year.”
For the first three months in 2024, Pennsylvania had submitted about 568,500 inquiries to the Social Security Administration and about 543,000 of them were matches, according to data provided by the administration. But, as we said, there have been about 76,000 new voters registered in the state so far this year.
Since the HAVV system is designed only to verify identity, and not citizenship, Richer said Arizona — like some other states — uses a motor vehicle database “to confirm citizenship for the vast majority of registration applicants.” But he added, “We also have some other tools at our disposal, or we communicate directly with the voter to get documentation” of citizenship. Some of those other options for proving citizenship include a passport, naturalization documents, or an Indian Census number, Bureau of Indian Affairs card number, or Tribal Treaty card number, according to the Arizona secretary of state website.
In Texas, the secretary of state cast doubt on whether the total number of requests logged by the Social Security Administration was actually correct. Referring to the original claim on X, Nelson said in her statement, “The 1.2 million figure comes from the Social Security Administration’s (SSA) website, which is supposed to report the number of times states have asked to verify an individual’s social security number. The SSA number is clearly incorrect, and we are working now to determine why there is such a large discrepancy.”
Neither the Texas secretary of state’s office nor the Social Security Administration responded to our request about whether or not they had determined if there was an error in the number of inquiries sent from Texas.
So, the actual number of new voters in the three states is about a tenth of what is claimed in the posts. And there’s no evidence to support the suggestion that the new registrants are immigrants in the country illegally.
Editor’s note: FactCheck.org is one of several organizations working with Facebook to debunk misinformation shared on social media. Our previous stories can be found here. Facebook has no control over our editorial content.
Small amounts of aluminum have been used for many decades to strengthen the immune response to vaccines. Exposure to high levels of aluminum has been associated with brain and bone problems, but there is no evidence that the level of exposure provided by vaccines leads to such toxicity, contrary to social media claims.
All vaccines contain an active ingredient, or antigen, and tiny amounts of other substances that allow them to work, stay free of contamination and remain effective for longer.
The antigen is a substance that prompts the body to mount an immune response, including protective antibodies. Antigens can be viruses, bacteria, parts of those or even the genetic code to produce parts of them. All viruses, bacteria or toxins used in vaccines are either inactivated or weakened so that they can’t make people sick. Manufacturers list the components of each vaccine on publicly available package inserts and anyone can check for possible allergens.
Some vaccines may also contain adjuvants, preservatives, stabilizers and residual byproducts from the manufacturing process. All of these components are safe in the concentrations used in vaccines. Many of them are common and can be found in our bodies, drinking water, food or other products we ingest or use regularly.
Adjuvants are substances that help vaccines work better by boosting the body’s immune response. Tiny amounts of aluminum salts, for example, have been safely used for this purpose for decades.
Preservatives are typically added to multidose vaccine vials to prevent contamination once a vial is opened. Although anti-vaccine groups falsely claim the tiny amounts of thimerosal, a preservative that contains ethylmercury, in vaccines is dangerous, it has been shown not to be harmful. Ethylmercury is not the same as methylmercury, a kind of mercury found in some fish and animals that can be toxic at high levels. Ethylmercury is safer because it’s broken down and excreted faster from the body. There is no link between thimerosal in vaccines and autism. Since 2001, thimerosal has not been used in any childhood vaccines in the U.S. other than multidose flu shots.
Stabilizers are used to keep the antigen stable during shipping and storage. These caninclude sugars, amino acids, proteins and gelatin.
Vaccines may also contain surfactants or emulsifiers used to keep all the ingredients blended together and prevent clumping. Anti-vaccine groups sometimes focus on an emulsifier called polysorbate 80 to spread fear. But the compound, which is safely used in vaccines, is found in much higher concentrations in many foods, including ice cream.
Trace amounts of other substances from the manufacturing process sometimes remain in vaccines. For example, many vaccines are made by growing viruses or producing proteins in chicken eggs or cell lines, so vaccines may contain DNA or proteins from those cells or other products from the growth media. Similarly, inactivated vaccines may contain formaldehyde, which is used to kill viruses. Again, the amounts of these substances in vaccines are minuscule and harmless, since the antigens are purified before being put into vials. No vaccine contains fetal cells or tissue.
No vaccines contain antifreeze, despite claims to the contrary. The confusion often stems from the fact that antifreeze contains ethylene glycol, and some vaccines contain polyethylene glycol. While the names are similar, the compounds are very different. The one in vaccines is nontoxic and found in a variety of skin products and medicines.
Adjuvants in vaccines — ingredients added to increase efficacy — help spur the immune system to mount a strong response to the vaccines’ main ingredients. Aluminum serves as an adjuvant in some vaccines, such as those against diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis, and hepatitis A and B.
Aluminum is found in the Earth’s crust, water and the air, as well as in a variety of foods, drugs and other products. Animal and human studies indicate that high doses of aluminum can have neurological effects. People with impaired kidneys who are exposed to too much aluminum over time via dialysis or nutrition delivered directly into their bloodstream have developed problems with their brains and bones.
However, exposure to the small amounts of aluminum in vaccines poses an “extremely low risk to infants,” according to calculations by scientists from the Food and Drug Administration.
Nevertheless, social media posts regularly raiseunfoundedconcerns about aluminum in vaccines, including that it can harm the nervous system, that it exceeds safe levels or it is unsafe because it never leaves the body. As we have written, this is part of a larger pattern in which people attempt to raise concerns about vaccines by making unfounded claims of harms from substances present in tiny amounts.
“Aluminum is a known neurotoxin,” said one recent post on Instagram. “If we keep bombarding the system over and over at so many well visits with an increasing scheduling there has to be a breaking point,” the post misleadingly said, referring to aluminum exposures from vaccines.
The post went on to refer to an FDA “safety limit” of 5 micrograms aluminum per kilogram body weight per day, juxtaposing it with amounts of aluminum in vaccines. But FDA draft guidance recommends this as the limit for total daily aluminum exposure via nutrition products infused intravenously, given to people who cannot absorb nutrients through their guts. This limit does not apply to vaccines, which have their own aluminum limits.
“There are conditions where aluminum can harm the nervous system,” Robert Yokel, an emeritus professor at the University of Kentucky who has studied the toxicology of aluminum, told FactCheck.org in an email. He referenced the example of dialysis patients who were exposed to high levels of aluminum infused directly into their blood.
However, “it is the dose (concentration) that is relevant,” Yokel said, adding that he is not aware of evidence that typical exposures to aluminum harm the brain.
Known Side Effects of Aluminum Adjuvants Are Typically Minor
Aluminum adjuvants in vaccines can cause side effects at the injection site. These local reactions include “some redness, swelling, and a little bit of firmness,” Dr. Neal Halsey, director emeritus of the Institute for Vaccine Safety at Johns Hopkins University, told FactCheck.org, but these don’t lead to long-lasting problems.
Photo by Mathurin NAPOLY/matnapo via Unsplash.
Halsey said that in very rare cases, people can develop a hypersensitivity to the aluminum adjuvants after receiving multiple vaccine doses, leading to nodules at the injection site. This reaction occurs at an estimated rate of 300 to 8,300 per million people.
A recurrent misleading social media claim is that aluminum accumulates in the body and this means it’s unsafe. While most aluminum — whether from vaccines or other sources — is processed in the kidneys and excreted in urine, some does remain in the body. Of the aluminum that stays in the body, the majority is found in the bones.
“Over the human lifespan the aluminum concentration has been shown to increase in several organs, including the brain,” Yokel said.
However, he said, aluminum accumulation is not necessarily unsafe. “This is an example of the ‘dose making the poison,’” he said. “To conclude that aluminum accumulation results in an unsafe condition, without consideration of the level of accumulation, is a non-sequitur fallacy.”
To get a better sense of the possible impact of aluminum from vaccines on infants, researchers from the FDA in 2011 published an updated analysis of the amounts of aluminum infants would be exposed to via vaccine and dietary sources, including breast milk, formula and food.
As their benchmark, the researchers used a minimal risk level for aluminum established by the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry based on experiments in which mice were fed an aluminum salt. The studies measured neurological impacts on mice exposed to aluminum in utero and during early life. The minimal risk level is an estimate of how much of a substance a person can consume “without a detectable risk to health,” according to the agency.
Aluminum-containing vaccines are generally injected into the muscle, and the aluminum is released gradually into the bloodstream from the injection site over time. Taking into account the multiple possible sources of aluminum in the babies’ blood and the slow release from the vaccines, the body burden of aluminum would not be expected to rise above the safe limit, the researchers found. In fact, the level stayed at less than half the safe limit, they wrote, pointing out that this limit itself has a cushion built in and that exposure at or slightly above the limit might be safe.
“We conclude that episodic exposures to vaccines that contain aluminum adjuvant continue to be extremely low risk to infants and that the benefits of using vaccines containing aluminum adjuvant outweigh any theoretical concerns,” the FDA researchers wrote.
The researchers found that during infancy, the aluminum from vaccines at most might contribute twice the amount that the body absorbs from dietary sources, taking into account that the vast majority of aluminum in food or drinks is never absorbed into the body. Other research has indicated that overall, vaccines contribute a negligible amount of aluminum to children’s total exposure.
One study, published in 2017 in Academic Pediatrics, took blood and hair samples from 85 healthy children between 9 and 13 months of age. The researchers did not find a correlation between the vaccines the children had received and the amount of aluminum in their hair or blood, either when looking at total vaccine history or the vaccines they’d gotten the day of testing. This is in keeping with results of a smaller study of 2-month-old preterm infants, which also didn’t find a relationship between vaccination and blood aluminum levels.
Posts Misrepresent Aluminum Safety Limits
As we’ve discussed, there are FDA limits on the amount of aluminum that can be in individual vaccines. Despite this, social media posts repeat claims that aluminum in vaccines exceeds safe limits.
“If the baby’s typical size, and let’s say he or she weighs about 8 pounds, the amount of aluminum in the hepatitis B vaccine alone is almost 14 times the amount of aluminum that’s FDA approved,” Ty Bollinger misleadingly said in a video clip shared in a recent Instagram post. Bollinger, who owns a publishing company, has long been a prolific spreader of misinformation on topics such as cancer and vaccines.
The video refers to a limit of 5 micrograms of aluminum per kilogram body weight. But as we’ve said, this draft recommendation applies to total daily exposure from intravenous nutrition products. FDA regulations have also longstated that these intravenous nutrition products must carry a warning label stating that people with impaired kidney function, including premature babies, “accumulate aluminum at levels associated with central nervous system and bone toxicity” when exposed to levels greater than 4 to 5 micrograms per kilogram per day.
This recommended daily limit does not apply to vaccines, however. No available vaccines in the U.S. are given intravenously. Vaccines using aluminum adjuvants are generally injected in the muscle.
With intravenous nutrition, “100% is delivered into the blood immediately, from which it can distribute throughout the body and be eliminated (by the kidneys, which account for >95% of aluminum elimination),” Yokel explained.
By contrast, absorption of aluminum from vaccines “is not immediate,” he said. The same amount of aluminum given in a vaccine would not produce as high of a blood concentration as the same amount given intravenously, he said, and the aluminum would be eliminated over time as it was “absorbed from the non-intravenous administration site.”
“Bottom line: Any time after the administration by the non-intravenous routes the blood level of aluminum would be less than after the intravenous route,” Yokel said.
Studies of Aluminum Adjuvants Are Ongoing
Online posts and articles also misleadingly imply that there aren’t studies into the safety of aluminum in vaccines. As we’ve said, people have studied the safety of aluminum in vaccines in the past and continue to do so.
One recent post included a screenshot of an Informed Consent Action Network webpage that says, “CDC and NIH unable to provide a single study to support the safety of injecting aluminum adjuvants despite its widespread use in childhood vaccines.” ICAN — a nonprofit founded by Del Bigtree, who has a history of spreading incorrect information about vaccines — describes making Freedom of Information Act requests to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes of Health for “any human or animal studies” that the agencies relied on to “establish the safety of injecting infants and children” with aluminum adjuvants.
It is true that the agencies did not send studies back in response to specific FOIA requests, but this does not mean aluminum adjuvants have not been studied.
According to documents on the ICAN website, the CDC’s Immunization Safety Office ultimately responded that “[t]his request is outside of ISO purview and should be referred to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.” The NIH told ICAN to search publicly available materials, such as the scientific literature.
The FDA assesses the safety of vaccines on a case-by-case basis. This includes evaluating whether the included adjuvants adversely affect the safety of the vaccine.
Outside of the FDA approval process, there also have been attempts to evaluate various safety concerns related to aluminum adjuvants. One 2004 study, published in the Lancet Infectious Diseases, responded to concerns about aluminum-containing versions of diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis, or DTP, vaccines by pooling data from studies in children that compared DTP vaccines with and without aluminum adjuvants.
“The results of our review should be interpreted within the limited quantity and quality of available evidence,” the researchers said. “Within these limits, we found no evidence that aluminum salts cause any serious or long-lasting adverse events.”
Another concern was that aluminum in vaccines might cause a family of autoimmune disorders, but this has not been borne out. The evidence doesn’t support the notion that these conditions are caused by aluminum adjuvants, according to a 2017 review article published in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology: In Practice.
For instance, the researchers said, one large study found that people who received allergy shots containing a very high cumulative dose of aluminum — used outside the U.S. — had a lower rate of autoimmune disease than those who received other allergy treatments.
Most recently, a study published in 2022 in Academic Pediatrics found a “potential safety signal” indicating an association between aluminum-containing vaccines and asthma. The study relied on medical records from Vaccine Safety Datalink, a vaccine safety monitoring collaboration between the CDC and health care organizations.
The researchers chose to study asthma because of animal data indicating a theoretical immunological mechanism by which aluminum-containing vaccines could increase asthma risk while also decreasing the risk of autoimmune diseases, such as Type 1 diabetes. Interestingly, a separate VSD study, published in 2021 in Pediatrics, found that increased aluminum exposure via vaccines was associated with a reduced risk of Type 1 diabetes.
Sometimes potential safety signals turn out to be real, and sometimes they do not. The question of whether aluminum-containing vaccines are linked to asthma “is now undergoing further evaluation and more studies to try to determine if it’s really true or whether it’s just an association,” meaning there is no cause-and-effect relationship, Halsey said.
Editor’s note: SciCheck’s articles providing accurate health information and correcting health misinformation are made possible by a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The foundation has no control over FactCheck.org’s editorial decisions, and the views expressed in our articles do not necessarily reflect the views of the foundation.
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Quick Take
Former President Donald Trump attended the wake for slain New York City Police Officer Jonathan Diller and met with his family. But social media posts make the unsupported claim that Trump paid off the family’s mortgage. A nonprofit announced it would pay the mortgage and told a news outlet it had no contact with Trump about the Diller mortgage.
Full Story
Former President Donald Trump attended the March 28 wake for New York City Police Officer Jonathan Diller, who was shot to death while approaching an illegally parked car in Queens. One of the men in the car, Guy Rivera, of Queens, has been charged with first-degree murder of a police officer, attempted murder and criminal possession of a weapon.
Trump also met with Diller’s widow and 1-year-old son at the wake, the New York Times reported.
According to NBC News, after the wake on Long Island, Trump talked to reporters about violent crime and said, “We have to get back to law and order. We have to do a lot of things differently because this is not working. This is happening too often.”
(Trump’s comments about violent crime don’t reflect recent murder statistics in New York City. The number of murders citywide dropped 10.7% from 2022 to 2023. The number of murders in 2023 was also down 16.4% compared with 2020, the last year Trump was in office. This year, murders are down 17.2%, as of March 31, compared with the same time period last year.)
Police officers attend the wake for New York City Police Officer Jonathan Diller on March 28 in Massapequa, New York. Photo by Spencer Platt via Getty Images.
While Trump did honor Diller and his family by attending the wake, social media posts are making an unfounded claim that Trump provided financial support for the officer’s family.
“President Trump quietly paid off slain NYPD officer’s mortgage all while Democratic Presidents were attending a woke fundraiser,” reads the text on a March 31 Instagram post. (President Joe Biden attended an event in New York City on March 28 with former presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton that raised $26 million for Biden’s reelection campaign.)
In a video on the Instagram post, David Zere, a host on Real America’s Voice, is seen reporting from outside the Long Island funeral home. Zere says, “Trump’s inside the funeral home right now. … But the story here is that, you know, Trump gave a donation to Tunnel to Towers. [I] believe he paid off the mortgage for this family through Tunnels to Towers and had a phone call with the family.”
A March 27 Facebook post, from a person who frequently publishes posts critical of Biden, expounds on Trump’s purported gift to the Diller family. Citing information received from “NCPD Robbery Squad guys,” the post says, “My neighbor is a funeral director and is doing the wake for the NYPD cop who was killed yesterday. He met with the widow and the Department this morning. While she was in his office, Pat Hendry the PBA president says excuse me, she has to take this call. It was Donald Trump. A few minutes after that she got a call from the head of Tunnel to Towers, they are paying her mortgage off.” The post continues, “Donnie T donated all the $ to cover the entire mortgage.”
But we could find no media reports or evidence that Trump paid for the Dillers’ mortgage, and Trump has not said he made such a donation.
The Tunnel to Towers Foundation — an organization that “pays off the mortgages for the families of law enforcement officers and firefighters who are killed in the line of duty, pass away from 9/11-related illnesses, and leave behind young children” — issued a press release on March 28 saying that the foundation was covering the mortgage for the Diller home. The press release makes no mention of Trump.
“The Tunnel to Towers Foundation has made a promise to pay off the mortgage on the Massapequa Park, Long Island home of NYPD Officer Jonathan Diller,” the release said.
Foundation chairman Frank Siller said in the release, “Every day Officer Diller donned his uniform, there was a risk he may not come home. We will honor Officer Diller not only for his sacrifice but for his unwavering resolve to protect the people of New York City by ensuring his family can stay in their home, forever.”
In response to the social media claims that Trump paid for the Dillers’ mortgage, the news website Greater Long Island reported a Tunnel to Towers spokesperson “said the foundation has not been in touch with President Trump or his team on this matter.”
Also, Zere, of Real America’s Voice, posted on X on March 28, “I may have been mistaken about Trump donating the money to Tunnel and Towers for the Diller family. I had several people approach me this was the case. I apologize if I reported misinformation.” On a March 30 post on X, Zere said, “I retracted the story a few hours later….I did not originate this…i reached out to Tunnels to Towers and apologized.”
CBS News reported that the Promise of Hope Foundation paid for Diller’s funeral costs, and the tip line COP-SHOT donated $10,000 for education expenses for his son.
This year, 10 police officers, including Diller, have been killed by gunfire in the U.S., according to the nonprofit Officer Down Memorial Page.
We reached out to the Tunnel to Towers Foundation and to the Trump campaign for comment on the claim made in the social media posts, but we didn’t receive a response from either.
Editor’s note: FactCheck.org is one of several organizations working with Facebook to debunk misinformation shared on social media. Our previous stories can be found here. Facebook has no control over our editorial content.
Both Easter and the Transgender Day of Visibility happened to fall on March 31 this year. President Joe Biden recognized both occasions, as he has done every year in office. But some social media posts and conservative politicians characterized his acknowledgement of Transgender Day of Visibility as “mocking” Easter and declaring “war” on Christianity.
Full Story
Every year since President Joe Biden took office in 2021, he hasissuedaproclamation recognizing March 31 as the Transgender Day of Visibility.
Rachel Crandall Crocker, executive director and co-founder of Transgender Michigan, started the day of recognition in 2009. She chose March 31 as the date because it was far enough away from Pride Month in June and the more somber Transgender Day of Remembrance— held every year in November to commemorate those in the community who have been killed out of hate — to have its own presence.
This year, Easter also fell on March 31. Biden issued Easter wishes that day, and the White House held its traditional Easterfestivities for children on April 1.
The date for Easter shifts each year, but is always held between March 22 and April 25. The only other year that Easter has fallen on March 31 since the Transgender Day of Visibility began was in 2013.
But the fact that Biden issued his annual recognition of Transgender Visibility Day in a year when it coincided with Easter touched off a firestorm among some conservatives on social media.
One such post claimed Biden was “intentionally and purposely mocking” Easter. Another claimed, “BIDEN DECLARED WAR!!!”
Incidentally, March 31 was also César Chávez Day, honoring the founder of the United Farm Workers. Biden issued a proclamation recognizing that, too, although it didn’t get the same attention as his recognition of a day for transgender people, who have become a focal point in the culture wars.
Former President Donald Trump’s campaign, for example, described the recognition of Transgender Day of Visibility on Easter as “appalling,” and on March 30 his national press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, called on the White House “to issue an apology to the millions of Catholics and Christians across America who believe tomorrow is for one celebration only — the resurrection of Jesus Christ.”
Johnson’s post on X included screen shots of headlines that said “Biden Proclaims Easter Sunday ‘Transgender Day of Visibility,’” and “White House Bans Religious Easter Eggs From Art Contest.” The speaker wrote, “Banning sacred truth and tradition—while at the same time proclaiming Easter Sunday as ‘Transgender Day’—is outrageous and abhorrent.”
But, like the characterization that the administration had chosen to supplant Easter with Transgender Day of Visibility, the claim about the Easter egg ban is misleading, too.
In a statement, the American Egg Board said that it “has been a supporter of the White House Easter Egg Roll for over 45 years and the guideline language referenced in recent news reports has consistently applied to the board since its founding, across administrations.”
The Submission must not contain material that violates or infringes any rights of any other party, including but not limited to copyright, trademark, privacy, publicity or any other intellectual property rights;
The Submission must not in any way disparage Sponsor or any other person or party;
The Submission must not contain material that is inappropriate, indecent, obscene hateful, tortious, defamatory, slanderous or libelous;
The Submission must not contain material that promotes bigotry, racism, hatred or harm against any group or individual or promotes discrimination based on race, gender, religion, nationality, disability, sexual orientation or age;
The Submission must not contain material that is unlawful, in violation of or contrary to the laws or regulations of the United States or of any jurisdiction where Submission is created.
The Submission must not promote illegal drugs or firearms (or the use of any of the foregoing), or any activities that may appear unsafe or dangerous;
The Submission must not include any questionable content, religious symbols, overtly religious themes, or partisan political statements; and
The Submission must be consistent with the image and values of Sponsor and be consistent with and satisfy the purpose of the submission.
Similarly, first lady Jill Biden’s communications director, Elizabeth Alexander, issued a statement saying, “the American Egg Board flyer’s standard non-discrimination language requesting artwork has been used for the last 45 years, across all Dem & Republican Admins—for all WH Easter Egg Rolls —incl previous Administration’s.”
The theme for this year’s Easter egg decoration contest was “Celebrating National Guard Families.”
Editor’s note: FactCheck.org is one of several organizations working with Facebook to debunk misinformation shared on social media. Our previous stories can be found here. Facebook has no control over our editorial content.
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Quick Take
New York Attorney General Letitia James, who won a civil fraud case against former President Donald Trump, has a net worth of about $2.7 million, her most recent financial disclosure statement shows. But social media posts baselessly claim she’s worth $15 million. The claim appears to come from a website that says it “cannot guarantee its accuracy.”
Full Story
Letitia James, New York state’s attorney general, has a personal net worth of about $2.7 million, according to her most recent financial disclosure statement, an accounting required of all state officers and employees whose annual salary exceeds $108,638.
But some partisan social media accounts claim she has a personal net worth of $15 million, which they suggest may indicate that she is guilty of “fraud.”
In February, James won a judgment of more than $450 million in a civil fraud case she had brought against former President Donald Trump and his organization.
“URGENT! Letitia James should be investigated for fraud immediately,” Terrence K. Williams, a conservative comedian we’vewrittenaboutbefore, said in a March 26 post on Facebook. “Her Net Worth Jumped from a 100k to 15 Million in 2023.”
Williams didn’t offer any support for his claim about James’ finances. But a website called the Net Worth Club posted a story in October with the headline, “Letitia James Real Estate Deals and $15 Million Wealth.” The story doesn’t cite the sources of its information, and a disclaimer at the bottom of the page says, in part, “We do our best to ensure that the information is accurate and up-to-date, but we cannot guarantee its accuracy or completeness.”
The website is registered to an owner in India, who did not respond to our email seeking details on the sources for the story, so we don’t know how it arrived at the $15 million figure.
But, as we said, according to the financial disclosure James filed with the state for her 2022 finances, her personal worth was about $2.7 million.
The disclosure form, which asks elected officials to give ranges for the worth of their assets and debts, shows that James earns between $175,000 and $320,000 a year. That includes income from her position as attorney general, her salary as an adjunct professor and income from rental properties.
The value of her real estate — which includes a Brooklyn building that has four rental units and a single family home in Virginia that is described as an investment property — is between $3.4 million and $3.7 million.
And James listed her debts, which appear to be mortgages, as being between $850,000 and $1.3 million.
We also found no support for Williams’ claim that the attorney general’s net worth in 2023 “jumped from $100k,” suggesting that James has profited from her office as the state’s top law enforcement official. Since James was elected in 2018, herfinancialdisclosuresindicate that she had had a personal net worth of about $2 million each year.
We emailed James’ office asking if there were any assets she had acquired since her last financial disclosure that may have added to her total net worth, but we didn’t get a response. Her disclosure form for 2023 is due on May 15.
Editor’s note: FactCheck.org is one of several organizations working with Facebook to debunk misinformation shared on social media. Our previous stories can be found here. Facebook has no control over our editorial content.
The Francis Scott Key Bridge near Baltimore collapsed after being hit by a cargo ship in the early morning on March 26. Although all evidence points to an accident, conspiracy theorists spread the baseless claim that it was intentionally caused by a “cyber-attack.” Officials have dismissed the claim.
From the start, authorities have described the crash as an accident.
At the first press conference, held at about 6:30 a.m., Baltimore Police Commissioner Richard Worley said, “There is absolutely no indication that there is any terrorism or that this was done on purpose.” His department had been working with “the FBI and other federal and state agencies to get all the intel that we have, but there’s absolutely no indication that it was intentional,” he said.
Later in the day, William DelBagno, who leads the FBI’s Baltimore field office, said the same thing: “There is no specific or credible information to suggest that there are ties to terrorism in this incident.”
That office also released a similar statement the same day.
And President Joe Biden, who made remarks from the White House in the afternoon, said, “Everything so far indicates that this was a terrible accident. At this time we have no other indication, no other reason to believe there was any intentional act here.”
In an aerial view, the cargo ship Dali is seen after running into and collapsing the Francis Scott Key Bridge on March 26, 2024, in Baltimore, Maryland. Photo by Tasos Katopodis via Getty Images.
Despite the lack of evidence and the clear statements from officials, conspiracy-laden claims have been racking up millions of views on social media.
For example, Alex Jones — the conspiracy theorist behind InfoWars who is perhaps best known for denying that the school shooting in Sandy Hook, Connecticut, actually happened — wrote on X, “Looks deliberate to me. A cyber-attack is probable. WW3 has already started…”
He cited nothing for support other than a post from social media influencer Andrew Tate, who also has a history of spreading misinformation. Tate had claimed, “This ship was cyber-attacked. Lights go off and it deliberately steers towards the bridge supports. Foreign agents of the USA attack digital infrastructures. Nothing is safe. Black Swan event imminent.”
The idea of a “black swan” event came from mathematician Nassim Nicholas Taleb, who described the theory in a 2007 book as an improbable event that has a large impact and is later explained as being less random than it actually was. However, the term has recently been adopted by conspiracy theorists and has appeared in many of the posts suggesting that the bridge collapse was intentional.
As we said, though, there’s no evidence that the crash was anything other than accidental.
Here’s what we know so far:
A cargo ship named the Dali, which was registered in Singapore, departed the Port of Baltimore shortly before 1 a.m. It was at about half of its capacity, carrying almost 5,000 shipping containers, according to the Synergy Group, which was operating the vessel.
The ship traveled about 4 nautical miles, which is approximately 4.5 miles, and reached speeds of about 8 knots, which is a little over 9 miles per hour, according to location data compiled by myshiptracking.com.
The ship hit a pylon supporting the bridge at about 1:30 a.m., Jennifer Homendy, chair of the National Transportation Safety Board, said at an afternoon press conference.
Before hitting the bridge, the ship’s crew “notified authorities of a power issue,” Maryland Gov. Wes Moore had explained at a press conference earlier in the day. He confirmed that the ship had lost power.
Between the time of that mayday call and the collapse of the bridge, officials were able to stop traffic going onto the bridge, Moore said.
There was also a crew of eight workers on the bridge filling potholes — two of them were rescued and six are presumed dead. In an interview on NBC’s “Today” show on March 27, Moore said that first responders had “started to send out notifications” to the workers, and the Baltimore Banner reported on radio communications between officers in the moments before the crash that indicated there was less than a minute between when officers began their communication about the workers and the crash.
The six workers who are presumed dead were immigrants who had comefrom Guatemala, El Salvador, Mexico and Honduras.
Not much information on the crash is available at this point, Homendy said, since the NTSB had been “standing back” in order to allow the search-and-rescue operation to continue for possible survivors. That rescue operation ended at about 7:30 p.m. on March 26, U.S. Coast Guard Rear Admiral Shannon Gilreath said at an evening press conference.
So, according to the early assessment of all authorities who have publicly spoken, this was an accident. There has been no evidence so far to indicate it was an intentional crash, or that it was caused by a “cyber-attack.”
Editor’s note: FactCheck.org is one of several organizations working with Facebook to debunk misinformation shared on social media. Our previous stories can be found here. Facebook has no control over our editorial content.
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Quick Take
Local governments are preparing residents for an influx of visitors during the April 8 solar eclipse that will be most visible along a narrow path through the U.S., with one Oklahoma county inviting the National Guard for support. But social media posts baselessly claim the preparations suggest “something catastrophic” will occur during the eclipse.
Full Story
A total solar eclipse — in which the moon briefly blocks the face of the sun — will be visible on a narrow path from western Mexico, through the United States, and into Maritime Canada on April 8. At locations along the “path of totality” where the astronomical alignment can be best viewed, the full eclipse will last four and a half minutes. The last time the U.S. experienced a total eclipse was in August 2017, and the next opportunity to see one in the U.S. will be in August 2044.
National agencies and local governments have been preparing for the impact the event will have on towns along the path of the total eclipse due to the number of visitors expected at those locations.
People attend a solar eclipse viewing event at the Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles on Aug. 21, 2017. Photo by Xinhua/Zhao Hanrong via Getty Images.
In advance of the partial eclipse in 2023 and the total eclipse in 2024, the U.S. Department of Transportation published a fact sheet that explained, “Because a solar eclipse is a relatively rare type of planned special event, it can generate large volumes of traffic for which State and local departments of transportation (DOTs) will need to prepare.” That fact sheet also noted that the total eclipse in 2017 “created delays and queuing on rural interstates and highways across the Nation.”
The health department of Oswego County, New York, like many counties that will have a view of the total eclipse, has suggested that residents fill up vehicle gasoline tanks and buy groceries before visitors arrive in the area. Lorain County, Ohio, has advised that cell phone signals may be lost “due to system overload” caused by the influx of visitors. Many school districts will close or have early dismissals to allow students to experience the eclipse.
But some social media posts are making unfounded claims that the government preparations for the eclipse are signs of something ominous.
Counties Anticipate Crowds, Call in Support
The text on a March 19 Instagram post reads, “1 month Before the ECLIPSE They are Declaring State of Disaster!” An unidentified woman in the video in the post says, in part, “What in the world is really going on? A month before the eclipse, Travis County [Texas] declares a state of emergency, and also asks for help because they believe their hospitals are going to be full. There’s going to be a lot of chaos going around. Schools are going to be closed. … No signal. Something just doesn’t add up. We’ve had eclipses before and we’ve never seen this type of stuff.”
It’s true that Travis County, Texas, issued a disaster declaration on March 8. The city of Lago Vista explained why on its website on March 11: “Travis County Judge Andy Brown declared a local state of disaster in anticipation of extremely large crowds, increased traffic and strains on first responders, hospitals and roads since we are in the direct path of totality for the eclipse. This disaster declaration will allow first responders and public safety officials to better manage traffic and crowds as we are expected to have our population double in size for this once in a lifetime phenomenon.”
A viral TikTok post shared on Facebook questions why McCurtain County, Oklahoma, is calling up the National Guard during the eclipse. “This is getting wild. The National Guard is going to be here now for the solar eclipse. … But things get much weirder.” The video’s narrator then says “an elite chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear unit” also will be housed nearby during the eclipse. The narrator adds, “People are going on Twitter making statements like this, ‘Something strange is definitely happening.’”
Oklahoma National Guard troops will indeed be on hand during the event, and a statement from the Guard explained their role.
“McCurtain County Emergency Management requested our support because they expect up to 100,000 additional people visiting their communities to watch the eclipse,” Lt. Col. Jabonn Flurry, commander of the 63rd Civil Support Team, said in a March 18 press release from the Oklahoma National Guard. “This influx of visitors has the potential to overtax local resources and thanks to the training and experience our Guardsmen have working alongside local agencies all across Oklahoma, the CST is uniquely qualified to support our fellow Oklahomans.”
The press release also said, “In the event of a HAZMAT emergency like an industrial fire that requires specialized training, the 63rd CST’s resources will respond, allowing local emergency responders to continue their assistance to citizens and the expected increase of visitors.”
The release didn’t mention the post’s claim about an “elite chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear unit,” but it noted: “Members of the 63rd CST receive more than 650 hours of HAZMAT and high-tech training from agencies such as the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Department of Energy, the Department of Justice, and the Environmental Protection Agency.”
This is not the first time local governments have geared up for the impact of an eclipse, contrary to what some social media posts claim. The Oregon Office of Emergency Management prepared for a year ahead of the 2017 eclipse. The National Park Service suggested stocking up with food, water and gas in preparation for viewing the 2017 eclipse in Grand Teton National Park. The state of Wyoming also experienced unanticipated, record-breaking traffic jams after the eclipse that year.
NASA recommends that everyone viewing the eclipse follow health and safety measures, including the use of specialized eye protection or indirect viewing equipment.
Editor’s note: FactCheck.org is one of several organizations working with Facebook to debunk misinformation shared on social media. Our previous stories can be found here. Facebook has no control over our editorial content.
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Quick Take
Early in the COVID-19 pandemic, some stimulus checks were sent to people who had died. The issue was explained in government reports and the media when it happened in 2020. But a social media post has resurrected the issue and falsely claimed that it occurred during the Biden administration. It actually happened during the Trump administration.
Full Story
Disinformation dealers often rehash old claims in order to stir up reactions from their followers on social media. For example, one recent post on Facebook revisited an issue from 2020 and added a new, false twist.
The post came from OpenTheBooks.com, a project of the nonprofit organization American Transparency, which has recently been featured by two conservative outlets, the Epoch Times and Newsmax, that have a history of spreading falseclaims. The post said: “Biden paid 2.2 million dead people $3.6 billion during the covid pandemic.”
It’s not true that the payments happened during the Biden administration. But here’s what is true about the old issue that the post is reviving.
On March 27, 2020, shortly after the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a pandemic, then-President Donald Trump signed the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act, or CARES Act, into law. That act offered several programs aimed at easing the economic impact of the pandemic, including one that provided stimulus checks of up to $1,200 to eligible individuals, plus $500 per child under age 17.
Most of those checks — the first three batches, which made up about 72% of them — had been sent out by May 31, 2020, according to a report from the Office of the Inspector General published June 25, 2020. And some of those checks had gone to people who were dead, the report said.
“Typically, IRS uses third-party data, such as the death records maintained by the [Social Security Administration] to detect and prevent erroneous and fraudulent tax refund claims,” the report explained. “However, Treasury and IRS did not use the death records to stop payments to deceased individuals for the first three batches of payments because of the legal interpretation under which IRS was operating.”
Lawyers for the IRS thought that they couldn’t deny payments to people who had filed taxes in 2018 or 2019. Because the CARES Act mandated that the payments be distributed as “rapidly as possible,” the U.S. Treasury and the IRS “used many of the operational policies and procedures developed in 2008 for the stimulus payments which did not include using death records as a filter to halt payments to decedents,” according to the Government Accountability Office report.
As a result, as of April 30, 2020, almost 1.1 million payments worth about $1.4 million had gone to dead people, according to the report.
This news was covered by the media at the time, so there’s nothing new here.
A later report, issued on May 24, 2021, by the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration, found that as of July 16, 2020, before Biden took office, 2.2 million payments totaling $3.5 billion had gone to dead people. That’s where the social media post got its numbers.
The OpenTheBooks.com post linked to its report “The COVID Aid Waste Compendium,” which cited a San Francisco Chronicle article about IRS payments to dead people. That news article, which relied on the inspector general’s report, also said the IRS had later asked for those payments back, and that the second- and third-round stimulus payments approved later by Congress specifically excluded people who had died.
In the inspector general’s report, researchers removed duplicate payments and payments that had been cancelled or returned as undeliverable, as well as those that had been returned voluntarily. They arrived at a final figure of 1.4 million payments totaling $2.5 billion that had gone to dead people.
So, the Facebook post from American Transparency uses estimates from an old report about an issue that has already been publicized. And it names the wrong presidential administration — this happened under the Trump administration, which ended Jan. 21, 2021.
Editor’s note: FactCheck.org is one of several organizations working with Facebook to debunk misinformation shared on social media. Our previous stories can be found here. Facebook has no control over our editorial content.
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Quick Take
The Ku Klux Klan caused a divisive Democratic National Convention in 1924 but failed to nominate its preferred candidate. A social media post shows a photo of a Klan march to falsely claim it depicts Democratic delegates at the convention in New York. But the photo is from a Klan funeral march later that year in Wisconsin.
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Democrats and Republicans have criticized each other for years with claims about ties to or support for the Ku Klux Klan and other white supremacist groups, as we’ve previouslywritten.
Historians say the Klan — which was founded after the Civil War and had a resurgence in the 1920s — has sought to achieve power through both parties. The organization ignited a particularly divisive Democratic National Convention in July 1924 in New York City, when the Klan-backed candidate failed to capture the party’s nomination.
A century later, amid another election season, a social media post mislabels an archival photo to misleadingly portray the participants at that Democratic convention.
An Instagram post on March 13 shows a march of Ku Klux Klan members in their white hoods and robes, with text that claims it is an “AUTHENTIC PHOTO OF THE 1924 NATIONAL DEMOCRAT CONVENTION.” The text on the photo also says, “MAKE SENSE NOW?”
The post has received more than 9,200 likes. One commenter wrote, in part: “The Democrats have NEVER voted in the history of America to make life easier for blacks. Only the Republicans have done that.”
But Linda Gordon, a history professor at New York University, told us in an email that the image in the Instagram post “is not a photo of the [D]emocratic convention” of 1924.
The Wisconsin archive describes the photo as “Ku Klux Klan (KKK) wearing iconic masks and white robes parading down King Street to Schroeder Funeral Home for the funeral of Police officer Herbert Dreger.”
Reuters debunked similar posts in 2020 and noted that the false description of the photo has circulated on social media since 2015.
Gordon told Reuters that the Klan’s efforts to influence politics in the 1920s was “pretty much equally divided between Democrats and Republicans.”
‘A Powerful Force’ in Both Parties
Felix Harcourt, associate professor of history at Austin College in Texas, told us in an email that the Klan was “a powerful force” in the Democratic Party in the 1920s and at the 1924 convention, where there was also strong opposition to the Klan.
“The Klan lobbied furiously to prevent the party from endorsing a platform plank that would condemn the group by name. The organization’s leaders played an influential role in denying Al Smith, the Catholic governor of New York, the Democratic nomination during the contested convention,” said Harcourt, whose research focuses on the Klan’s political power.
The effort to include a platform statement condemning the Klan at the Democratic convention failed. But the Klan’s preferred candidate, William G. McAdoo, did not capture the nomination, which went to John C. Davis on the 103rd ballot.
“At the same time, the Klan was highly opportunistic, with little partisan attachment beyond what served the organization and its bigoted goals,” Harcourt said. “So, the Klan wasn’t just a powerful force in the Democratic Party — it was a powerful force in politics more broadly. It was lobbying Democratic leaders at their 1924 convention. It was also lobbying leaders during the Republican convention in 1924, albeit in a less visible way since the nomination wasn’t really contested and there was no similar effort to put forward a plank denouncing the Klan by name.”
“Eventually, almost everyone running in the presidential election that year denounced the Klan by name, with the exception of Calvin Coolidge, who farmed the responsibility out to his vice presidential nominee, Charles Dawes. And the Klan’s national leadership in turn backed (in a limited way) Coolidge,” Harcourt said.
Coolidge, the Republican incumbent, won reelection in 1924.
“The Klan’s national leadership then very vocally and actively backed Republican Herbert Hoover against Democrat Al Smith in 1928,” Harcourt said. Hoover easily defeated Smith.
In recent years, Harcourt also said, “that opportunism — of the Klan and of the broad panoply of white nationalist groups that have come to largely replace the Klan — has often remained in place. The most prominent example, of course, is David Duke, who has run for office as both a Democrat and a Republican and who has endorsed both Democratic and Republican politicians.”
Editor’s note: FactCheck.org is one of several organizations working with Facebook to debunk misinformation shared on social media. Our previous stories can be found here. Facebook has no control over our editorial content.
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Quick Take
There’s no law in Missouri that prevents pregnant women from getting divorced. But social media posts claim Missouri women “cannot divorce their spouse if they are pregnant.” Legal experts told us a judge may wait to finalize a divorce until after a baby is born to determine custody and other arrangements.
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Nowhere in Missouri law does it say pregnant women are barred from getting divorced.
But a judge handling a case where one party is pregnant may wait to finalize that divorce until the baby is born, which, experts told us, is done in order to consolidate custody and child-support agreements with other end-of-marriage arrangements.
But recent posts on social media have revived an old claim that first circulated in 2022, saying, “Women in Republican-controlled Missouri cannot divorce their spouse if they are pregnant.”
That version of the claim was shared by Brian Tyler Cohen, a liberal commentator with a large social media following who we’ve writtenaboutbefore. His Instagram post garnered more than 10,000 likes and was copied and reposted by others, including MSNBC commentator Joy Reid.
Cohen is misrepresenting divorce procedures in Missouri, though.
Either spouse is free to file for a divorce during pregnancy in Missouri. Someone petitioning for divorce must answer eight questions, including the dates of marriage and separation, proposed custody and support arrangements for any existing children, and “[w]hether the wife is pregnant.”
Barbara Glesner Fines, a professor and dean emerita of the University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law, explained to us in an email, “Nothing in the statute permits a court to make any judgments regarding custody or support for an unborn child, so those arrangements need to be made after the child is born. Likewise, there is nothing in the statutes that expressly prohibits a court from finalizing a divorce while a party is pregnant.”
“Procedurally,” she said, “a court could grant the divorce and make arrangements for child custody and support for any children who have been born. Then, if and when another child is born after the divorce, one of the parents could bring a separate action for parentage, custody and support for that child.”
The claim first circulated online in 2022, when newsoutlets published stories about women in Missouri who had experienced delays in their divorce proceedings due to pregnancy. The articles included comments from some lawyers who attested to the custom of Missouri judges to wait until birth to finalize a divorce, although none of them pointed to a statute or court rule that mandated judges to do so.
“I suspect that the real reason they aren’t granting divorces comes down to efficiency,” Fines said. “If the court waits until the child is born, issues of divorce, property division, parentage, parenting plans, and support can all be determined in one action. If the court determines these issues while a parent is pregnant, there will have to be a second court case after the child is born. The court will have to reconsider all the same complicated factors for custody and support that it did in the first action and it is possible that the custody and support decisions for any children involved in the first action might need to be altered.”
“So, bottom line, what I suspect is happening is that courts are exercising their discretion to schedule hearings and render judgments in a way that is more efficient,” Fines said.
Mary Kay O’Malley, director of the Child and Family Services Clinic at the University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law, agreed. “It’s not a statute in the divorce law — what it is is a practicality issue,” she told us in a phone interview.
Importantly, Missouri is one of 22 states that has adopted a version of the Uniform Law Commission’s Parentage Act, which offers a legal framework for parent-child relationships that is consistent across states.
That act, as adopted into Missouri state law, says, “A man shall be presumed to be the natural father of a child if” the baby is born within 300 days of the end of the marriage “by death, annulment, declaration of invalidity, or dissolution,” which is the legal term for divorce in Missouri.
So, the law “contemplates that divorce could be granted during pregnancy,” Courtney Joslin, a professor at University of California, Davis School of Law and contributor to the most recent update of the Uniform Parentage Act in 2017, told us in a phone interview.
Joslin explained that California, where she lives and works, also has nothing in state law “that precludes granting a divorce when a spouse is pregnant.” She pointed to the 300-day rule, which is also in California state law.
The recent focus on Missouri in social media posts is likely due to a bill introduced by state Rep. Ashley Aune that would change the law to specifically state that a divorce could be finalized if the couple is expecting a baby. The proposed addition to the state’s existing law says: “Pregnancy status shall not prevent the court from entering a judgment of dissolution of marriage or legal separation.”
A similar bill was introduced in Texas in 2023, but it died in committee.
Editor’s note: FactCheck.org is one of several organizations working with Facebook to debunk misinformation shared on social media. Our previous stories can be found here. Facebook has no control over our editorial content.
Democratic U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York reported having $60,000 at most in bank accounts and other savings and as much as $50,000 in student loan debt in her 2023 financial disclosure report. But social media posts baselessly claim that since becoming a member of Congress, she is “a verified multi-millionaire.”
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U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York became the youngest woman to serve in Congress when she started her first term in the House in January 2019.
Recent posts have made a baseless claim about Ocasio-Cortez’s financial status since becoming a member of Congress, suggesting she has inexplicably profited from her time in office.
A March 3 post on Facebook shows an illustration of Ocasio-Cortez slumped on a street bench, with text that claims, “This Bartender Was Thousands of Dollars In Debt When Running For Office But Five Years Later Is A Verified Multi-Millionaire On 174k/yr Salary.”
A March 4 post on Instagram, which shows several photos of Ocasio-Cortez, claims, “A broke bartender elected to Congress, assumes office in 2019 with a salary of $155,000 is now worth $29 million and the DOJ is prosecuting Donald Trump.”
Former President Trump has been indicted four times and has been charged with 91 felony counts in two cases pursued by the Department of Justice and cases prosecuted by the states of New York and Georgia. In addition, a New York judge fined Trump $354.8 million and about $100 million in interest in a civil fraud suit in February, and a federal judge ordered the former president to pay writer E. Jean Carroll $83.3 million based on a jury’s verdict in a January defamation trial.
Ocasio-Cortez was the subject of an investigation by the Office of Congressional Ethics, which found in June 2022 that she “may have accepted impermissible gifts associated with her attendance at the Met Gala in 2021.” The nonpartisan office said Ocasio-Cortez didn’t pay for the rented dress she wore to the gala or for hairstyling and make-up bills until after she was questioned by the office.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez speaks to the media on Feb. 28 in Washington, D.C. Photo by Jemal Countess via Getty Images for Congressional Integrity Project.
The claims about the congresswoman being a “Multi-Millionaire” are unfounded, however.
According to Ocasio-Cortez’s last financial disclosure — a report required each year from members of Congress — she had savings, checking, brokerage and 401(k) accounts each with $1,001 to $15,000, or a total of $60,000 in assets at most. Her report filed on Aug. 13, 2023, also showed a liability of between $15,001 and $50,000 in student loan debt.
Reuters also found no evidence to support a claim in 2022 that Ocasio-Cortez had a net worth of $29 million. The congresswoman addressed the claim in 2022, citing the Reuters fact-check article on her campaign website.
The Facebook post correctly states that the annual salary of most members of Congress, which is set by law, is $174,000, and has been since 2009.
Editor’s note: FactCheck.org is one of several organizations working with Facebook to debunk misinformation shared on social media. Our previous stories can be found here. Facebook has no control over our editorial content.
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Quick Take
The Supreme Court ruled that states may not remove former President Donald Trump from primary ballots based on the Constitution’s insurrection clause. A few days before the ruling, an Instagram post claimed a “traffic court judge” had ruled Trump shouldn’t appear on Illinois’ ballot — misrepresenting Tracie Porter’s role as an Illinois circuit court judge.
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The U.S. Supreme Court ruled on March 4 that former President Donald Trump can remain on the 2024 presidential primary ballot in Colorado.
As we’ve written, challenges have been filed in at least 36 states to strike Trump from primary ballots, based mainly on the insurrection clause, Section 3 of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which bars “an officer of the United States” from seeking elected office if they had “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” against the country.
The Colorado Supreme Court had ruled that Trump engaged in insurrection and was ineligible to appear on the state primary ballot, based on the 14th Amendment. Trump’s legal team appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, arguing that the president was not one of the officials covered by that section of the Constitution.
The Supreme Court, in a unanimous March 4 decision, overturned the Colorado ruling. While the justices cited different legal reasons, a majority wrote that “the Constitution makes Congress, rather than the States, responsible for enforcing Section 3 against federal officeholders and candidates.” The court didn’t weigh in on the question of whether Trump had engaged in insurrection.
Police officers stand outside the U.S. Supreme Court on Feb. 8. The court was hearing oral arguments in the case on whether or not Trump could remain on the ballot in Colorado for the 2024 presidential election. Photo by Julia Nikhinson via Getty Images.
Maine’s secretary of state and an Illinois judge were among those who had said that Trump is ineligible to appear on their states’ presidential primary ballots because of his attempts to overturn his loss in the 2020 election. But the Illinois judge and a Maine Superior Court justice deferred those rulings until the Supreme Court’s decision on the Colorado case.
In Illinois, where early voting in the primary was already underway, Cook County Circuit Court Judge Tracie R. Porter, a Democrat, said in her 38-page ruling on Feb. 28: “The Illinois State Board of Election shall remove Donald J. Trump from the ballot for the General Primary Election on March 19, 2024, or cause any votes cast for him to be suppressed.”
After Porter’s ruling was announced, a Feb. 29 Instagram post by Ryan Fournier, a co-founder of Students for Trump, misrepresented the judge’s qualifications.
“The ‘Judge’ who took Trump off the ballot in Illinois is a traffic court judge who presides over ‘minor traffic violations and Class A Misdemeanors.’ A traffic court judge… You can’t make this up,” Fournier said in the post, which received more than 20,000 likes.
This post has a grain of truth but doesn’t tell the full story. It is correct, as Fournier said in his post, that among Porter’s responsibilities has been presiding over traffic court. The Cook County Democratic Party website said that Porter was sworn in as an at-large Cook County Circuit Court judge on Nov. 12, 2021. As of April 2022, the website said Porter “sits in the Traffic Division in the Richard J. Daley Center in downtown Chicago, where she presides over minor traffic violations and Class A Misdemeanor matters.”
The role of a circuit court judge is much broader, however, according to the Illinois Court Records. “Illinois Circuit Courts are trial courts that hear all kinds of cases,” the ICR website explains. “Illinois Circuit Courts are courts of original jurisdiction as the courts first hear cases originating from their respective judicial circuits. While lower than the Appellate Court and the Supreme Court, Circuit Courts have jurisdiction over all types of cases, including civil and criminal matters. These may include all juvenile, probate, traffic, domestic relations matters, and small claims up to $10,000. In addition to the aforementioned, Illinois Circuit Courts also can review administrative orders from some state agencies.”
The “standing order” for Porter’s court calendar, effective Sept. 22, 2023, included presiding over cases involving tax deeds, tax objections, name changes, bench and jury trials, evidentiary hearings, contested hearings, and settlement conferences.
It’s also worth noting that Porter has worked in private practice and legal academia for 27 years, according to the announcement of her appointment to the Illinois circuit court in 2021. She was an adjunct professor of law at Drake University Law School and professor of law at the Abraham Lincoln University School of Law. She also taught at Western State College of Law, Southern Illinois University School of Law, Saint Louis University School of Law, Illinois Institute of Technology Chicago-Kent College of Law and the University of Illinois-Chicago John Marshall Law School.
Editor’s note: FactCheck.org is one of several organizations working with Facebook to debunk misinformation shared on social media. Our previous stories can be found here. Facebook has no control over our editorial content.
