Is there evidence that Erika Kirk was a recruiter for Jeffrey Epstein or that she had her husband, Charlie Kirk, killed to shut him up about it? No, that's not true: The claim appears to be based on another false claim that Erika Kirk operated a charity in Romania that was used for trafficking orphaned children internationally. Lead Stories previously…
Is one minute missing from the video posted by the Department of Justice showing the hallway outside the jail cell where Jeffrey Epstein was found dead? Yes, that's true: The 10-hour-long closed-circuit camera video posted on the Justice Department website on July 3, 2025, jumps from 11:58:58 p.m. on August 9, 2019, to 12:00:00 a.m. on August 10, 2019. The…
Did Gene Hackman vow to "corroborate everything in the Epstein client list" in an X.com post a year before his death? No, that's not true: The user name seen in the purported February 2024 tweet does not exist and there is no indication online the 95-year-old actor was active on the social media platform in recent years. While no "client…
Was Ghislaine Maxwell, the socialite associated with sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, dead as of November 14, 2024? No, that's not true: She was listed as an inmate at a federal prison at the time of writing. There is no evidence that Maxwell was deceased on or before this date. The claim was suggested in a post (archived here) on X…
Did an authentic photo show Vice President Kamala Harris with Jeffrey Epstein, embracing at the beach? No, that's not true: Lead Stories ran the image through AI detection tool True Media, which found "substantial evidence" the image was generated using AI, with 100 percent confidence. A reverse image search does not offer results older than mid-July 2024, almost five years…
Does an image authentically show President Joe Biden and the late sex-crimes offender Jeffrey Epstein posing together? No, that's not true: Digital editing was used to fake the shot, putting the two men together in a photograph that was never taken. The doctored picture first began appearing online in 2020. The claim appeared in a post (archived here) on Facebook…
Did Bloomberg publish a story saying that former President Barack Obama was a "middle man" for the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein at J.P. Morgan? Did Obama help the disgraced financier to foster ties with the banking institution? No, that's not true: Bloomberg did not write anything remotely similar in August 2023. The claim on social media distorted a Bloomberg…
Do photographs of Ghislaine Maxwell with Donald Duck taken in 1985 confirm that the now-convicted sex offender -- associated with financier Jeffrey Epstein who died by suicide while awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges -- worked for Disney? No, that's not true: The stock images only show an event where Maxwell appeared as representative of her father, owner at the time…
Did British publisher Robert Maxwell, who owned Macmillan/McGraw-Hill School Publishing Co. in a joint venture from 1989 until his death in 1991, put false information in American textbooks? No, that's not true: McGraw Hill told Lead Stories that Maxwell exerted no editorial control over the learning materials produced by the company. The claim appeared in a post and video on…
Was the "REAL" Epstein list leaked on the dark web? No, that's not true: The article that made the claim in the headline offered no evidence and zero proof in the body of the story that a list belonging to convicted pedophile Jeffery Epstein was found on the dark web. A list on the dark web was not mentioned once…
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