Did U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert, who has made disparaging remarks about government assistance, receive a Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loan for her restaurant Shooters Grill? No, that's not true: a restaurant with a similar name as the Colorado representative's establishment received a PPP loan. The assistance has no connection to her business. The claim appeared in a Facebook post (archived…

Did Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida suggest that people associated with the January 6 incident at the U.S. Capitol should be pardoned? No, that's not true: The tweet saying this did not come from his actual Twitter account, and the fake account has since been suspended. The claim appeared in an Instagram post (archived here) published on July 6,…

Did George W. Bush admit that explosives were used in 9/11? No, that's not true: The claim relies on footage from a 2006 press conference. The video was edited and his comments were misconstrued. Bush was talking about explosives in the context of other plots and planned attacks, not the 9/11 attacks. The claim appeared in an article (archived here)…

Did the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issue a report that compared how states voted in the 2020 presidential election with their vaccination rates? No, that's not true: There is no such report, according to a CDC spokesperson. That said, the agency does collect and release vaccination statistics and it's easy enough for anyone with internet access to…

Did One America News Network (OANN) report 254,000 "bad ballots" in Maricopa County, Arizona? No, that's not true: The claim, made by Sidney Powell, did not include any sourcing. Shortly after she made the claim, she walked it back. An election audit, commissioned by Republicans in the state Senate, was ongoing at the time this was written. The claim appeared…

Did Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene make the statement: "People are dying who have never died before"? No, that's not true: It first appeared in a 1930 Ernest Hemingway letter. A search of press coverage and social media reveals no evidence of Greene ever making this statement. However, a Twitter search shows that this quote has been circulated many times and…

Were Republican Party leaders Donald Trump, Mike Pence, Paul Manafort and Mitch McConnell born nine months after a purported UFO crash near Roswell, New Mexico, in 1947? No, that's not true: Although some of the four Republican Party members were born in the 1940s, none were born in 1947. Lead Stories has previously fact-checked a similar claim in 2019, in…

Was former President Donald Trump wearing his pants backwards on stage at the state Republican convention in Greenville, North Carolina, on June 5, 2021? No, that's not true: One copy of the video, with extra saturated color, makes it appear as if Trump's pants do not have a fly typical in the front of men's pants. Other press photos and…

Does a diver replace an underwater American flag at Pearl Harbor every three years? No, that's not true: There are no underwater flags at what is now Pearl Harbor National Memorial, according to their public information officer. The photo was taken in Florida at the Vandenberg wreck, a popular diving spot for tourists in Key West. The claim (archived here)…

Did a local Popeyes post a sign saying they reserve the right to refuse service to white people? No, that's not true: Lake St. Louis, Missouri, police say the sign was a prank posted by someone who does not work for the company and that they are currently looking for the person who did it. The story originated from a…

Did Israel mint a shekel coin 33 years before the 9/11 attacks that included images of a plane crashing into New York's World Trade Center twin towers? No, that's not true: The image included in a meme implying prior knowledge of the 9/11 attacks by the Israeli government is not of a coin, but a medallion produced privately to commemorate…

Does this video show a Palestinian girl was killed by an Israeli settler and that a weapon was planted next to her body to "falsify the truth"? No, there's no evidence that's true: The video posted with the allegation does not prove the claim and other recordings of the event do not support the claim. A weapon is seen near…

Did a doctor prove that transgender girls have no performance advantage over cisgender girls in athletics? No, that's not true: Contrary to the claim in a British website's headline, medical researchers have documented trans women's performance advantage over cisgender women, although the advantage starts to shrink once trans women start taking hormones. There is no peer-reviewed study cited to support…

Is there a picture of Rudy Giuliani's neighbors watching his residence being raided by the FBI? No, that's not true: Although the apartment of the former New York City mayor and personal attorney for Donald Trump was searched by the FBI, no pictures have been released of his neighbors watching the raid take place. The claim appeared in a Facebook…

Did a child get shot, "no questions asked"? And are all the people who stormed the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, still alive? No, that's not true: A post compares the death of a Black teenager, who was shot by police in Columbus, Ohio, to the treatment of "mostly armed white nationalists" by Capitol Police. It's correct that both…

Would a proposed Florida bill make a transgender student athlete "drop her pants" to prove she's a girl before playing on a Florida school sports team? No, that's not true. Both versions of the bill in Florida (a state House bill and a state Senate version) provide for either genetic testing or testing of a child's endogenously produced testosterone levels…

Did all the rioters at the U.S. Capitol survive their encounters with Capitol Police during the January 6, 2021 assault? No, that's not true: Ashli Babbitt, one of the rioters, was fatally shot by a Capitol Police officer while breaking into the lobby of the House of Representatives' chamber. The claim appeared in a Facebook post (archived here) by Occupy…

Did Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene scrub her Twitter account of support of Rep. Matt Gaetz? No, that's not true: Greene's Twitter is still full of tweets supporting Gaetz. The claim originated in a Facebook post (deleted as of April 13, 2021) where it was published by The National Strategic Stockpile of Memes and Satire on April 5 2021. It read:…

Did Ted Cruz say "the Alien Invasion Is orchestrated" in a quote about "illegals" who arrive at the southern border of the United States? No, Cruz did not make the comments. A viral message about the appearances of the people trying to cross into the U.S. at the southern border was not made by Cruz, a Republican senator from Texas.…

Did Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and his wife charter buses for January 6, 2021, protesters in Washington, D.C.? No, there is no proof of that. Justice Thomas's wife, Ginni Thomas, did promote the rally that evolved into protesters storming the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, but there have been no documents or witnesses to support a claim that…