Iran

Did an Emergency Broadcast Alert reveal Donald Trump invoked the Insurrection Act? No, that's not true: A video makes the baseless claim that President Donald J. Trump informed the mayor of Oklahoma City that the "Insurrection Act has been enacted," and that arrests of Democratic elected officials will begin immediately. There is no evidence the president has invoked the Insurrection…

Does Michael Flynn's interview with Alex Jones include only factual statements about the 2020 election? No, that's not true: The interview repeats disproven allegations of foreign interference, that thousands of dead people voted in Pennsylvania and that Donald Trump won up to 400 Electoral College votes. All are demonstrably false. Flynn's interview (archived here) with Jones -- a well-known conspiracy…

Does a letter published by the chairman of a Nevada county Republican Central Committee, disputing the outcome of the presidential election, include evidence for the conspiracy theories proposed? No, that's not true: the widely viral article cites several unproven and disproven conspiracy theories, including "vote dumps", servers in Germany switching votes, President Trump escaping Washington on a "Doomsday" plane and…

Was Nancy Pelosi pictured unmasked at a party during the Covid-19 pandemic? No, that's not true: This is a photo from a restaurant opening January 7, 2020, 13 days before before the first COVID-19 case was confirmed in the United States. The claim appeared in a Facebook meme (archived here) published on December 17, 2020 with the caption "Hmmm." The…

Is a cybersecurity expert's testimony about election fraud based on verified incidents? No, the major examples Navid Keshavarz-Nia cites in a written legal declaration lack proof or direct evidence and are based on his speculation. The allegations appear in a written declaration (archived here) executed on November 25, 2020. Here is what the document looked like online at the time…

Was former President Barack Obama arrested for espionage? No, that's not true: A website completely made up the claim that Obama, the 44th president of the United States, was arrested on November 28, 2020. The article used direct quotes from a Department of Justice press release about a former CIA officer who was arrested and charged with espionage -- the…

Did the U.S. Army's Special Forces seize a CIA server farm in Frankfurt, Germany, resulting in deaths of U.S. soldiers? No, that's not true: A U.S. Army spokesperson told Lead Stories the claim is false. Lead Stories has previously debunked claims that American forces seized a computer server in Frankfurt that was owned by a company that provided voting machines…

Does medical research show COVID-19 is not transmitted in the air and that infection risk is unaffected by distance? No, neither claim is true: The claims ignore the accumulating recent evidence that airborne coronavirus is the major mode of infection. The claims ignore scientists' peer-reviewed conclusions -- which are based on what the full universe of study data show --…

Did "firefighter Sebastian Gates" die of carbon monoxide poisoning after rescuing a young girl from a fire? No, that's not true: This meme has been circulating since 2013 and contains a mixture of several different stories. The story is so muddied that no one hero could be honored by the retelling of this vague and mixed-up tale, and a search…

Were the two terms that Barack Obama spent in office "a crime spree" in which $4 trillion of $6 trillion sent to Muslim nations disappeared, $200 billion was sent to Iran, $500 billion was "stolen" from the Housing and Urban Development department, and $50 billion was set aside to build mosques around the globe? No, that's not true. The claims…