Election

Did Rep. Jim Jordan slap former Special Counsel Robert Mueller during a congressional hearing? No, that's not true: The social media post making the claim provides no proof. More importantly, such an assault on Mueller by Jordan never happened. The claim appeared in a post on Facebook on April 10, 2023. The title of the video read: 'YOU ARE LYING'…

Did the expression "woke" originate from the phrase "willingly overlooking known evil"? No, that's not true: The term "stay woke" was first used in a 1938 song by blues musician Lead Belly about Black teenagers accused of raping white women, according to a linguistics professor. Usage of the expression "woke" to indicate awareness of injustices dates to the Black labor…

Does a "bombshell letter from Stormy Daniels debunk" Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg's pursuit of potential criminal charges against former President Donald Trump? No, that's not true: The statement circulating on social media in March 2023 was first publicly released on January 30, 2018, and was widely reported at that time. Since then, Daniels has said the document is false,…

Can simply answering three or four questions and paying a nominal handling fee qualify people to redeem tickets, receive expensive products, $500 or even $1,000 gift cards, store credit or compensation from well-known brands? No, that's not true: In the first quarter of 2023, Lead Stories tracked a large-scale phishing operation on Facebook that manipulatively tricks people into divulging personal…

Is NASA hiring 24 theologians in 2023 to prepare humans for an imminent alien discovery? No, that's not true: The recycled claim misconstrues the meaning of a 2015 grant to the Center of Theological Inquiry (CTI). Among other things, "The NASA-funded portion of this research concluded in 2017," according to a NASA spokesperson. The claim, which has been around since…

Are lawmakers, judges and other public officials in Arizona taking bribes from the Sinaloa cartel and fixing elections? No, there's no reliable evidence that's true: Jacqueline Breger, an insurance agent who made the allegations during a joint meeting of the Arizona House and Senate elections committees on February 23, 2023, did not provide credible proof to back up her explosive…

Was the 7.8-magnitude earthquake that rocked southeastern Turkey and parts of Syria on February 6, 2023, fake and actually a planned, politically motivated attack against the Kurdish people in the region? No, that's not true: Seismic activity recorded by earthquake monitors around the world have documented the quake and its numerous aftershocks. The claim appeared on TruthSocial on February 6,…

Did nearly a quarter of a million voting attempts fail in the November 8, 2022, election in Arizona and did that impact the vote count? No, that's not true: The communications director for the Maricopa County Elections Department called the allegation "textbook disinformation." While many ballots were scanned and rescanned multiple times, the votes were ultimately counted. Arizona Secretary of…

Did the German government claim that investigating COVID vaccines would be "dangerous for democracy"? No, that's not true: Alena Buyx, who is not in the German government, did not claim that such investigations would be a threat to democracy. She is a German medical ethicist who since 2020 has been chair of the German Ethics Council, an independent group of…

Is President Joe Biden actually "unelected" and is his status as president "in violation of the Constitution"? No, that's not true: In accordance with the Constitution, Biden was duly elected as president of the United States. This process is not, as a social media post claims, an overreach of the federal government. The claim appeared in a post on Instagram…