Georgia

Did the U.S. military find "evidence of election fraud amid fizzled red wave"? No, that's not true: This claim was made on a website known for publishing fabricated content. The claim originated in an article published by Real Raw News on November 9, 2022, titled "Military Finds Evidence of Election Fraud Amid Fizzled Red Wave" (archived here). It opened with…

Did President Joe Biden's term start immediately after the 2020 election was called, thus influencing Donald Trump's decision to announce a second presidential bid for 2024? No, that's not true: Biden was not formally sworn into office until the presidential inauguration on January 20, 2021, as the Constitution mandates. The 2020 presidential election was certified on January 7, 2021, after…

Does GPS data from voters' cellphones help election fraudsters identify those who were registered but did not vote so the fraudsters can cast illegal ballots in the name of those people? Should voters avoid bringing cellphones to polling places on Election Day for this reason? No, that's not true: Election workers most commonly rely on voters' signatures to verify absentee…

Did Home Depot donate $1.7 million in October 2022 to former NFL player and 2022 Senate candidate Herschel Walker? No, that's not true: Bernard "Bernie" Marcus, a co-founder of Home Depot who retired from the company in 2002, made two donations totaling $1.75 million to a political action committee that supports Walker in his race for the U.S. Senate seat…

Did Rep. Jim Jordan play a video downloaded from Hunter Biden's laptop that incriminated House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff? No, that's not true: The video with this claim shows Jordan criticizing Schiff over matters that have nothing to do with Hunter Biden or the contents of a computer hard drive that media reports have linked to him. The claim…

Does the presence of "QR code signature mismatch" error codes reported in some Dominion voting machines in Tennessee invalidate Georgia election results? No, that's not true: Experts with whom Lead Stories spoke said there is no connection between error codes found in Tennessee voting machines and Georgia election results, and that such error codes are generic indicators election administrators use…

Did Russian airlines ban men between 18 and 65 years old from buying tickets to other countries in response to the "mobilization" announced by Russian President Vladimir Putin on September 21, 2022? No, that's not true: Despite rumors on social media, there was no such ban at the time of writing. However, high prices, a limited number of available destinations…

Does a video show Sen. John Kennedy "exposing" Hunter Biden, son of President Joe Biden, in Congress? No, that's not true: The video in a post making the claim shows an unrelated clip of Kennedy questioning voting rights activist Stacey Abrams of Georgia in a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing. The post has a clickbait headline apparently to draw attention to…

Does a viral clip of an old "American Idol" audition show U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene? No, that's not true: The woman in the video "obviously isn't her," a spokesman for Greene told Lead Stories. The woman belting her heart out was identified on the show as Stefanie Sugarman, a then-23-year-old from Los Angeles. The claim appeared in a tweet…

Was Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene raided by the Department of Justice on August 24, 2022? No, that's not true: Greene's house was "swatted," with someone falsely reporting that there was a crime committed at her home. However, there is no publicly available evidence that the DOJ raided her home. The claim appeared in a Truth Social post published on August…