Hurricane

Does a letter from Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe support the claim that Hillary Clinton planned "the Russia hoax" against Donald Trump in July 2016? No, that's not true: Director Ratcliffe wrote in a letter to Sen. Lindsey Graham dated September 29, 2020, that the information was "Russian intelligence analysis" and the U.S. intelligence community "does not know the…

Did John Brennan, Jim Comey, James Clapper and 12 others get subpoenaed by the Department of Justice and Attorney General William Barr? No, that's not true. The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee approved subpoenas for depositions for former CIA Director Brennan, former FBI Director Comey, former Director of National Intelligence Clapper and other officials from the Obama administration…

Steve Brusk is the Assignments Manager at Lead Stories, assigning stories to writers and coordinating fact checking research. He worked on the National Desk and in Washington for CNN for twenty years. He was part of the network coverage of five presidential campaigns, the White House, 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina. He was an assignment editor in Cleveland, Houston and Columbus,…

Did part of the border wall separating the United States from Mexico blow over during Hurricane Hanna? No, that's not true. Video purporting showing a section of the border wall in Texas blowing over with gale force winds during Hurricane Hanna was recorded when it was still under construction earlier, not late July, according to the U.S. Customs and Border…

Did U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi defer $2.2 billion from Social Security to New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo's budget amid the ongoing battle against the coronavirus pandemic? No, that's not true. This is a satirical piece written by a known network of fictional news sites that tries to trick conservatives into sharing bogus reports. Often, click-bait sites steal the satire…

Did a priest in South Africa kill members of his congregation when he fed them rat poison? No, that's not true: A man known as Prophet (not Priest) Light Monyeki of Grace Living Hope Ministries insists that, yes, in 2017 he mixed rat poison with water and drank it himself, before others drank it, too. But he's very much alive,…

Mary Acosta, a staff writer and fact-checker for Lead Stories, is a former copy editor at CNN International. She was based at the network's headquarters in Atlanta. Prior to working at CNNI she was a writer, writer-producer, and copy editor at CNN. She was part of teams that won Emmy Awards for coverage of Hurricane Katrina and the 9/11 terror…

Anne Brown, a staff writer and fact-checker for Lead Stories, is the former Senior Director of Special Events at CNN. Over the course of her 30-plus year career in television news based at CNN's world headquarters in Atlanta, she covered major events both domestic and international, winning Emmy and Peabody awards along the way. Brown led on-location production and logistics…

Did Ilhan Omar say that deportation of Trump supporters would begin "after we win"? No, that's not true. The story was published by a liberal satire website that tries to mislead Trump supporters and Republicans into sharing made up stories that are clearly marked as satire when you actually click them. Articles from the site are frequently copied by foreign-run…

Did the California legislature remove Christmas from all state calendars and events? No, that's not true: The claim started as a satirical story published on a website that features fake reports designed to lure conservatives into sharing. Lead Stories does not flag satire as "fake news," although copycat sites that steal the original without proper labeling are rated false. The…