Jeffrey Epstein

Does an authentic photo show Canadian Liberal Party leadership candidate Mark Carney with Jeffrey Epstein in a pool? No, that's not true: Multiple online artificial intelligence detectors judged that this image was almost certainly AI generated. Lead Stories found no real photos of Carney and Epstein together after consulting online news archives and image searching tools. The image appeared in…

Did Bill Gates, Microsoft co-founder and philanthropist, publicly say in January 2025 that he "will leave the USA if the Epstein Client List is released"? No, that's not true: Lead Stories found no credible reports to support Gates' supposed announced departure. Court materials detailing Jeffrey Epstein's contacts were made public in January 2024. Neither Gates nor any reputable news organization…

Did Hillary Clinton say that she would leave the U.S. if a rumored Jeffrey Epstein client list was released? No, that's not true: As of December 2, 2024, there is no record of Hillary Clinton having made such an announcement on her social media channels or website, and major media outlets did not report such a quote. Court documents naming…

Did Elon Musk say he would release a "bombshell" client list tied to rapper Sean "Diddy" Combs and financier Jeffrey Epstein? No, that's not true: This originated from SpaceX Fanclub, a Facebook page with a satire disclaimer: "We post SATIRE, nothing on this page is real." The first comment under the post included a link to the self-described satire website…

Was Ghislaine Maxwell, the socialite associated with sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, dead as of November 14, 2024? No, that's not true: She was listed as an inmate at a federal prison at the time of writing. There is no evidence that Maxwell was deceased on or before this date. The claim was suggested in a post (archived here) on X…

Did Jeffrey Epstein only move into billionaire Les Wexner's Upper East Side brownstone in 1996, thus proving that Stacey Williams' story about Donald Trump groping her after they had left Epstein's "brownstone on the Upper East Side" in 1993 was false? No, that's not true: Epstein rented an Upper East Side home from 1992 to 1996, according to news reports.…

Was Donald Trump caught on tape during a Fox News commercial break, saying that someone who is called into war is a "dumbfuck redneck" and that volunteering for military service is "stupid"? No, that's not true: This recording is fake -- it originated from a parody account. It appears that a human voice actor impersonated Donald Trump in this recording,…

Did former President Donald Trump fly on one of Jeffrey Epstein's planes? Yes, but that is missing context: The private jet that Trump flew on for campaign events on August 10, 2024, was a Gulfstream that was previously owned by sex offender Epstein and is now a leased aircraft under private ownership. This is not the same aircraft that was…

Did an authentic photo show Vice President Kamala Harris with Jeffrey Epstein, embracing at the beach? No, that's not true: Lead Stories ran the image through AI detection tool True Media, which found "substantial evidence" the image was generated using AI, with 100 percent confidence. A reverse image search does not offer results older than mid-July 2024, almost five years…

Does an image authentically show President Joe Biden and the late sex-crimes offender Jeffrey Epstein posing together? No, that's not true: Digital editing was used to fake the shot, putting the two men together in a photograph that was never taken. The doctored picture first began appearing online in 2020. The claim appeared in a post (archived here) on Facebook…