Fake News: Congresswoman Elise Stefanik Did NOT Give The Finger After Yovanovitch Ovation

Fact Check

  • by: Maarten Schenk
Fake News: Congresswoman Elise Stefanik Did NOT Give The Finger After Yovanovitch Ovation

Did Congresswoman Elise Stefanik give a photographer the finger during an ovation after former ambassador Yovanovitch testimony ended? No, that's not true: the photo was digitally manipulated and journalist Brian J. O'Malley whose retweet of the image made it go viral has since deleted it and issued an apology

His original tweet can still be seen via archive.today. The text of the tweet read:

Stefanik posed for this picture as Ambassador Yovanovich was getting a loud standing ovation after giving testimony yesterday. NY21 deserves better than this childish loser.

This is the image in question:

stefanikfingerfake.jpg

As Stefanik pointed out on Twitter, the image was obviously fake because during the hearing she wasn't wearing the purple nail polish that could be seen in the photo.

You can verify this for yourself on this video:

This appears to have been the original image, without the finger:

O'Malley since deleted his tweet and put up an apology:


  Maarten Schenk

Lead Stories co-founder Maarten Schenk is our resident expert on fake news and hoax websites. He likes to go beyond just debunking trending fake news stories and is endlessly fascinated by the dazzling variety of psychological and technical tricks used by the people and networks who intentionally spread made-up things on the internet.  He can often be found at conferences and events about fake news, disinformation and fact checking when he is not in his office in Belgium monitoring and tracking the latest fake article to go viral.

Read more about or contact Maarten Schenk

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