Did TIME Magazine feature a cover of Barack Obama in an electric chair? No, that's not true: This is a fake cover that never actually appeared on any issue of the magazine. Since Donald Trump's election to office, the TIME Magazine archives do not feature this image on the cover.
The claim appeared in a Facebook post (archived here) where it was published by a political meme page, @OnePissedAmerican, on September 9, 2020 with the caption, "~Hollywood." The text on the fake cover opened:
Executed for Treason? Did Obama participate in a failed coup to overthrow the duly elected President of the United States?
This is what the post looked like on Facebook at the time of writing:
(Source: Facebook screenshot taken on Fri Sep 11 15:39:08 2020 UTC)
The image first appeared in June of 2019 on the page hiveminer.com, which seems to have gone defunct earlier this year.
On numerous occasions, Trump has said that Obama committed treason that involved spying on his 2016 campaign. These accusations against the former president all fall under the term "Obamagate," which Trump first touted in early May when he retweeted this tweet:
#ObamaGate
-- Eyes On (@retinaldoctor) May 10, 2020
Wow look what's trending on Twitter.
I'll bet these guys aren't laughing today. pic.twitter.com/CE7oikhZmM
Since that first retweet, Trump has used the term a total of 29 times, 28 of those coming in the form of tweets.
