Did former politician Trey Gowdy say "If you're okay with rigging an election, I'm ok with martial law to stop you" as several social media posts are claiming? No, that's not true: there is no record of Gowdy ever saying these words, they do not appear on his social media accounts or in news reports about Gowdy. Gowdy denied to Lead Stories the quote was his.
An example of a post making the claim can be found here (archived here), published on January 13, 2021. It read:
"IF YOU'RE OKAY WITH RIGGING AN ELECTION TO WIN, I'M OK WITH MARTIAL LAW TO STOP YOU." - Trey Gowdy
This is what the post looked like on Facebook at the time of writing:
(Source: Facebook screenshot taken on Thu Jan 14 12:28:52 2021 UTC)
Lead Stories conducted a search of Gowdy's social media accounts but could not locate the quote anywhere. A search via Google News also yielded no result.
Contacted by Lead Stories via email Gowdy categorically denied the quote was his:
Never said it.
100 percent false.
It is unclear what the origin of the quote was. The oldest example Lead Stories was able to locate was December 19, 2020, in another Facebook post but it is possible older variants exist.
