Was Hillary Clinton convicted by a military tribunal on April 16, 2021? No, that's not true. "The story is false," the Defense Department press operations duty officer told Lead Stories via email on April 16, 2021.There is no military tribunal or trial being held where the former secretary of state is being prosecuted for crimes at the Guantanamo Bay Prison.
This story appeared as an article published by Real Raw News on April 16, 2021, titled "Clinton Military Tribunal: Day 5 CONVICTION!" (archived here). It opened:
A military tribunal on Thursday convicted former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on charges of murder, conspiracy to commit murder, accessory to murder, child trafficking, endangering a minor, treason, and sedition. The two male, one female panel of officers cast a unanimous verdict shortly after Vice Adm. John G. Hannink, who prosecuted the military's case [...]
Users on social media only saw this title, description and thumbnail:
Clinton Military Tribunal: Day 5 CONVICTION! - Real Raw News
A military tribunal on Thursday convicted former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on charges of murder, conspiracy to commit murder, accessory to murder, child trafficking, endangering a minor, treason, and sedition. The two male, one female panel of officers cast a unanimous verdict shortly after Vice Adm. John G. Hannink, who prosecuted the military's case [...]
Lead Stories has debunked a series of fabricated stories about the imaginary trial.
"The story is fabricated," the Defense Department press operations duty officer wrote in an April 12, 2021 email to Lead Stories about an article by Real Raw News that purported to cover the start of the trial. In March, 2021, Lead Stories debunked the claim that Clinton had been arrested by Navy SEALs. Cmdr. Courtney Hillson, assistant chief of information, Media Operations/Plans for the U.S. Navy stated on the record, "The story is fabricated and not factual."
In the latest made-up article, Real Raw News claims Clinton was convicted after her former staffer, Huma Abedin, testified against her in the case. It shared made-up details of a trial with fake quotes from a real person, Vice Adm. John G. Hannink of the U.S. Navy's Judge Advocate General's Corps, claiming he was the military prosecutor:
The tribunal arrived at a guilty verdict after deliberating only five minutes. They found Clinton guilty on all charges the military had laid out--the murders of Seth Rich, Vince Foster, and Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia; trafficking and abusing minors from Haiti and other third-world nations; conspiring to assassinate a presidential candidate.
As she had throughout the tribunal, Clinton stayed eerily silent as the verdict was read and the officers recommended she receive the death penalty for her crimes. Vice Adm. Hannink asked Clinton if she had preference in how the military carried out her sentence, but still she refused to speak.
"You refused counsel. You refused to defend yourself. This tribunal therefore decides that the defendant, detainee Hillary Rodham Clinton, be hanged by the neck until dead," Vice Adm. Hannink said flatly. "The sentence will be carried out on April 26, after Taps."
All the details about a trial are made up about an event that did not take place, as Lead Stories has previously reported.
Hillary Clinton has not been locked up in the Guantanamo Bay Prison as the article stated, as appearances just this week showed.
On April 15, 2021, Clinton appeared on video with the chancellor of Queen's University Belfast. She appeared to be in her home.
Did you miss our Chancellor, Secretary @HillaryClinton, in conversation? Click here to find out more & watch the full event: https://t.co/kWKsDAADQX
-- Queen's University Belfast 🎓 (@QUBelfast) April 15, 2021
In partnership with @UCL, @CUSP_ucl, @USAinNI, @StateDept & @USAinUK. #LoveQUB
On April 12, 2021, Clinton appeared on video with Maria Ressa's show "Hold the Line" on Rappler.com. She appeared to be in her home in New York where she often conducts interviews, not in prison in Guantanamo Bay.
And as Lead Stories previously published, Clinton did a live interview on March 8, 2021, that aired on the front page of the Washington Post website. This is a screenshot of her interview with Jonathan Capehart that aired live on Twitter and on the newspaper's site. She was not incarcerated and appeared to be in her home.
👉🏾👉🏾👉🏾 Join me and @HillaryClinton at the top of the hour for our WaPo @postlive interview at 2pm ET! #Internationalwomensday https://t.co/Yphf9JWHMS
-- Jonathan Capehart (@CapehartJ) March 8, 2021
The Clinton-being-arrested claim is another QAnon conspiracy theory, one in a continuing series of prophecies that don't come true, all related to baseless claims that she is part of an international cabal of evil Democrats that kill children and eat them, and that she will be taken into custody by Trump's military and tried for her crimes. This is not supported by any public evidence and has been debunked by Lead Stories and national news outlets including the New York Times.
NewsGuard, a company that uses trained journalists to rank the reliability of websites, describes realrawnews.com as:
An anonymously run website that has published baseless and debunked conspiracies about COVID-19 and U.S. politics.
According to NewsGuard the site does not maintain basic standards of accuracy and accountability. Read their full assessment here.
