Did President Joe Biden jail Dr. Anthony Fauci for his "dirty" money to China? No, that's not true: The claim is made in the headline of a video that says nothing about the president jailing the nation's top infectious disease expert. There is no other public evidence supporting the allegation.
The claim appeared in a Facebook post (archived here) published on May 31, 2021. The post included clips from Newsmax, a conservative news site, and the following headline:
Biden JAILS Fauci for his 'DIRTY' money to China...say sorry to Trump over 'lab' theory
This is what the post looked like at the time of writing:
Together, the clips run about 30 minutes, but nothing in the video supports what the headline says about Biden and Fauci. The clips jump between COVID-19, the crisis in the Middle East, the rise in gun violence and an animal rescue organization that helps military veterans adopt pets. The topic of jail isn't discussed at all.
Lead Stories conducted searches on Bing, DuckDuckGo and Google and found no credible corroboration of Fauci's purported jailing. In fact, what turned up were fact checks debunking previous arrest allegations, as seen here and here.
Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, is a major public figure. His arrest would be front-page, top-of-the-newscast news.
NewsGuard, a company that uses trained journalists to rank the reliability of websites, describes newsmax.com as:
A conservative site that covers politics, culture, and health, and airs videos from its cable TV network. Newsmax has published false and unsubstantiated health claims, including about vaccines and COVID-19.
According to NewsGuard, Newsmax does not maintain basic standards of accuracy and accountability. Read their full assessment here.
