Was a U.S. Navy chaplain named Drew d'Auguste present at the execution of California Gov. Gavin Newsom, and could d'Auguste attest that the U.S. military is "waging war against Satanic forces"? No, that's not true: The claim was published on a known satirical website. Newsom was not executed, and Lead Stories could not establish the existence of a Navy chaplain named "Drew d'Auguste."
The claim appeared in an article (archived here) published by Real Raw News on January 30, 2022, titled "Navy Chaplain: 'Newsom Was Possessed.'" The article opened:
Chaplain Drew d'Auguste, a Christian in the U.S. Navy Chaplain Corps, was not speaking figuratively when he told Real Raw News the 'White Hat' partition of the U.S. Armed Forces is waging war against Satanic forces that have enveloped the syncretistic society in which we live today.
Chaplain d'Auguste was present at Gavin Newsom's execution, and said he saw 'evil' in Newsom's eyes even before the disgraced California governor began hurling Latin curses at the soldiers tasked with effecting Newsom's hanging.
'He looked at me; my blood ran cold,' Chaplain d'Auguste said. 'His gaze froze my soul.'
The site for Real Raw News could not be reached at the time this story was written. Repeated efforts produced only a page saying, "This site can't be reached ... realrawnews.com took too long to respond."
This is how the article looked on Real Raw News:
(Source: Real Raw News screenshot taken on Fri Feb 4 16:10:18 2022 UTC)
Lead Stories has already debunked claims that Newsom was convicted by a military tribunal at Guantanamo Bay and hanged. Those fact checks, which were the results of other articles published by Real Raw News, can be found here and here.
The U.S. Navy did not return the inquiries from Lead Stories about the existence of a chaplain named "Drew d'Auguste" at this writing but we will update this story with any relevant response.
Lead Stories searched on Google for "Chaplain Drew d'Auguste," "Drew d'Auguste," "Chaplain Drew d'Auguste U.S. Navy" and "Drew d'Auguste U.S. military." We did not find any trustworthy results that indicated that such a servicemember exists.
Real Raw News has a long history of publishing false claims in mock news stories, many of them about convictions and executions of various public figures at Naval Station Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. For example, the site reported former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was hanged (she wasn't); former White House Chief of Staff John Podesta was executed (he wasn't); and that "the military" convicted former Attorney General William Barr on charges of treason (it didn't).
The website for Real Raw News includes a disclaimer that warns readers not to take its content too seriously. Specifically, it says:
Information on this website is for informational and educational and entertainment purposes. This website contains humor, parody, and satire. We have included this disclaimer for our protection, on the advice on legal counsel.
(Source: RealRawNews.com screenshot taken Tue Aug 3 16:39:48 UTC 2021)
Lead Stories has covered claims published by Real Raw News in the past. Previous Lead Stories debunks of Real Raw News items are collected here.
