Did U.S. "Special Forces" arrest Dr. Anthony Fauci on April 9, 2022? No, that's not true: "That statement is completely false," a National Institutes of Health (NIH) spokesperson told Lead Stories. Fauci has made public appearances after the arrest supposedly took place. Also, the claim was posted on a self-described satirical website.
The claim appeared in an article (archived here) published by Real Raw News titled "Special Forces Arrest Deep State Dr. Anthony Fauci" on April 10, 2022. It opened:
US Special Forces on Saturday scored a major victory in the war against the Deep State-the arrest of Deep State mastermind and plandemic architect Dr. Anthony Fauci, a JAG source told Real Raw News.
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Special Forces Arrest Deep State Dr. Anthony Fauci - Real Raw News
US Special Forces on Saturday scored a major victory in the war against the Deep State-the arrest of Deep State mastermind and plandemic architect Dr. Anthony Fauci, a JAG source told Real Raw News. The "White Hat" partition of the US military, he said, had for "a very long time" attempted to shadow Fauci but [...]
Kathy Stover, branch chief of News and Science Writing at NIH, told Lead Stories in an April 12, 2022, email:
That statement is completely false.
Fauci made a public appearance on April 10, 2022, in the ABC News interview, "Fauci advises assessing personal risk amid COVID-19 uptick" -- which was the day after he was supposedly arrested. Fauci's remarks were widely reported by other major news organizations including The Hill and The New York Times.
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 is collected here.
