Did the U.S. Army arrest U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen for committing treason? No, that's not true: The website where this claim was made has a disclaimer that states it publishes satirical content. The U.S. military is currently not authorized by Congress to arrest civilians.
The claim appeared in an article published by Real Raw News on September 14, 2023, titled "Janet Yellen Arrested for Treason" (archived here). It opened:
Investigators from the U.S. Army's Criminal Investigation Division (CID) on Tuesday arrested Secretary of Treasury Janet Yellen at a Maryland hotel, alleging that the Deep State despot had engineered a diabolical scheme that clandestinely sent hundreds of billions of American tax dollars to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, far more than the $75bn the criminal Biden Regime has admitted to giving its felonious collaborator in Ukraine.
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Janet Yellen Arrested for Treason
Investigators from the U.S. Army's Criminal Investigation Division (CID) on Tuesday arrested Secretary of Treasury Janet Yellen at a Maryland hotel, alleging that the Deep State despot had engineered a diabolical scheme that clandestinely sent hundreds of billions of American tax dollars to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, far more than the $75bn the criminal Biden Regime has admitted to giving its felonious collaborator in Ukraine.
A Google News search (archived here) using the keywords "U.S. Army Arrested Janet Yellen for Treason" produced no results substantiating this claim.
Under the 1878 Posse Comitatus Act, the military does not have the authority to arrest civilians. This act can be voided under certain circumstances explicitly authorized by the U.S. Constitution or Act of Congress. Congress.gov did not show legislation making such authorization as of this writing.
Lead Stories reached out to the U.S. Department of the Treasury and the Office of the Secretary of Defense for statements concerning this claim. This fact check will be updated if any responses are received.
Real Raw News
Real Raw News is a website that consistently publishes made-up stories about U.S. politics. The well-written English and news-style layout of the website make it look like a legitimate news source, so it often fools people into believing the stories are real. Screenshots and copies of the stories regularly turn up on other websites or on social media where they are presented as real.
It bills itself as "humor, parody and satire" on the "about" page (archived here):
Disclaimer:
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.
The same "about" page claims the main author is a man named Michael Baxter. In 2021 a PolitiFact article (archived here) identified the writer as a "Michael Tuffin" in Texas based on records found in a GoFundMe campaign set up to support the site.
NewsGuard, a tool that provides credibility ratings for websites, published a five-page PDF report (archived here) in 2021 describing realrawnews.com as, "An anonymously run website that has published baseless and debunked conspiracies about COVID-19 and U.S. politics." It cautioned that the website severely violates basic journalistic standards."
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.
