Did Rep. Adam Schiff pay a "boy's family" $7.6 million in damages for "an incident"? No, that's not true: A 2022 article in a self-described satire website with the disclaimer, "Everything on this website is fiction" originated this. There is no evidence in public media that such a payment was ever made.
The claim appeared in a post on X (archived here) on November 19, 2024. It included a screenshot of an article whose headline read:
Adam Schiff Pays Boy's Family $7.6 Million in Damages
This is what the post looked like at the time of writing:
(Source: X screenshot taken on Wed Nov 20 14:11:56 2024 UTC)
The caption read, "Shouldn't all the Congressional 'shush fund' payments be revealed? Now, ask yourself why are the [sic] so afraid of Matt Geatz [sic] being AG?" The X post did not include a link to the article or any evidence that would confirm the claim.
Lead Stories searched using the keywords of the post on Google (archived here). We found no actual news reports that would confirm the claim about a payment by Schiff to a family.
In the X post's screenshot, the URL "PatriotPartyPress.com" is visible at the start of the text of the article. The article (archived here), published on March 29, 2022, is on PatriotPartyPress.com. It claims Schiff is a representative of West Virginia -- he actually represents California. The article does not say when the alleged payment from Schiff to a supposed boy's family was made; there are no details about a supposed "incident."
The brief article does have some telltale nonsensical wording indicating that it is not real news, such as this: "One person suggested that Schiff was giving the boy the money from a fundraiser, but it was determined that the boy had all of his hair and didn't look like an old man at 9 or anything."
PatriotPartyPress.com is part of the "America's Last Line of Defense" network of satire websites run by self-professed liberal troll Christopher Blair
The website's "About Us" page has a disclaimer archived here) that says, in part:
Everything on this website is fiction. It is not a lie and it is not fake news because it is not real. If you believe that it is real, you should have your head examined. Any similarities between this site's pure fantasy and actual people, places, and events are purely coincidental and all images should be considered altered and satirical.
Lead Stories has a Satire Policy that explains when we fact check satire and when we don't:
What do we consider not to be satire?
Sometimes articles from humor or satire publications are copied by other sites and presented as real. In such cases we will label the copies as 'False'.
Lead Stories has reached out to Schiff's staff and will update this article if we receive a relevant response.
More Lead Stories fact checks of claims related to Adam Schiff are here.
Other Lead Stories articles on claims concerning PatriotPartyPress.com are here.
