Did U.S. President Donald Trump officially warn former President Barack Obama that he would face Hatch Act charges if he went to El Salvador? No, that's not true: The rumor originated from an online network with a satire label, known for publishing made-up stories. Potential violations of the Hatch Act are not criminally punishable.
The claim appeared in a video (archived here) on TikTok where it was published on April 29, 2025. A man seen in the footage began:
Trump just issued a sturn warning to Barack Hussein Obama. Obama thinks he's gonna get himself on that plane, fly to El Salvador to start fucking advocating for fucking rights of the illegal immigrats, isn't he? Donald Trump has warned now if any politician, including ex-presidents (wink-wink, Barack Obama), will be in violation of the Hatch Act if they interfere with foreign affairs. That's right, go ahead, Barack Obama! Do it! Get on that plane, fly down to El Salvador -- and there's going to be federal marshals, waiting to put cuffs on you.
This is what the post looked like on TikTok at the time of writing:
(Source: TikTok screenshot by Lead Stories)
The rumor, however, was not grounded in any credible news reports or publicly available statements of any officials. It was initially published on Facebook on April 24, 2025 (archived here), by the page named "America's Last Line Of Defense". Its self-description (archived here) reads:
The flagship of the ALLOD network of trollery and propaganda for cash.
Nothing on this page is real.
It continued:
Busta Trollis responsible for this Page.
"Busta Troll" is one of the aliases used by self-proclaimed liberal troll Christopher Blair once referred to in a BBC article as "the godfather of fake news" (archived here).
Presidents are exempt from the Hatch Act (archived here) that covers most other executive branch's federal government employees. However, it doesn't stretch to those who already left those jobs. Furthermore, potential violations of this law that aims to curb political influences are civil offenses that, unlike criminal ones, are generally handled without arrests.
A search across Google News for the keywords seen here (archived here) showed a Snopes fact check that previously reviewed the same claim and no credible reporting backing up the rumor.
A search across the archive of Trump's posts on Truth Social (archived here) for the period between his second inauguration and this writing showed no entries discussing the Hatch Act. A Google search across the White House website for the same period didn't reveal a single mention of the law:
About ALLOD
The network of online resources known "America's Last Line of Defense" run by Blair mostly publishes made-up stories with headlines specifically created to trigger Republicans, conservatives and evangelical Christians into angrily sharing or commenting on the story on Facebook without actually reading the full article, exposing them to mockery and ridicule by fans of the sites and pages.
Every site in the network has an About page that reads (in part):
About Satire
Before you complain and decide satire is synonymous with "comedy":sat·ire
ˈsaˌtī(ə)r
noun
The use of humor, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule to expose and criticize people's stupidity or vices, particularly in the context of contemporary politics and other topical issues.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. See above if you're still having an issue with that satire thing.
Articles from Blair's sites frequently get copied by "real" fake news sites who omit the satire disclaimer and other hints the stories are fake. One of the most persistent networks of such sites is run by a man from Pakistan named Kashif Shahzad Khokhar (aka "DashiKashi") who has spammed hundreds of such stolen stories into conservative and right-wing Facebook pages in order to profit from the ad revenue.
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Other Lead stories fact checks mentioning claims from self-described satire pages can be found here.
