In the days before the inauguration of US President Joe Biden on January 20, 2021, some social media users shared an alleged Fox News with a text that read: ‘Nancy Pelosi admits he cheated’ and ‘Barack Obama has been arrested. ” Pictured is House Speaker Nancy Pelosi handcuffed and surrounded by FBI agents, along with former President Barack Obama getting out of a car. The photo was taken because Fox News did not comment on Pelosi or the arrest of Obama, both of which are false.
Examples of postings that make this claim can be found here, here and here.
Neither Fox News, nor any other major media outlet, reported that Pelosi ‘admitted’ that he had ‘cheated’ to secure Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 presidential election. The same goes for the alleged arrest of Obama.
The alleged photo of Pelosi shared in the reports actually shows her head digitally on the body of alleged Bonanno crime family leader Vincent Asaro, who is accused of taking part in a notorious airport in 1978 that made the film “Goodfellas “(here) inspired, during a 2014 arrest in New York City. Similar Reuters images of the arrest can be found here and here.
The Reuters Fact Check team earlier unleashed videos on social media claiming Pelosi was escorted to the Capitol by the U.S. Marshals on January 13 because she was arrested (here). This was not the case, as the speaker was filmed and filmed two days later, on January 15, at her weekly news conference in the American Captol (here, here).
Reuters has found conflicting sources for the image of Obama used in the reports. It appeared in an article in March 2014 on the Estonian news website Eesti Rahvusringhääling (ERR) (here) as well as an article in 2014 on EBONY (here). The image shows Obama leaving a car while a member of the secret service keeps the door open for him.
Reuters recently reviewed a video of Obama in a jail cell circulating on social media as alleged evidence that the former president was arrested before Biden’s inauguration (here). This allegation was also false: the footage shows Obama visiting the former jail cell of South African anti-apartheid hero Nelson Mandela in 2013 and Obama was not arrested.
Both former President Obama and Speaker Pelosi were at Biden’s inauguration on January 20, as seen in Reuters’ images here, here and here.
VERDICT
Alter. Fox News did not report that Speaker Pelosi conceded that he had cheated on behalf of Democrats in the 2020 presidential election or that former President Obama had been arrested. The claim is still digitally edited, and no claim is true.
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