Social media reports are cited as part of Facebook’s efforts to curb the spread of misinformation, claiming they are Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, DN.Y., a child on Little St. James in the US Virgin Islands, once the private Caribbean island, kisses. owned by the late financier Jeffrey Epstein. This statement is false.
Examples of these posts – which put a picture of Schumer on top of each other, with a photo of a man and child kissing and bearing the caption: ‘Chuck Schumer kisses this child on the island of Epstein !!! The AUCTION has lifted! ”- can be found here, here and here. The text above the two images reads: “No wonder the Democrats would like to accuse Trump.”
Epstein pleaded not guilty to charges of sex trafficking with dozens of underage girls in his New York City and Palm Beach, Florida mansions after his arrest on July 6, 2019. He escaped federal prosecution by pleading guilty in 2008 to charges of prostitution in Florida. , an agreement now widely regarded as too lenient. Epstein was found dead in his cell in the Manhattan Detention Complex on August 10, 2019.
According to Epstein’s defendants, the island was called ‘Pedophile Island’ and ‘Orgy Island’ by some residents and the media, where Epstein and his associates trafficked and sexually abused young women and girls (here).
The social media posts that pretend to show Schumer on the island speak to a core principle of the conspiracy theory ‘big tent’ QAnon – that President Trump secretly includes a cabal of child sex predators that includes prominent Democrats, Hollywood elite and includes ‘deep state’. Allies (here).
The posts falsely suggest that Democrats in Congress tried to remove Trump from office for fear he would expose their alleged ties to human trafficking. In fact, the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives accused the president in December 2019 of abusing power and obstructing Congress and accusing him of putting pressure on a foreign government, Ukraine, to help him win re-election. (here).
In response to the same allegation about Schumer circulating online this summer, PolitiFact published a fact-checking article on July 18 (here). According to PolitiFact, a Schumer spokesman said it was “absolutely not” the New York Democratic senator in the image of the man and child kissing.
On August 17, Lead Stories actually checked the claim by comparing Schumer’s hairline with that of the man in the picture (here). Four days later, Lead Stories published an update reporting that the man in the photo had contacted them.
According to Lead Stories, “he is the father of the child in the picture. Lead Stories has seen other family photos where he appears with his wife and daughter. There is no doubt that the man we contacted is the man in the picture or that they are a family. They will not be identified for their privacy. He is upset that these photos are being circulated with such defamatory captions and is asking people to take them. ‘
Senator Schumer does not appear in flight books for Epstein’s fleet of private jets, which is called the “Lolita Express” in the media (here).
Copies of these flight books can be viewed online, here by Gawker.com and here by Factcheck.org. Business Insider has also provided a searchable database of every known flight made by Jeffrey Epstein’s private jets, and available to subscribers here.
Reuters could not find Schumer’s name or initials in the flight log documents, nor could he find any evidence that Schumer ever Epstein’s Little St. James did not visit.
It is true that between 1992 and 1997 Epstein donated at least $ 7000 to Schumer’s political campaigns, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan and unprofitable think tank that impacts money and lobbying on elections and public policy ( here) follows. .
The donations were reported (here, here) after Schumer told fellow lawmakers that then-Labor Secretary Alex Acosta had to resign for his role in the controversial plea deal he signed with Epstein in 2008 (here).
Schumer decided to donate an amount equal to Epstein’s contributions to organizations that combat sex trafficking and violence against women (here, here).
VERDICT
Untrue. The man in the picture kissing a child is not Senator Chuck Schumer. Reuters could not find evidence that Schumer ever visited Epstein’s private Caribbean island.
This article was produced by the Reuters Fact Check team. Read more about our fact-checking work here.