Former President Donald Trump walked out of construction on his New York City apartment last week. The Associated Press reported reports circulating online falsely claiming that a ruling handed down Monday delayed proceedings in Trump’s defamation trial in New York until Tuesday, the day of the new Hampshire primary, which is evidence of election interference.
AP photo
Former President George W. Bush speaks at the Flight 93 National Memorial in Shanksville, Pa. , Saturday, Sept. 11, 2021, on the 20th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. The Associated Press reported stories circulating online falsely claiming a photo of Bush meeting with Osama bin Laden.
AP photo
Former President George W. Bush speaks at the National Flight 93 Memorial in Shanksville, Pa. , Saturday, Sept. 11, 2021, on the 20th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. The Associated Press reported on reports circulating in line that falsely claim that A montage photo of Bush with Osama bin Laden.
AP Photo
A roundup of some of the most popular but absolutely popular stories and images of the past week. None of this information is legitimate, although it has been shared widely on social media. The Associated Press verified them.
Delay of Trump defamation trial due to illness, not election interference
CLAIM: A judge on Monday delayed proceedings in former President Donald Trump’s New York defamation trial until Tuesday, the day of the New Hampshire primary, which is proof of election interference.
THE FACTS: The trial was delayed Monday due to a juror’s illness.
The false claim circulated ahead of Trump’s eventual testimony in her defamation lawsuit over his comments about E. Jean Carroll, who claims to have sexually assaulted her in the 1990s. Social media users are falsely portraying the postponement as a nefarious attempt to interfere with the 2024 presidential election.
“BREAKING: The judge in Trump’s E. Jean Carroll defamation trial just delayed todays trial until tomorrow — the day of the NH primary,” reads one post on X, formerly Twitter. “ELECTION INTERFERENCE!” The post had received more than 5,500 likes and shares as of Friday.
But the decision to suspend the debates had nothing to do with the election. The illness of a juror forced a last-minute change.
U. S. District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan said one of the nine jurors asked to stop by and get a COVID-19 test after reporting feeling hot and nauseous. Trump’s lawyer, Alina Habba, also reported that at least one of her parents had COVID-19 and that she had a fever in the days leading up to Monday’s debates, two days after having dinner with them several days ago.
Habba said her partner, Michael Madaio, was also present at the dinner and tested negative for the virus on Monday. He went on to say that he didn’t see a challenge “with a short one-day delay” for everyone to get tested. However, he asked that the trial not begin Tuesday because of the New Hampshire primary.
A court document late Monday said the trial ended the day before and would continue Wednesday. He reiterated: “The trial will take place on Tuesday 23/01/2024. “
However, the filing doesn’t make clear whether the time is right to allow the Republican front-runner to crusade in New Hampshire or if the disease is to blame. Asked by The Associated Press, the U. S. District Court for the Southern District of New York declined to comment.
Another jury awarded Carroll $5 million last year after deciding Trump sexually assaulted her in 1996 and made defamatory comments about her in 2022. Trump looks good in the verdict. Carroll’s defamation allegations were split into two lawsuits. Hence this second lawsuit, in which he receives more than $10 million in damages.
Trump is facing four criminal cases and a civil fraud case in addition to Carroll’s lawsuit as the presidential primary season swings into full gear.
Osama bin Laden digitally added to a photo of a Pentagon assembly after 9/11
CLAIM: A photo shows President George W. Bush meeting with Osama bin Laden.
THE FACTS: The symbol has been replaced to charge the founder of Al-Qaeda. The original photo, taken at a Pentagon assembly the day after 9/11, shows Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz sitting next to bin Laden in the edited version. Wolfowitz can also be seen in the symbol taken at the assembly from another angle.
In the edited image, bin Laden appears between Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and Secretary of the Army Thomas White. Bush sits at the head of the table beside National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice.
“PLANNING THE #911falseflag – NOTHING TO SEE HERE,” reads one Facebook post that shared the picture.
But the symbol has been altered. Bin Laden does not appear in the original, taken on Sept. 12, 2001, by a photographer with Washington-based Mai Photo and distributed through Getty Images. Actually, it’s Wolfowitz sitting between Rumsfeld and White.
A caption for the photo as it appears on Getty Images reads: “At table Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld (4L) introducing staff members to President George W. Bush (5L) at their Pentagon meeting re 9/11 terrorist attack.” The abbreviations “4L” and “5L” refer to Rumsfeld and Bush’s locations in the photo.
In addition, the photoshopped photo is cropped so that other government officials who appear in the 2001 original, such as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Henry Shelton and White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card, are visible.
Another symbol of the assembly can be seen on the Department of Defense website. Taken from across the table, it also shows Wolfowitz sitting between Rumsfeld and White.
Bin Laden, who orchestrated the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, was killed in a U. S. commando operation in Pakistan on May 2, 2011.
The WEF president did not admit that a ‘political revolution’ would destroy his agenda
Claim: World Economic Forum CEO Klaus Schwab has admitted that his “Great Reset” plan is being destroyed by a “political revolution” opposed to the idea.
THE FACTS: An article about a company known for publishing misinformation misrepresented a speech Schwab gave about the future of governments around the world at a 2017 convention in Dubai, three years before the WEF unveiled the concept of the Great Reset. Actually, Schwab spoke of the desire to expand new systems of governance to reflect new perspectives and what such systems might entail.
Social media users shared a screenshot of an unsubstantiated article titled, “Klaus Schwab admits that the ‘political revolution’ opposed to the ‘Great Reset’ is destroying his agenda” to misinform. An Instagram post sharing the screenshot reads, “We are the revolution!It had gained more than 2,700 likes as of Friday.
The article comes from a website called The People’s Voice, which was previously known as NewsPunch. The site has published numerous stories based on fabricatedinformation, often about Schwab and the WEF.
The article does not provide any evidence for his claim.
Yann Zopf, a spokesperson for the WEF, considers it “a distortion of Professor Schwab’s speech from 2017”.
“His comments were taken out of context and misinterpreted to fuel surely unfounded conspiracy theories in order to discredit the work being done through the World Economic Forum on serious global challenges,” Zopf wrote in an email to The Associated Press.
Zopf also noted that the WEF’s 2024 Global Risks Report “found that misinformation and disinformation would be the most sensible threat to the world in the coming years” and that “unfortunately, more and more organizations are seeing an accumulation of false threats. “news. “
The Great Reset is a broad proposal put forward through the WEF in 2020 to reinvent social and economic systems. This has fueled a number of unfounded conspiracy theories online.
As purported evidence of Schwab’s alleged confession, the People’s Voice article includes an excerpt from Schwab’s speech at the 2017 World Government Summit in which he says, “You have this anti-establishment motion; What we are seeing is a revolution opposed to the system. Therefore, it is not enough to fix the existing system. “
Schwab then describes libertarianism as an “anti-system” that involves dismantling “everything which creates some kind of influence of government into private lives.”
Schwab does not admit at any point in his speech that a “political revolution” would destroy The Great Reset initiative, which won’t even be launched for another three years.
Rather, he talks about how some governments have faced a backlash from those who are not benefited by globalization, while others have opted to rebuild walls, leading to “a globality more rooted in the afterlife and a globality probably characterized by fragility. “and hostility.
As an alternative, Schwab suggests that governments expand new systems “in tune with the new world that is developing. “For example, prioritizing individual well-being and social advancement.
The People’s Voice responded to a request for comment.