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No, the military hasn’t been in charge since the 2020 presidential election
If Your Time is short
- Baseless claims that Joe Biden isn’t president and that the military has been in charge since the election continue to spread online, but they’re still wrong.
A Facebook video that’s being shared and viewed widely makes outrageous and unfounded claims that don’t track with reality.
"December fifth, the Nuremberg 2 trials have started against world leaders for crimes against humanity," someone can be heard saying.
Later: "The military’s actually been in charge since November 3rd when troops, yes, they checked out the watermark ballots and they said that Trump had won over 80% of the vote."
This post was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.)
This is wrong.
Featured Fact-check
President Joe Biden was elected in November 2020, and allegations that he stole the election from former President Donald Trump are unfounded.
In fact, an investigation published Dec. 14 by the Associated Press, which reviewed every potential case of voter fraud in the six battleground states disputed by Trump, found fewer than 475 cases. They would not have changed the outcome of the election.
"The cases could not throw the outcome into question even if all the potentially fraudulent votes were for Biden, which they were not, and even if those ballots were actually counted, which in most cases they were not," the AP reported.
We aren’t sure what the video is referencing when it mentions "watermarked ballots," but we previously looked into a claim that the Trump administration "put secret watermarks on official ballots to trick cheating Democrats" and found it baseless.
There is also no evidence to support the claim that the military has been in charge since the presidential election.
It’s baseless. We rate this post Pants on Fire.
Our Sources
Facebook post, Dec. 13, 2021
The Associated Press, Far too little vote fraud to tip election to Trump, AP finds, Dec. 14, 2021
PolitiFact, Here’s how we know Trump’s repeated claim of a landslide victory is wrong, Jan. 6, 2021
PolitiFact, Did President Trump issue secret watermarks on ballots? No, that’s another QAnon conspiracy theory, Nov. 6, 2020
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No, the military hasn’t been in charge since the 2020 presidential election
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