There’s no evidence that Trump was fleeing the country, or that Garland caught him doing so

Speculation abounds about whether Merrick Garland will become the first U.S. attorney general to indict a former president. But there’s no evidence to support a recent social media claim that Garland caught former President Donald Trump trying to skip the country. 

"Merrick Garland catches Trump planning to flee," an Oct. 9 Facebook post said. 

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 Meta, which owns Facebook.)

We reached out to the Justice Department for comment about the post, but didn’t immediately hear back. 

Featured Fact-check

Instagram posts

stated on October 27, 2024 in an Instagram post

Vice Presidential nominee Tim Walz “says that if Democrats win they’ll make (U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez) speaker of the house.”

Nevertheless, we found no credible reports or other sources to corroborate the Facebook post’s claim. 

A video in the Facebook post includes a clip of CNN news coverage of the FBI’s seizure of documents from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida, and features someone musing about Trump fleeing the country. But the person didn’t say Garland caught Trump planning to flee.

We rate this post False.