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Is that a masked man? No, that’s really Donald Trump.
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- There’s no evidence to support the claim that former President Donald Trump is actually someone else wearing a Trump mask.
If former President Donald Trump has his mug shot taken after being indicted in New York, a recent Facebook post suggests the photo may not show Trump himself.
Rather, the post suggests that it could be someone else wearing a Trump mask.
"Who is behind the Trump mask… you know they all wear masks right?" the March 30 post says. It includes a video with photos and illustrations of Trump and references to the QAnon movement, which pushes unfounded conspiracy theories about the former president thwarting a Democratic cabal of child sex traffickers.
The video, however, provides no evidence for the claim that the real Trump has been replaced by a person in a Trump mask. That’s because there is no evidence to support this claim.
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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.)
Trump was expected to be fingerprinted April 4 following his indictment on charges stemming from a 2016 payment of $130,000 to adult film actor Stormy Daniels. Trump’s former lawyer, Michael Cohen, pleaded guilty in 2018 for his role in facilitating the payments, which were made days before the presidential election. In May 2018, Trump confirmed in a series of tweets that he had personally reimbursed Cohen for the payments.
Just like allegations that other high-profile people are not who they purport to be, this one suggesting Trump is not Trump is unfounded. In February, we fact-checked a claim that President Joe Biden didn’t deliver the annual State of the Union address but that someone else wearing a Biden mask did. That’s wrong, and so is this.
We rate this post Pants on Fire!
Our Sources
Facebook post, March 30, 2023
The Washington Post, History’s most famous mug shots: Will Trump join this pantheon?, April 3, 2023
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Is that a masked man? No, that’s really Donald Trump.
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