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stated on January 18, 2022 in a post:

“Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor tests positive for COVID-19 despite triple vaccination, diligent masking and working from home.”

Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor is pictured at her confirmation hearing in 2009. (AP)

By Monique Curet January 20, 2022

News headline about Supreme Court justice appears to be fabricated

If Your Time is short

• The claim is based on a news headline that appears to be fabricated.

• The Supreme Court has not released any information saying Sotomayor tested positive for COVID-19, and the media has not reported any such news.

See the sources for this fact-check

Two U.S. Supreme Court justices recently made headlines when the court’s mask-wearing practices came under scrutiny, but a social media claim took the story one step further.

"Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor tests positive for COVID-19 despite triple vaccination, diligent masking and working from home," an image shared in a Jan. 18 Facebook post says. The post is a screenshot of a Jan. 22 news headline, which bears a CNBC logo and the byline of CNBC reporter Kevin Breuninger.

(Screenshot from Facebook shows a viral image that appears to have been doctored to include a fabricated headline.)

We saw the post being shared by musician Ted Nugent, a vocal Trump supporter and gun rights advocate who has made statements amplifying the baseless claim that Democrats stole the 2020 presidential election.

The 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.)

The headline that the claim is based on appears to be fabricated.

We did not find any news article with that headline in a search of a database of published news stories; on the CNBC website; on Breuninger’s Twitter account; or on Breuninger’s profile page on CNBC.com, which includes links to stories he authored. The headline in the Facebook image also appears in a different font than those used by CNBC’s website.

Further, the Supreme Court has not released any information that says Sotomayor tested positive for COVID-19, and there are no media reports that include that news. The court issued a press release in October when Justice Brett Kavanaugh tested positive for the virus.

We contacted Breuninger, CNBC and the Supreme Court public information office for comment, but have not received replies.

Our ruling

A Facebook post says, "Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor tests positive for COVID-19 despite triple vaccination, diligent masking and working from home." The post looks like a screenshot of a Jan. 22 news headline, with a CNBC logo and CNBC reporter Breuninger’s byline.

But the headline that appears in the screenshot is not authentic.

Facebook posts

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The Supreme Court has not released any information that says Sotomayor tested positive for COVID-19, and there are no media reports that include that news.