Fake news saga wrongly says Nancy Pelosi’s daughters caught smuggling drugs

A series of fake news posts appearing across several websites said U.S. Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s daughters were arrested for smuggling drugs, but the articles are so inaccurate, they don’t even bother to consistently use the same fake names.

The bogus saga of the House minority leader’s children is widespread and convoluted: Facebook users flagged a string of stories starting on July 6, 2017, appearing on wazanews.tk, as part of the social media site’s efforts to combat fake news.

The posts all invoked Pelosi’s name, but details from story to story did not agree. Essentially, the articles said two of the California Democrat’s adult daughters had been arrested for smuggling cocaine.

But the details of what happened after that premise was asserted varied wildly in the following days.

At first the women were said to be caught in Berkeley, Calif., with more than 200 pounds of cocaine in their Winnebago. Later stories claimed they were apprehended at the Mexican border. The yarn went on and on, across several posts.

The gist is that the women ran a drug ring out of a pool house, and agreed to turn on their mother after they were caught. Somehow Nancy Pelosi faced charges for ethical violations, breaking federal drug laws and committing treason. (It’s never really specified how.)  

Eventually Hillary Clinton was implicated, and the women were in protective custody when the cabin in which they were staying burned down. They turned up alive in Buffalo, N.Y., however, so all was well.

Wazanews.tk is a website registered in Amsterdam, but the stories appeared to originate on OurLandOfTheFree.com, FreedomCrossroads.us or TheLastLineOfDefense.org, a site run by Christopher Blair. He writes absurd stories about Democrats with the goal of tricking conservative readers into believing they (and his website) are real.

OurLandOfTheFree.com said it "makes no guarantee that anything you find here will be based at all in reality." FreedomCrossroads.us has an About Us page that claims the site "uses facts that don’t exist and relies more on imagination than the truth."

The posts don’t align very well, with details varying from story to story, such as the women’s ages or even names, which change constantly.

Sometimes the pair are called Heather and Nicole. Or maybe Julie Marie and Nicole Lynn. Or Jillian and Veronica. Or Amber and Carly. Or Louanne and Marissa.

Featured Fact-check

Instagram posts

stated on October 14, 2024 in an Instagram post

Fox News reported Donald Trump donated $1,300 for hurricane relief.

For the record, Pelosi’s five children are daughters Christine, Alexandra, Jacqueline and Nancy, and one son named Paul.

At least a couple of images used on posts were actually of two women arrested for smuggling drugs. But those photos were of a pair of Scots arrested in Peru for trying to sneak cocaine to Spain in 2013.

The grand finale is a July 9 post on TheLastLineOfDefense.org under the headline, "Liberal troll paid $100K for Nancy Pelosi drug bust hoax."

The post said George Soros paid the author to fool people for his own amusement, but that "in the end, everyone knows Pelosi is guilty and (Hillary) Clinton is behind everything."

Don’t be fooled by tales of Pelosi’s daughters being busted for drugs. It’s a fictional soap opera created to amuse trolls.

We rate this claim Pants On Fire!

Share the Facts

2017-07-13 14:51:55 UTC

PolitiFact

1

1

7

PolitiFact Rating:

Pants on Fire

Says two of U.S. Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s daughters were arrested for smuggling drugs.

Internet rumors

Bloggers

in a series of Internet posts

Thursday, July 6, 2017

2017-07-06

Read More

info