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Ciara O'Rourke
By Ciara O'Rourke April 6, 2021

No, Amy Coney Barrett wasn’t indicted

If Your Time is short

  • The allegations in this blog post are unfounded. 
 

A blog post about a supposed indictment against Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett is spreading widely on social media, but the story is simply "deep state" fan fiction with wild claims attributed to an anonymous source.

The post says that on his last full day in office, then-President Donald Trump co-authored "a flurry of indictments," including one that charged Barrett with "high crimes and misdemeanors against America and its people." 

"Our source said Trump spent days pondering whether to formally charge the 49-year-old mother of seven, but concluded that Barrett’s betrayal to both him and the U.S. Constitution could not go unpunished," the post says.

The post goes on to make other false claims, such as that President Joe Biden stole the presidential election and that Trump is expected to unseal the indictment against Barrett "once he returns to power before the end of the year."

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.)

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There is nothing to support the allegations in this blog post. Prosecutors seek indictments, not presidents, and they’re issued by grand juries — again, not by presidents. The indictment of a Supreme Court justice would draw major news coverage, but none exists to support the claim that Barrett faces criminal charges. 

We searched for Barrett’s name in the Public Access to Court Electronic Records site, better known as PACER, a database of federal court cases. There are no criminal cases against the Supreme Court justice, much less one that includes the charges detailed in the blog post.

That’s because it’s baseless. 

We rate it Pants on Fire.

 

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No, Amy Coney Barrett wasn’t indicted

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