Category: Fact Check

The sight was unbelievable: a speeding car became airborne, crashed and burst into flames near the U.S.-Canada border. Two people were killed and another was injured.

Social media posts then pointed to a possible reason for the crash at the Rainbow Bridge in Niagara Falls, New York. 

“UPDATE: Terrorist attack confirmed,” read the edited caption on a Nov. 22 Facebook post that initially had said police were “approaching this as a terrorist attack.” 

Screenshot from Facebook

Another Facebook post included a screenshot of a headline about the Rainbow Bridge explosion, with the caption, “Confirmed attempted terror attack per FBI.”

These posts were flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram.)

Similar claims also spread on TikTok. “A terrorist attack just happened in the United States at the Rainbow Bridge,” one TikTok user said in a Nov. 22 video. TikTok identified this video as part of its efforts to counter inauthentic, misleading or false content. (Read more about PolitiFact’s partnership with TikTok.)

The FBI said the crash was not linked to any terrorist activity. 

In a Nov. 22 statement, the FBI Buffalo Field Office said, “A search of the scene revealed no explosive materials, and no terrorism nexus was identified. The matter has been turned over to the Niagara Falls Police Department as a traffic investigation.”

The crash happened Nov. 22 around 11:30 a.m. Eastern Time. A Fox News correspondent initially posted on X that unnamed sources said it was an attempted terrorist attack and the car was full of explosives. 

The Fox News correspondent later clarified her post, writing, “High-level police sources say bomb techs on the scene immediately alerted all authorities that this was an attempted terror attack because they had never seen a car explosion with a debris field like that before and believed there were several explosives in the car.” 

At 1:41 p.m. Eastern Time, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul posted on X that she had directed the New York State Police and the FBI Terrorism Task Force to monitor all points of entry to New York. 

Later, in a press conference around 5 p.m. the same day, Hochul said, “There is no sign of terrorist activity with respect to this crash.” 

The people in the car who died in the crash were identified as Kurt P. Villani and Monica Villani, a married couple who owned businesses in western New York. Authorities said they were headed to a concert in Toronto.

The car was a 2022 Bentley Flying Spur, an ultraluxury model that can reach 60 miles per hour in four seconds. The New York Times reported that investigators are considering whether a mechanical failure could have caused the car to accelerate.

We rate the claim that a “terrorist attack (was) confirmed” in Niagara Falls as False. ​

In the weeks since the onset of the Israel-Hamas war, violence has also erupted in the West Bank. But some social media users are misconstruing emerging war footage.

A Nov. 9 Instagram post by Israeli model Nataly Dadon claimed that a video showed a medic with Doctors Without Borders, the charity that provides humanitarian medical aid during conflicts worldwide, taking political sides in the war.

“In this video taken today in Jenin,” she wrote, “a medic from ‘Doctors Without Borders’ went to a terrorist who was shot by the (Israel Defense Forces), lifted him up and took his weapon then brought it to another terrorist. Basically he abused his position as a medic, which the IDF cannot shoot, to break the law and assist terrorists to get a weapon.”

The video showed a video of a man in an orange vest taking an assault rifle from a man lying on the ground, then running toward the left side of the screen. It’s hard to make out what happened next, because the camera bounces around as the man in the vest stumbles. Another person in a striped shirt then runs into view toward the person wearing the vest. The moving camera does not capture a weapon being handed from one person to another. But the man in the striped shirt is soon seen shooting with a weapon that looks like the one the man with the vest had retrieved.

Text on the video read, “Doctors Without Borders.”

(Screengrab from Instagram)

This post was flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram.)

However, the man in the orange vest, identified by the post as a medic, is not affiliated with Doctors Without Borders, or Médecins Sans Frontières as it is known in French, a spokesperson for the organization told PolitiFact.

“The person depicted in the video is clearly not wearing an MSF logo or any other identification related to MSF. MSF staff do not wear orange vests seen in the video,” Doctors Without Borders spokesperson Brienne Prusak said.

Doctors Without Borders staff wear white vests with the organization’s red logo to identify themselves as medical personnel.

The Associated Press and Lead Stories reported that the orange vest seen in the video matches the ones worn by the Palestinian Medical Relief Society, which works in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem. Pictures from The Associated Press, Getty Images and the Palestinian Medical Relief Society’s Facebook page show vests in use that resemble the one worn by the man in the Instagram video. They are orange with black and light colored stripes and feature a circular insignia on the back.

It’s unclear whether the man in the video works for the Palestinian Medical Relief Society or if he is just wearing the group’s orange vest.

Additionally, Doctors Without Borders said its staff does not provide services in the area shown in the video.

“In Jenin, MSF supports the emergency room of the Ministry of Health Hospital and supports the pre-hospital emergency,” Prusak said. “Our MSF staff in Jenin do not carry out ambulatory services. We do not treat people outside in the streets.”

Doctors Without Borders was founded in 1971 with the goal of providing emergency medical aid “quickly, effectively and impartially,” its website says. It describes itself as “independent, impartial and neutral,” providing care based “solely on need, irrespective of race, religion, gender or political affiliation.” The organization has called for a ceasefire so humanitarian aid can reach Gaza.

We rate the claim that a video shows a Doctors Without Borders medic in Jenin taking a weapon from one man and giving it to another False.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis took some heat this summer when he told a group of Iowans how he’d reduce the size of the federal workforce if elected president.

“We are going to start slitting throats on Day 1,” he said.

Critics questioned the taste of such violent imagery. But DeSantis’ words raise another important question: How will he find time to slit throats in the U.S. bureaucracy when he’s going to be tied up with at least a dozen other “Day 1” presidential promises?

Since throwing his hat in the ring six months ago, DeSantis has promised a range of executive measures he’d take as soon as he’s sworn in on Jan. 20, 2025. Some are light on specifics; others are constitutionally questionable, if not impossible. (There’s also the inconvenient fact that in most national polls he trails former President Donald Trump by around 40 points — although that hasn’t kept him from adding to his Day 1 agenda.)

DeSantis isn’t the first presidential candidate to make a lot of big Day 1 promises. Just this year, we’ve seen former President Donald Trump pledge to end birthright citizenship, entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy pledge to “instantly fire 50% of federal bureaucrats,” and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie pledge to ban TikTok — all on their first day in office.

But no candidate this year has deployed that phrase as often as DeSantis. And even if it’s just a rhetorical tic, his many Day 1 pledges offer insight into his most pressing presidential priorities. And they portend an awfully busy first day in the Oval Office.

For instance, he’s vowed to immediately declare a state of emergency over immigration at the United States-Mexico border.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican presidential candidate, arrives Nov. 17, 2023, at the Family Leader’s Thanksgiving Family Forum in Des Moines, Iowa. (AP)

“I guarantee you, on Day 1, this border is going to be a Day 1 issue for me as president,” he said. “We’re going to declare it a national emergency.”

Part of the solution, he said, will involve construction on a border wall funded by Mexico: “I will get that done, and that’ll be a Day 1 issue for us.” Part of it may involve boosting recruitment efforts for Border Patrol agents, who DeSantis said “have been repeatedly disrespected by the Biden administration. That will stop on Day 1 of my presidency.”

Securing the border would also involve the military. Asked in August at the first GOP debate if he might send troops or special forces into Mexico to deal with drug cartels and fentanyl labs, DeSantis replied: “Yes, and I will do it on Day 1.”

What would DeSantis’ military look like? One thing we know is it wouldn’t offer any more diversity, equity or inclusion training.

“As commander in chief, on Day 1, I’m ripping it all out,” he said. “The woke is gone, the politics is gone, the social is gone. We’re going to focus the military on its core mission. Mission first, that’s what it’s going to be about.”

That mission will extend from Mexico to the Middle East.

“Beginning on Day 1 when I become President, the days of America appeasing Iran will be over,” DeSantis posted on X, formerly known as Twitter. Instead, he would impose sanctions, revoke sanction waivers, end negotiations and deals and “suspend the security clearance, investigate and hold accountable anyone implicated in the Iran foreign influence operation that has ties to senior Biden Admin officials.”

Looking at the workforce

DeSantis already has one big assignment for his new federal workforce. Asked on a podcast if he would consider pardoning Trump or anyone else charged in connection with the Jan. 6 insurrection, DeSantis said he’d get that ball rolling — when else? — “on Day 1.”

“I will have folks that will get together and look at all these cases, who, people are victims of weaponization or political targeting, and we will be aggressive at issuing pardons,” he said. “We will use the pardon power — and I will do that at the front end.”

And then there’s the economy. DeSantis has big Day 1 plans for that, too.

“I’m going to take all the executive orders, the regulations, everything involving Bidenomics, I’m going to rip it up and I’m going to throw it in the trash can on Day 1, where it belongs,” he said.

To DeSantis, ripping up Bidenomics — a broad term describing President Joe Biden’s various economic policies — means tightening federal spending, loosening government regulations and reining in the Federal Reserve’s interest hikes. He’s also pledged to ban immediately a proposed central bank digital currency. (“Done. Dead. Not happening in this country.”)

DeSantis will “unleash oil and gas exploration and development, pipelines, and infrastructure on Day 1.” He’ll “reverse Biden’s job-crippling and ideological regulations and executive orders on Day 1.” He’ll “repeal Biden’s Clean Power Plan on Day 1.”

The Clean Power Plan, of course, was an Obama-era energy bill repealed by the Trump administration in 2019. So that’s one less thing DeSantis will have to worry about on Day 1.

Reinventing the economy

As for everything else — reinventing the economy, securing the southern border, remaking the federal workforce, revamping U.S. foreign policy, weighing pardons for hundreds of Jan. 6 participants, including the former president — the how of it all will come later. For now, what’s important is the when.

“We need to do it now because if we don’t get this done we only have a short amount of time, short amount of window to be able to turn the country around,” DeSantis said. “You’ve got to go in there, Jan. 20, 2025. You’ve got to be ready to go on Day 1.”

If he’s not, his critics will be ready to pounce.

“He always talks about what happens on Day 1,” GOP presidential contender Nikki Haley said of DeSantis at a debate. “You better watch out, because what happens on Day 2 is when you’re in trouble.”

A new ad from the National Republican Senatorial Committee claims U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin voted to send hundreds of millions of dollars to Iran that was then used to financially back “radical” groups including Hamas, a militant group in Gaza designated as a terror group by the United States.

The ad, released on Nov. 8, 2023, comes on the heels of Hamas’ Oct. 7 attacks on Israel.

“Baldwin voted to send hundreds of millions to Iran, the world’s leading sponsor of terrorism, bankrolling radicals like Hezbollah and Hamas,” a voiceover narrates in the ad.

There are two agreements to consider when examining whether this claim about Baldwin is true.

Let’s examine both.

U.S. agreement to release $6 billion in Iranian funds and free American prisoners

First, the ad references the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks on Israel, which brought scrutiny to a U.S. agreement with Iran made in August. The deal, made by President Joe Biden, secured freedom for five U.S. citizens detained in Iran in exchange for allowing the country to access $6 billion of its own funds.

The funds were not taxpayer dollars but rather Iranian oil revenue frozen in a South Korean bank. The money has been frozen since 2019, when former President Donald Trump imposed a ban on Iranian oil exports and sanctions on its banking sector. 

But the money never made it to Iran.

The $6 billion was transferred out of South Korea when U.S. hostages were returned in mid-September. The money was transferred to Qatar, a Middle East nation that sits across the Persian Gulf from Iran, not Iran itself. 

However, the Biden administration and Qatar agreed to hold the money in Qatar’s central bank and prevent Iran from accessing it, officials announced Oct. 12, days after the initial attack. 

Notably, Baldwin was one of the first U.S. senators to urge the Biden administration refreeze the money after the Hamas attacks on Israel. She joined a bipartisan group of 13 senators in an Oct. 13 letter to U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

Even if Iran had received the money, the deal required Iran to only use it for humanitarian items, such as medicine and food.

U.S. State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said in September there are “strict Treasury Department safeguards” in place to ensure the money is spent on humanitarian goods, despite warnings from Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi that Iran would spend the money however it saw fit.

Still, critics of the deal argue the money is fungible. Put simply, that means Iran could spend its existing money on allowed goods but turn around and use those goods for an illegitimate purpose. 

Foreign policy analysts previously told PolitiFact National fungibility is a legitimate concern in this case.

However, Andrew Kydd, a University of Wisconsin-Madison political science professor, added a caveat to fungibility.

“This still frees up their budget constraint to spend other money on other things,” Kydd wrote in an email to us. “But by this logic anyone who buys something at Walmart is supporting the Chinese nuclear arsenal.”

For now, the $6 billion released in August has not made it to Iran. 

2015 Iran nuclear agreement

In 2015, Baldwin voted with Democrats against a Republican effort to block Democratic former President Barack Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran. Republicans failed to get the 60 votes needed to block the deal, which lifted U.S. sanctions on Iran in exchange for limiting Iran’s nuclear capabilities. 

The 2015 agreement didn’t send money to Iran, but rather freed up Iranian assets previously frozen under sanctions. U.S. Treasury Secretary Jack Lew told lawmakers in July 2015 that Iran would gain access to an estimated $56 billion under the deal, though other estimates from Iranian officials placed that number lower.

Republican former President Donald Trump later pulled out of the deal in 2018. 

“Tammy Baldwin may not like being held accountable, but she can’t hide from her record of voting to send millions of dollars to the world’s leading sponsor of terror groups like Hamas,” said NRSC Spokesman Tate Mitchell.

But did the freed funds go to Hamas and Hezbollah? That part is less clear.

It is true that Iran is a state sponsor of terrorism, and Iran is a longtime sponsor of Hamas and Hezbollah, as the ad claims. The U.S. State Department cited Iran as the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism in a 2017 report, a fact mentioned in the ad.

The department did not identify any specific nation as the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism in a similar 2021 report.

The ad also uses visual and audio editing to suggest the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks are tied to Iran, which is currently a disputed claim.

It’s possible Iran could have helped Hamas orchestrate the Oct. 7 attacks against Israel, though Iran has denied involvement. Unnamed Hamas and Hezbollah sources told The Wall Street Journal in October the group received direct support from Iran to conduct its attack, and the paper reported Iranian security officials helped plan and execute the assault. 

Secretary of State Blinken told CNN on Oct. 8, 2023 the U.S. hasn’t seen definitive proof of Iranian involvement, though he added Hamas “wouldn’t be around in the way that it is without the support that it’s received from Iran over the years.”

It is technically possible some of the funds received from the 2015 nuclear deal may have gone to state-sponsored terrorism, as top U.S. government officials at the time admitted they couldn’t fully stop Iran from doing so. 

However, we could not find concrete evidence directly tying funds received from the 2015 nuclear deal to money Iran gave to Hezbollah or Hamas. That means it’s difficult to connect Baldwin’s vote directly to “bankrolling radicals” — though, as we mentioned above, fungibility may apply.

Furthermore, since this money did not come from the U.S. but instead consisted of unlocked Iranian funds, it’s misleading to say Baldwin voted to “send” the money. She voted to defend a deal that would give Iran access to its own funds in exchange for more oversight over Iran’s nuclear operations.

Our ruling

An ad from the NRSC claimed Baldwin “voted to send hundreds of millions to Iran, the world’s leading sponsor of terrorism, bankrolling radicals like Hezbollah and Hamas.”

While Baldwin voted for the Iran nuclear deal in 2015 and an agreement to return U.S. prisoners held by Iran in August 2023, both agreements unfroze Iranian funds held in foreign banks due to sanctions. 

And, in the case of the 2023 deal, the funds were stalled via an Oct. 12 agreement with Qatar, meaning Iran has not yet accessed the $6 billion unfrozen in August.

Some of the money freed in 2015 may have allowed Iran to provide funding for terrorist groups, but there’s not enough concrete evidence to say the money freed in the agreement directly went to terror groups, and the money was actually freed as part of a deal to limit Iran’s nuclear capabilities. Still, there’s no foolproof guarantee.

Therefore, Baldwin did vote to approve an agreement that freed hundreds of millions of Iranian funds for the nation, a leading sponsor of terrorism. But the idea that the money was directly sent to Hamas or Hezbollah lacks concrete proof.

We rate this claim Mostly False.

Al-Shifa hospital, Gaza’s largest hospital and a major shelter for Palestinian civilians, became a focal point in the Israel-Hamas war after Israel Defense Forces raided the hospital Nov. 15. The Israeli military says Hamas, an armed Palestinian militant group, used the hospital as cover for terror infrastructure; officials from Hamas, the Gaza Health Ministry and hospital officials have denied that Hamas uses civilian centers for its operations.

Apart from that discussion is a different video traveling in several Instagram posts showing a service member carrying an Israeli flag and hoisting it on top of a building. The posts claim this was taken at al-Shifa hospital. 

” Raising their flag over Al Shifa Hospital in Gaza – after attacking a hospital full of premature babies, sick/injured children and civilians. What accomplishment,” one post said.

Screenshot from Instagram

The posts were flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram.)

A closer look at the video shows that the captions misrepresent where it was taken.

The video shows a logo that matches the name of a Telegram channel, which posted the video Nov. 14. The video’s caption in Hebrew, translated to English on the app, said, “Givati ​​fighters wave the Israeli flag and the brigade in the center of Gaza City .” It did not mention al-Shifa hospital.

Arthur Carpentier, a journalist at Le Monde, a French newspaper, found where the video was shot by using satellite imagery and mapping matching features. He said the video was taken not from al-Shifa hospital, but from the Gaza Preliminary School for Boys, less than a mile away. OpenStreetMap shows that the coordinates correspond to the school, similarly reported by Reuters.

We verified the video shoot location by similarly using satellite imagery. We identified features in the video that corresponded with the satellite image, such as lettering on the building and structures nearby. The colors of the boxes below show how they match up. 

Looking closely at the start of the video, the service members walk over letters on the ground that say “UN.” The blue box shows the letters “UN” on the satellite image versus the video. As Carpentier said, the satellite image was captured in May 2022, which could account for the orientation difference of the letters “UN.” Meanwhile, the yellow box shows the tree in the video.

Image from Google Earth, screenshots from Telegram video

The pink box shows the same shape of the rooftop, which can be seen as the service members turn a corner. The orange box shows what looks like a fenced path below the building.

Image from Google Earth, screenshots from Telegram video

Because the building had the letters “UN” painted on its rooftop, we asked the United Nations about this video’s claim. Juliette Touma, communications director for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, said the video shows “an UNRWA school in northern Gaza.” The agency runs 183 schools across the Gaza Strip.

Touma told Reuters that as of Nov. 17, the agency has been unable to communicate with the Gaza team and thus cannot verify which school is in the video. 

The New York Times reported Nov. 19, citing a U.N. official, that a strike has hit another U.N.-run school in Gaza, killing dozens.

We rate the claim that this video shows service members planting a flag over al-Shifa hospital False.

A TikTok user sought to causally connect two hot-button concerns: inflation in the U.S. and overseas wars.

The Nov. 18 post features a narrator who says, after stripping out frequent obscenities, “The … feds were raising inflation so they could fund this … war. The entire time that these companies and the Federal Reserve were raising prices on us and raising … interest rates on us, they were doing that so they could fund a … war. It had nothing to do with stimulating our economy or getting our economy back in line. They did this … on purpose so they could fund a … war against a bunch of civilians.”

PolitiFact was tagged in the video, so we wanted to examine the claim. We found several problems with the TikTokker’s reasoning.

Government policy may have exacerbated inflation, which recently peaked in summer 2022. But supply chain disruptions because of the coronavirus pandemic and price shocks from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine were inflation’s primary drivers.

Also, Federal Reserve rate hikes have been targeted specifically at lowering inflation. Inflation is down from its 9% year-over-year increase in July 2022 to 3.2% in October 2023.

Finally, the purported synchronous timing of inflation and war does not add up. Israel’s military response, which has killed more than 11,000 people in Gaza, was sparked by large-scale terrorist attacks by Hamas, an armed Palestinian militant group, on Oct. 7. 

Claim: The federal government was “raising inflation.”

Government spending can have an effect on inflation. But it’s not the only factor.

The 2021 American Rescue Plan Act, a key piece of President Joe Biden’s economic agenda, added about $1.9 trillion to the economy, and economists across the political spectrum say this spurred inflation. They differ on how much; estimates range from 2 to 4 points out of the peak inflation rate of about 9%.

However, none of the experts PolitiFact interviewed for a previous fact-check, liberal or conservative, said Biden’s actions were solely responsible for all of the inflation. Past government spending, COVID-19-related labor market disruptions, shifting energy prices and supply chains also played significant roles. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 drove some prices even higher.

One can argue that Biden should have better understood his policies’ possible inflationary side effects, but there is no evidence that an intentional desire to provoke inflation, or warmongering, drove his policies. Biden’s stated goal for the American Rescue Plan was to help the nation recover from a difficult pandemic’s economic consequences.

Claim: Actions by the federal government and the Federal Reserve “had nothing to do with … getting our economy back in line.”

Economists have told PolitiFact that the major policy reason that inflation has declined is a series of rate hikes by the Federal Reserve, which acts independently of the executive branch. Fed Chairman Jerome Powell has reiterated repeatedly that the goal was to leverage rate hikes to reduce inflation. 

When the Fed raises interest rates, economic growth slows and demand cools, lowering prices. On March 16, 2022, the Fed’s main interest rate was 0.8%. Today, it’s 5.33%, the highest in a decade and a half. 

The Fed’s rate increases have rippled throughout the economy and in some ways raised consumers’ costs by raising mortgage rates for homebuyers. But in almost every other way, the rate hikes make it less likely that consumers spend aggressively. By raising the cost of credit, the hikes cool consumer demand, which better aligns that demand with the available supply of goods and services, resulting in lower prices.

The Fed’s rate hikes, and the subsequent rise in mortgage rates, has “cratered the housing market,” said Douglas Holtz-Eakin, president of the center-right American Action Forum think tank. And when the housing sector gets hit, he said, demand for a host of other things, such as appliances and home furnishings, falls, too. As a result, he said, “goods price inflation is almost gone.”

“Few Americans give the Fed, Congress, or two presidents much credit for pursuing policies that limited the economic damage from a sharp and severe recession,” said Brookings Institution economist Gary Burtless. But many Americans, he added, “blame the Fed, Congress, and at least one of the two presidents for the inflation that was generated by the mostly successful counter-recessionary policies of the federal government.”

Claim: Government is using inflation to fund a “war against a bunch of civilians”

The U.S. gives more money to Israel than any other country. And Israel’s military response to the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks has resulted in the killing of more than 11,000 people in Gaza, many of whom are civilians. 

But this does not mean U.S. inflation and the Israel-Hamas war are connected logically.

The Oct. 7 attacks were carried out on Hamas’ timetable, and when they happened, inflation was down to 3% — close to the Fed’s customary target level. 

Also, U.S. aid earmarked to help Israel hasn’t passed Congress yet, because of differences between the Republican-led House and the Democratic-led Senate over whether to combine aid to Israel with aid to Ukraine.

This assistance would represent “a drop in the bucket relative to the economy,” said Dean Baker, an economist with the liberal Center for Economic and Policy Research.

“There are political issues that can be raised about the merits of the spending, but we’re talking about less than 0.1% of gross domestic product,” Baker said.

Our ruling

The TikTok video said the federal government and the Federal Reserve were “raising inflation,” something that “had nothing to do with … getting our economy back in line” but rather to fund a “war against a bunch of civilians.”

Although government policy may have exacerbated the recent inflation that peaked in summer 2022, economists say coronavirus pandemic-related supply chain disruptions and price shocks from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine drove inflation primarily.

The Federal Reserve’s rate hikes have specifically targeted inflation and have succeeded, cutting the year-over-year rate by two-thirds.

Finally, the war in Gaza was precipitated by Hamas’ surprise terrorist attacks Oct. 7. These occurred when inflation in the U.S. had cooled almost to the Fed’s target rate.

We rate the statement False.

In his campaign for an open U.S. Senate seat, Rep. Alex Mooney, R-W.Va., is trying to portray Republican Gov. Jim Justice, his rival for the Republican nomination, as out of step with West Virginia’s conservative voters. One recent attack concerned taxes.

In a Nov. 2 post on X, formerly Twitter, Mooney said that Justice “broke his pledge, raised the gas tax, and pushed for the largest tax increase in West Virginia’s history.”

Here, we’ll look at whether Justice broke his pledge by raising the gasoline tax. We found it misleading. 

Justice’s campaign did not respond to inquiries for this article.

In the post, Mooney linked to a June 2017 article by The Herald-Dispatch newspaper in Huntington, West Virginia, that reported on how Justice pushed for and signed Senate Bill 1006, which raised gasoline taxes, a tax on car purchases, and certain motor vehicle registration fees. The proceeds were earmarked for highway funding, which Justice applauded as creating jobs and improving infrastructure.

The bill raised the car-buying tax from 5% to 6%; hiked fees on titles, registration and inspection stickers; and increased gasoline taxes by about 3.5 cents per gallon, The Herald-Dispatch reported. The measure also raised registration fees for hybrid and electric vehicles, to help cover the shortfalls in road funding for electric vehicles not paying gasoline taxes. 

But did this break his pledge? No.

The pledge, which has been promoted for years by the anti-tax group Americans for Tax Reform, says,”I pledge to the taxpayers of the state of (state) I will oppose and veto any and all efforts to increase taxes.”

Justice signed the pledge in February 2023, almost six years after he signed the tax and fee increases. Justice couldn’t have broken a pledge he hadn’t signed yet. 

Mooney’s team accused Justice of hypocrisy by taking a pledge he hadn’t lived up to in the past.

However, Mooney’s critique also ignored a $754 million tax cut Justice signed in March 2023 that was widely described as the largest tax cut in West Virginia history. The main provision cuts state personal income tax rates by 21.25% in all tax brackets. This move was the polar opposite of a tax increase. 

Our ruling

Mooney said Justice “broke his pledge, raised the gas tax.”

Justice signed an increase in gasoline taxes and other motor vehicle taxes and fees. But he signed the gasoline tax bill in 2017, about six years before he signed the taxpayer protection pledge; he couldn’t have broken a pledge he hadn’t signed yet.

The attack also ignores that Justice signed an income tax cut in 2023 that was widely described as the largest tax cut in West Virginia history.

We rate the statement False.

Nearly three years after the violent breach on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, a lawmaker presented FBI director Christopher Wray with a new theory about how people arrived at the Capitol that day.

“Do you know what a ‘ghost vehicle’ is?” Rep. Clay Higgins, R-La., asked during a Nov. 15 House Committee on Homeland Security hearing. “You’re the director of the FBI, you certainly should. Do you know what a ‘ghost bus’ is?”

Wray said he wasn’t familiar with the term. 

Higgins expounded. “These (ghost) buses are nefarious in nature and were filled with FBI informants dressed as Trump supporters, deployed onto our Capitol on Jan. 6,” Higgins said. 

Higgins said that he had long sought a “definitive answer” from federal officials about whether FBI confidential human sources dressed as Trump supporters were at the Capitol. But he barely gave Wray time to answer.

“If you are asking whether the violence at the Capitol on Jan. 6 was part of some operation orchestrated by FBI sources or agents, the answer is an emphatic no,” Wray said before Higgins cut him off.

Numerous investigations into what happened Jan. 6, 2021, including by a congressional committee, have found the attack on the U.S. Capitol was orchestrated and carried out by people who supported Donald Trump’s presidency and believed or pushed false claims that the 2020 election was “stolen.”

Evidence from court documents — including information that led to charges against 1,200 defendants, more than half of whom have been found guilty so far — shows, person-by-person, who ransacked the Capitol and fought with police officers. The rioters’ goal was preventing Congress from accepting the results of the election showing that Trump had lost. In 17 key findings, the House committee investigating the attack determined Trump himself disseminated false allegations about the election and summoned supporters to the Capitol and directed them to “take back” the country.

Higgins’ statement about a “ghost bus” furthers the falsehood that FBI agents “intentionally entrapped” Americans, instigated or orchestrated the Capitol attack. 

Although evidence shows FBI informants were at the Capitol that day, none shows informants instigated the violence that followed.

Experts familiar with the FBI told PolitiFact they were unfamiliar with the term “ghost bus.” They said it would make no sense for the FBI to pack informants into a bus together because that would draw attention to them and they generally work independently.

On Jan. 6, 2021, Higgins wrote on Twitter that “violence and lawlessness” was unacceptable. Since then, he has used his influence to request leniency for the people arrested in the Capitol attack and in June accused the Justice Department of wanting “J6 again,” saying it had targeted Trump supporters with “persecution and further entrapment.”

Higgins did not respond to PolitiFact’s request for comment. But he told HuffPost that the buses unloaded men with muscular physiques dressed as Trump supporters, and the buses were abandoned in the garage. “They orchestrated what they orchestrated and don’t put words in my mouth,” Higgins told HuffPost.

The FBI directed PolitiFact to Wray’s testimony that FBI sources and agents did not incite violence at the Capitol.

What is a ‘ghost bus’?

Explaining “ghost bus” during the Nov. 15 hearing, Higgins, a former sheriff’s office captain, said it is “pretty common in law enforcement,” for vehicles to be “painted over” and “used for secret purposes.” Higgins pointed to a photo board with an image of buses in a parking garage, singling out two buses he said were “painted completely white” and the first to arrive at Washington, D.C.’s Union Station on Jan. 6, 2021. 

But experts, including an FBI spokesperson, told PolitiFact the term “ghost bus” was unfamiliar.

We searched Google and the Nexis database for use of the term “ghost bus” from before Higgins made the claim and found no FBI-related references. 

One common use of the term refers to a frustrating public transportation phenomenon, in which an online application shows that a bus has nearly arrived — only for it to abruptly disappear or report significant delays. 

Searches for “stealth vehicle” revealed a law enforcement connotation: Some police departments use vehicles for covert operations that are emblazoned with stealth graphics they describe as “ghost graphics” because they blend in with the vehicle’s paint color, making them harder to see.

Journalist Trevor Aaronson, who writes for The Intercept and has reported on the FBI for years, told PolitiFact the agency has undercover vehicles but that he had “never heard of the FBI using buses specifically.” He also said the FBI wouldn’t collectively bus informants to an event.

“Informants don’t know who the other informants are,” Aaronson said in an email. “This sometimes results in comic situations for the FBI: Informants start targeting other informants in investigations. So the idea that the FBI arranged some sort of field trip with a bunch of informants? Absurd.”

Mike German worked 16 years for the FBI, including 12 as an undercover agent investigating white supremacists and far-right groups. He said he also had never heard the term “ghost bus” and found the notion of putting “a bunch of undercover agents or FBI informants together on a bus to send them to a rally” to be “ludicrous from a covert operations perspective.”

“When you are doing undercover work you are trying to blend in,” said German, who wrote a book critical of the FBI and now works for the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University.

German said that FBI informants generally work alone. And though he has heard of perhaps two or three working together, a bus full would be “highly unlikely.”

What we know about Jan. 6, 2021, rioters 

Numerous federal investigations and years of reporting on the attack have not revealed evidence to support the conspiracy theory that the Capitol attack was a false flag event orchestrated by the FBI to entrap Trump supporters.

Court filings, news reports and other information for hundreds of Jan. 6, 2021, defendants show that many considered their actions patriotic; they believed they were on the front lines of a revolution or civil war. Rioters scaled walls, broke windows, forced their way into the building and clashed with police.

Among people sentenced for seditious conspiracy are multiple members of far-right groups including the Proud Boys extremist group and militia groups including the Oath Keepers. These groups, and other Americans, responded to Trump’s invitations to convene on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

In this Jan. 6, 2021 photo, President Donald Trump speaks during a rally protesting the electoral college certification of Joe Biden as President in Washington. (AP)

The FBI’s role on Jan. 6, 2021

Government reports have criticized the FBI for failing to sound the alarm about Jan. 6, 2021, despite repeated tips in the preceding weeks that violence could occur.

Steven D’Antuono, the former assistant director-in-charge of the FBI’s Washington Field Office, told the House Judiciary Committee in June that the agency had maybe a “handful” of informants present in the crowd on Jan. 6, 2021 — some the agency knew about ahead of time, some it did not.

When asked about the theory that the FBI directed the attack, he replied “that is furthest from the truth.” 

Allegations that FBI informants played a key role in the day’s events have proved to be false. One viral claim repeated by some lawmakers involved Ray Epps, an Arizona man whom some people had identified as a possible undercover FBI agent or informant. But no evidence supported that claim and Epps’ own statements to the House committee investigating the attack rebutted it.

The New York Times reported in 2021 that confidential records showed that the FBI had an informant in the crowd among the Proud Boys as its members marched to the Capitol. The informant texted his FBI handler during the day.

Proud Boys’ defense attorneys claimed in court filings that there may have been eight informants inside the group in the months surrounding the attack.

But evidence singled out Proud Boys, not FBI agents, for their actions: In May, a jury found former Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio and three other members guilty of seditious conspiracy for their role in the day’s events.

Supporters of former President Donald Trump try to break through a police barrier at the Capitol in Washington, Jan. 6, 2021. (AP)

Our ruling

Higgins said a “ghost bus … filled with FBI informants dressed as Trump supporters deployed onto our Capitol on January 6th.”

FBI experts said they were unfamiliar with the term “ghost bus,” and cast doubt on the idea that the agency would pack informants onto a bus. Such a scenario would challenge informants’ ability to be inconspicuous and gather information independently.

Higgins’ statement furthers the falsehood that FBI agents instigated or orchestrated the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack. Numerous investigations into the day’s events, including a congressional review and federal cases involving 1,200 defendants, many of whom have been found guilty, show the attack was led by and executed by people who believed or perpetuated false claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen. There has been no credible evidence to support that the violence carried out at the Capitol that day was the work of the FBI.

The onus is on Higgins to back up his statement with evidence, and he has failed to do that. 

We rate this statement False.

PolitiFact Researcher Caryn Baird contributed to this report.

RELATED: All of our fact-checks about Jan. 6

RELATED: The 2021 Lie of the Year: Lies about the Jan. 6 Capitol attack and its significance

On Oct. 20, PolitiFact and Poynter published a story headlined, “How politicians, media outlets amplified uncorroborated report of beheaded babies.” We explained how reports of beheaded babies and/or “40 beheaded babies” were repeated by politicians, reporters, celebrities and news publications in the days after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on communities and a music festival in southern Israel.

PolitiFact began reviewing the story after the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis, a media watchdog group, criticized our reporting in a Nov. 8 story. The group regularly publishes critiques of Western coverage of Israel and Gaza. 

The critique noted that we overlooked published comments from Israeli military spokespeople and an emergency response worker that added to the basis for these reports. We erred by not identifying and including these comments in our original story. (Additional comments from a coroner who examined many human remains were published Oct. 20, the same day as our story.)

Our revised story now includes the comments from Israeli military spokespeople that were publicly available at the time our story was initially published. Based on the feedback we received and inclusion of the additional information, we have written a new story.

Because our initial story was incomplete, and discussed the narrative in the context of misinformation, we have archived the original version. The new story updates our reporting of the circumstances as of today.  Our journalists take great care to conduct thorough searches for evidence for every claim we analyze, whether it is rated on the Truth-O-Meter or not. We should have been more complete in our reporting.