Viral Facebook post: “Ted Cruz leaks new document obtained from Hunter’s laptop implicating Nancy Pelosi.”
PolitiFact’s ruling: False
Here’s why: A recent Facebook post promises a bombshell from the laptop of President Joe Biden’s son that’s big enough to blow up the House speaker.
“Boom!” the Aug. 8 post says. “It’s over! Ted Cruz leaks new document obtained from Hunter’s laptop implicating Nancy Pelosi.”
This post was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed.
The post features a 20-minute video with two clips of the junior Republican senator from Texas, but in neither does he discuss Hunter Biden, his laptop, and Pelosi, a Democrat from California.
The first shows Cruz at an Aug. 3 Senate Judiciary Committee hearing asking Assistant Attorney General Kenneth Polite why more people protesting outside of the homes of Supreme Court justices haven’t been prosecuted. In the second, Cruz is addressing attendees of the Conservative Political Action Conference in Dallas a couple of days later. There were no leaks as described in the Facebook post in his speech.
Looking more broadly for reports of what the post claims, we discovered none, although we did find a USA Today fact-check that looked at a similar claim of Cruz revealing a deal between Pelosi and Biden. In this case, unrelated videos of Cruz were also used.
We rate this post False.
Our Sources
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Facebook post, Aug. 8, 2021
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USA Today, Fact check: Video falsely claims to show Ted Cruz revealing deal between Nancy Pelosi, Hunter Biden, July 12, 2022
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C-SPAN, Senators Rick Scott and Ted Cruz Address CPAC Conference, Aug. 5, 2022
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YouTube, BREAKING: Ted Cruz Asks DOJ Official Point Blank Why Protesters Outside SCOTUS Homes Not Prosecuted, Aug. 3, 2022
This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: PolitiFact: Ted Cruz did not leak document implicating Hunter Biden