On Sept. 14, 2023, Real Raw News published an article claiming that U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen was arrested on suspicion of treason and defrauding the United States:
Janet Yellen Arrested for Treason
Investigators from the U.S. Army's Criminal Investigation Division (CID) on Tuesday arrested Secretary of Treasury Janet Yellen at a Maryland hotel, alleging that the Deep State despot had engineered a diabolical scheme that clandestinely sent hundreds of billions of American tax dollars to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, far more than the $75bn the criminal Biden Regime has admitted to giving its felonious collaborator in Ukraine.
A source at CID's Fort Liberty, NC, field office told Real Raw News that investigators apprehended Yellen and an unnamed associate outside the Merriweather Lakehouse Hotel in Baltimore at approximately 9:30 p.m. Yellen was shown a military arrest warrant charging her with treason and defrauding the United States of America before being shuttled to a processing center for interrogation.
We found the article referenced in social media posts across multiple platforms, including Twitter, Facebook, TikTok, and Rumble. We also found the article published word-for-word on at least one other website, dainikbidyaloy.com.
The story wasn't real. Real Raw News is a website that describes its output as being humorous or satirical in nature. The website's "About Us" page includes the following disclaimer:
Information on this website is for informational and educational and entertainment purposes. This website contains humor, parody, and satire. We have included this disclaimer for our protection, on the advice on legal counsel.
No reputable news publications reported on the alleged "news" about Yellen. If she had truly been detained, that development would have generated headlines by credible news outlets, such as Reuters, The Associated Press, and the BBC.
We've previously fact-checked other satirical claims stemming from Real Raw News, including a claim that the U.S. Marine Corps arrested Erik Hooks, the deputy administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, in connection with the agency's response to the Maui wildfires.
For background, here is why we sometimes write about satire/humor.