What was claimed
Julian Assange said WikiLeaks has evidence that Barack Obama operated a child sex abuse ring at the White House.
Our verdict
False. Assange said no such thing.
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange supposedly says he has evidence that former US president Barack Obama led a child sexual abuse ring from the White House, according to social media posts.
This is false. WikiLeaks told AAP FactCheck that Assange has not said that, and it has not published any such evidence on its website.
The claim appears in an article published by news aggregator Opera News, a link to which has been shared on Facebook.
The article headline reads: “Julian Assange Drops Bombshell: WikiLeaks Reveals Alleged Proof of Obama White House Pedophile [sic] Ring”.
The article links to an X post showing screenshots of another article published by The Underground Report in 2017.
“Julian Assange unveiled another bombshell Sunday evening, alleging that wikileaks now has hard proof that former President, Barack Hussein Obama, operated and participated in a pedophile [sic] ring based in the white house,” the report says.
“A leaked email released today read, ‘A young boy the age of 5. He will make the perfect catamite for the president. He will arrive from Romania on Tuesday. I’m sure the president will be pleased’.”
The article provides quotes purportedly from the Australian-born WikiLeaks founder, who’s fighting extradition in the UK High Court to avoid facing espionage charges in the US.
“The leak is bound to start a massive investigation,” the article claims Assange said.
“That is if we can get the word out before the news is swallowed up by the Obama shadow government”.
WikiLeaks ambassador Joseph Farrell says the article is completely fake.
“The alleged quote from Julian Assange is a fabrication,” Farrell told AAP FactCheck.
“The claimed document was not published by WikiLeaks. WikiLeaks documents are searchable on the WikiLeaks website.”
Assange’s father John Shipton told AAP FactCheck that the claim in the article is “fake”.
The 2017 article has been debunked by Politifact.
The verdict
The claim that Julian Assange said WikiLeaks has evidence that Obama was involved in a child sexual abuse ring at the White House is false.
WikiLeaks told AAP FactCheck that Assange never made those statements, and the organisation has not published such evidence on its website.
False — The claim is inaccurate.
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