Category: News

On Oct. 8, U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth confirmed (archived) reports that the U.S. military was planning to livestream the execution of Nidal Malik Hasan, which is currently set for Dec. 3. 

A military jury sentenced Hasan, a former Army psychiatrist, to death in 2013 after it found him guilty of killing 13 people and injuring 30 more during a shooting rampage at the Army’s Fort Hood post in Texas in 2009. U.S. President Donald Trump approved (archived) Hasan’s death sentence on Oct. 2, clearing the path for his execution.

On Oct. 8, Hegseth shared an X post by CBS News that read:

The U.S. military plans to livestream the execution of Nidal Hasan, the ex-Army major who was convicted of the 2009 killing of 13 people at Fort Hood, when he faces a firing squad on Dec. 3, a Pentagon official said.

Hegseth wrote, “Correct.”

One day later, on Oct. 9, the Associated Press reported that Vice President JD Vance cast doubt on whether the Pentagon would actually livestream the execution. “I don’t know that that’s actually going to happen,” he reportedly said.

Following Hegseth’s confirmation, discussion abounded online about whether executing Hasan in such a public manner was legal (archived, archived, archived). Snopes readers also contacted us about the legality of the planned livestream.

The military justice system, which is separate from the civilian justice systems in the U.S., carried out Hasan’s trial and sentencing in 2013. On Oct. 5, Hegseth’s assistant secretary for public affairs Sean Parnell wrote on X (archived) that the Army’s firing squad would execute Hasan, meaning his execution would be governed by Army regulations.

At the time of this writing, the U.S. Army did not have regulations explicitly allowing it to livestream an execution. Rather, Army Regulation 190–55, which covers procedures for military executions, included requirements that would likely hinder the Army’s ability to provide a public livestream.

Gary Barthel, a former U.S. Marine Corps officer and managing partner at the Military Law Center, told Snopes on Oct. 9 that if the Army wanted to legally livestream Hasan’s execution, officials would have to either seek an exemption to regulation 190-55 from the Office of the Provost Marshal General as laid out in the regulation itself or amend the existing regulation to allow livestreaming. 

We contacted the Department of the Defense to ask if it was planning to do either of these things and await a reply.

Because the legality of livestreaming Hasan’s execution was potentially subject to change, we leave this claim unrated. 

What Army regulation says

Chapter 2-5 of regulation 190-55 lists who may and may not witness a military execution. According to the chapter, no person younger than 18 years old may witness an execution and the Army must approve the list of witnesses beforehand.

Those two stipulations could make it difficult for the Army to provide a public livestream without violating its own regulations because it would have to vet the audience’s age. Hosting a truly public livestream would make it impossible to approve a list of “witnesses” ahead of the execution because people might log in to watch on the day without registering beforehand.

Barthel told Snopes via phone on Oct. 9:

The Army is required to follow its regulations. If the Army wants to stream this execution they need to change the regulations to allow it. And, either way, I would anticipate that there is going to be some efforts to stop it.

Barthel said that Hasan’s defense team could still ask a civilian court to stop the execution and live stream by filing a habeas corpus petition. Such a petition allows a detainee to challenge their detention in court.

Would public execution be ‘cruel and unusual punishment’?

Daniel Maurer, an associate professor at the Claude W. Pettit College of Law at Ohio Northern University, told Snopes that livestreaming Hasan’s execution could raise constitutional concerns that would ultimately play out in court.

Hasan’s defense could bring up such constitutional concerns as part of a habeas petition. Maurer said via email on Oct. 9 that Hasan’s defense could argue that being executed on livestream amounted to “cruel and unusual punishment,” which is banned by the U.S. Constitution’s 8th Amendment. Maurer wrote (links ours):

The remaining legal issue is maybe more complicated and would need courts to resolve it: does such a practice violate Hasan’s 8th Amendment protection from “cruel and unusual punishments?” – this protection is also stated in the UCMJ, article 55, and Army Regulation 190-47 (“The Army Corrections System”) so it applies to prisoners already confined, not just defendants at court-martial sentencing. 

In order to establish whether livestreaming Hasan’s execution amounted to cruel and unusual punishment, the courts might apply the “Evolving Standard” test, according to Maurer. The test allows courts to consider whether a punishment is cruel and unusual under current societal standards, rather than according to standards at the time the Constitution was written. 

Cornell Law School’s Legal Information Library wrote that “in the context of capital punishment, the Court has generally viewed the Eighth Amendment to prohibit punishments that ‘involve the unnecessary and wanton infliction of pain.’”

Though livestreaming may not inflict “unnecessary and wanton” pain, Maurer said there are other factors at play:

Given that federal law prohibits photographic or other visual or audio recording of an execution of any other civilian federal prisoner, this is strong evidence that our own federal government (of which the DoD is of course a part) would consider it to be “cruel and unusual,” and thus would be an 8th Amendment violation.

Eugene R. Fidell, a visiting lecturer at Yale Law School specializing in military law, called the decision to livestream Hasan’s execution “sick-making” when speaking to Snopes on Oct. 9. He previously told DRM News that a habeas petition could postpone Hasan’s execution past the end of the Trump administration as it progressed through the civilian court system. That means Hasan’s execution and any potential livestream could be halted by an administration without “the same penchant for executions,” Fidell reportedly told the Associated Press.

It was unclear whether Hasan would file a habeas petition. The Associated Press reported that Hasan had begun his 2013 trial by firing his lawyers and telling jurors that he was the gunman in the 2009 shooting. The outlet reported that this move “convinced his court-appointed standby lawyers that Hasan’s only goal was to get a death sentence.” It remained unclear whether Hasan’s goal remained the same in 2026.

The nonprofit Death Penalty Information Center wrote that Hasan’s execution would be the first military execution in the U.S. since 1961.

The Washington Post, citing the center, reported that the last high-profile public execution of any type in the U.S. took place in 1936. Another public execution took place the year after.

For further reading, Snopes compiled 17 claims about the death penalty that we’ve investigated over the years.

Sources

In October, several weeks after a lawsuit was filed accusing seven male students at Cornell University of drugging and raping a female student in 2024, a rumor spread about the whereabouts of one of the accused men. According to the claim, Matthew Ingalls — who reportedly initiated the encounter with the accuser, named in court documents only as Jane Doe — fled to Dubai, where he previously lived. 

Posts on Facebook (archived) and Instagram claimed Ingalls, who the posts said also goes by Umar Matthew Ingalls, was in Dubai with his family:

Umar Matthew Ingalls, one of the “Cornell 7” accused in the alleged 2024 gang rape at the Chi Phi house, is now reportedly in Dubai, where he grew up. Neighbors of his relatives in Connecticut told the Daily Mail they believe he’s back in the Middle East with his dad. How convenient.

Quick refresher on Mr. Ingalls. He’s the one Jane Doe says invited her to the house that night. He’s also the one who, according to messages filed in her lawsuit, shared a photo of her in the frat’s Snapchat group chat and wrote “Like you can walk in and whip it out.” The New York Post reports he added “Boys come whip it out.” Truly the words of a gentleman.

(Facebook user Feminist News)

The rumor originated from a report in the Daily Mail, a British tabliod, that relied on anonymous sources. Snopes is unable to verify Ingalls’ whereabouts as of this writing, so we have left this claim unrated. We have, however, found records of an Umar Ingalls who studied at the Dubai International Academy in Emirates Hills, Dubai, whose appearance matches that of Matthew Ingalls.

We have reached out to Ingalls — whom The New York Times reported had been expelled from Cornell — via his old college email address, to a person believed to be his father, to the Dubai International Academy and also to the Annie Wright School in Tacoma, Washington, where Ingalls reportedly studied as a child. We will update this story as we learn more.

The Daily Mail identified Ingalls as Umar Matthew Ingalls and spoke to an anonymous neighbor of Ingalls’ uncle in Connecticut, where Ingalls’ address was listed in court records. That neighbor reportedly told the tabloid Ingalls hadn’t been seen at the home in some time and that they thought he was in Dubai.

Our public records search for Umar Matthew Ingalls found his name appeared connected to an address in South Dartmouth, Massachusetts, that also was linked to the name Matthew B. Ingalls. 

The Daily Mail identified Ingalls’ father as a Yale-educated professor at the American University in Dubai. We found a Matthew B. Ingalls listed as an associate professor of Middle Eastern studies at the American University in Dubai. Snopes reached out to him to verify his identity and relationship to Ingalls and will update this story as we get more information. 

Several purported photographs of Matthew Ingalls have circulated, including one showing him wearing a Cornell rugby T-shirt and another from what appears to be his now-deleted LinkedIn account. According to the university’s student newspaper, The Cornell Daily Sun, the school’s rugby club confirmed Ingalls was previously a part of its roster. 

We found that Ingalls’ image from his deleted LinkedIn account had SynthID markers — which are inserted into images created with some generative artificial intelligence platforms — and was thus likely edited with AI. However, the photograph of Ingalls in his rugby shirt did not. We then compared that photograph to other images we found of him and found several matches. 

Dubai International Academy’s 2022-23 yearbook identifies Umar Ingalls as a member of the class of 2023 and part of the athletics team. The person in the yearbook photo appears to be the same person wearing the Cornell rugby shirt. 

(Dubai International Academy)

Umar Ingalls also was mentioned in a 2022 story in the Khaleej Times, a Dubai newspaper. The article reported on a group of students who created their own version of a lunar rover. The accompanying photograph is blurry, but the student in the back right has a strong resemblance to Ingalls. 

A 2020 blog post on the website for Annie Wright Schools, an elite private school in Tacoma, Washington, identified Umar Ingalls as half-American. He appeared to have studied at the Lower School until 2016 and lived in Dubai at the time the article was written. He commented on how Americans were perceived in Dubai after the election victory of U.S. President Donald Trump. 

For further reading, we have previously reported on numerous rumors about the Cornell rape case.

Do photos show gold statue of naked Trump at European Parliament?

Oct. 7, 2026

The sculpture, titled “The Orange Plague,” was previously on display at the U.N. Climate Summit …

Read More

Claim:

A screenshot authentically shows an X post from Elon Musk that says: “No one needs to worry about Democrats winning the midterm elections. I have a plan.”

Rating:

For more than a year, social media users have spread a purported screenshot of an X post by Elon Musk that says: “No one needs to worry about Democrats winning the midterm elections. I have a plan.”

The alleged screenshot circulated on platforms such as X and Reddit. Snopes readers contacted us to investigate the screenshot’s legitimacy. 

However, a search of Musk’s X account found no evidence that this post exists. Furthermore, we found no screenshots of the post that included a timestamp or additional details indicating it was authentic, indicating that Musk did not share this X post and then delete it. If the screenshot circulating online were indeed authentic, there would be additional examples of the post through other users’ varying screenshots. 

Similarly, a search of an independent archive for Musk statements returned no relevant results. Searches on Google, DuckDuckGo and Yahoo also revealed no evidence that reputable news outlets have covered this supposed statement. 

As such, we have rated this screenshot as fake. 

The earliest version of the fake X post that we found was posted in August 2025, from Threads user @powermacuser12.

That post claimed Musk “rigged the vote tabulation computers in the swing states to ensure Trump won the 2024 election, & he’s obviously planning on cheating again in the midterm elections.” 

“He should be hauled into jail by the FBI for his post below,” powermacuser said, in reference to the fake screenshot. 

We reached out to the Threads user to ask more about where they obtained the screenshot and await a response. 

Snopes previously found no evidence Musk rigged the election in favor of Trump via his Starlink satellite network. In fact, most election systems are a closed network, making connection to Starlink impossible. 

The political conditions that led to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol will be studied for decades. The extent to which President Donald Trump influenced the violent attempt to stop Congress’ certification of the 2020 presidential election remains a major question.

Some critics of the president not only allege he incited the attack with false claims of election fraud, but that his campaign paid for the travel and lodging expenses of the people who stormed the Capitol while they were in Washington, D.C.

That rumor, which has circulated for years (archived), gained traction in recent weeks after former Special Counsel Jack Smith defended his investigation into Trump’s role in the Jan. 6, 2021, riot before the Senate Committee for the Judiciary. 

One Facebook post claimed, “Jack Smiths new document drop shows that the Trump Campaign PAID for travel, hotels, expenses and organizing efforts to bring outside radical organizers” to Washington, D.C., on Jan. 6 (archived): 

(Democrats, Republicans and Independents for Democracy)

Trump headlined the rally at the Ellipse, a park near the White House, that preceded the attack on the Capitol. At the end of his speech, he asked those present to march to the Capitol. “We’re going to the Capitol,” he said. Violence began at the Capitol shortly after Trump finished speaking.

The claim that Trump’s campaign funded the rally draws on authentic, unsealed records that Smith assembled about Jan. 6. However, Snopes found no evidence that his official campaign covered attendees’ expenses or organization costs of that rally.

In addition, the documents Smith compiled are not new. A judge’s order unsealed them in 2024.

One of these documents indicates several independent political advocacy groups received money to organize the so-called “Save America” rally. 

Congressional documents reveal that the financial backing for the event came from one person in particular — Julie Fancelli, heiress to the Publix supermarket chain.

To learn more about the financing, we reached out to Fancelli, Caroline Wren — a Republican fundraiser who helped Fancelli distribute money for the Jan. 6 rally — and some political advocacy groups that received money for the event. We also reached out to the White House asking about Trump’s involvement in the day’s organization. We will update this report if we receive responses.

Smith’s documents outline Jan. 6 rally expenses

In October 2024, U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan issued an order unsealing 1,889 pages of documents Smith had assembled about what happened on Jan. 6. (Chutkan was set to decide which allegations against Trump could still be prosecuted after a U.S. Supreme Court decision granted presidents broad immunity from criminal prosecution for official actions while in office.)

Smith compiled the documents through his investigation into the matter. Notably, some of these documents had been subpoenaed directly from the participants as part of a congressional investigation, as shown below. 

According to the documents Smith submitted, planners of the rally that preceded the Capitol attack proposed a $3 million budget for expenses.

The donations used to cover various expenses were funneled through multiple political advocacy organizations, including Turning Point Action, Save the U.S. Senate PAC, Tea Party Express, the Rule of Law Defense Fund RAGA — the advocacy arm of Republican Attorneys General Association (Page 305 of the PDF) — Women for America First and Bluebonnet Fundraising, Wren’s fundraising company.

(Trump, Appendix 4, Page 305, via Jack Smith)

Turning Point Action, Save the U.S. Senate PAC, Tea Party Express, Rule of Law Defense Fund RAGA and Women for America First are all section 501(c)4 organizations, also known as “dark money” groups, or political advocacy organizations that are not legally required to disclose their donors. These groups did not directly work for, or coordinate with, Trump’s official 2020 presidential campaign, but they supported either his candidacy or other Republican candidates running for lower offices.

Save the U.S. Senate PAC and Women for America First are no longer active. We reached out to Turning Point Action, Tea Party Express and the Rule of Defense Fund RAGA seeking details about their roles in the rally but did not receive responses by the time of publication.

The files included the same list of expenses (Page 317) with certain amounts lowered. This copy included handwritten notes, such as “we pay our own way.” The amended budget totaled $2.4 million:

(Trump, Appendix 4, Page 317, via Jack Smith)

As we outline below, congressional testimonies revealed how the amounts were amended.

The name of someone who supposedly received $200,000 to “assist with his organization efforts” was redacted in both budget tables. 

Both budgets indicated that some money was earmarked for speaker fees and travel, “crowd building and busing,” and hotels and private flights for a group whose name was redacted. The claim may have originated from these details. The Trump campaign is not listed in this budget.

Republican operative’s testimony aligns with Smith’s budget info

In December 2021, Dustin Stockton, a Republican operative who was involved in the preparation for the “Save America” rally, testified in Congress that Wren told him the night before, on Jan. 5, that she raised $3 million for the event. This testimony aligns with the budget documentation in Smith’s files.

According to Stockton’s account, Wren “parked” the money at “Republican Governors Association, TPUSA, Tea Party Express.” (TPUSA refers to Turning Point USA, the nonprofit 501(c)3 sister organization to Turning Point Action.) Describing his exchange with Wren, Stockton testified (Pages 96-99 of the PDF):

But she tells me a lot of stuff. So she tells me that she raised — 

[…]

And Caroline [Wren] told me that she raised the $3 million, and that she parked the money with the Republican Governors Association, TPUSA, and Tea Party Express. And I actually clarified with her, because, like, I assumed she meant Tea Party Patriots, but she clarified that it was Tea Party Express, which seemed interesting because both Amy [Kremer, former chairperson of Tea Party Express] and I have our political roots there. 

(The budget tables unsealed in Smith’s documents did not list the “Republican Governors Association,” but the Republican Attorneys General Association, which works to elect Republicans as attorneys general across the country and “has been incredibly supportive of President Trump’s legal efforts” to overturn voting results in the 2020 election, according to Page 305 of Smith’s document. Stockton clarified with Snopes he meant the latter in his testimony.) 

Stockton told Snopes via email he helped fundraise for Jan. 6 on behalf of Kremer and her daughter Kylie Kremer, a leader of Women for America First at the time and someone who spoke at the “Save America” rally.

“I helped the Kremers raise a lot of money for all the D.C. events and bus tours that included January 6,” Stockton said. “It was in the millions of dollars total but I have no idea how much would have been for the event at the Ellipse.”

Wren names Publix heiress Julie Fancelli as donor

In a Dec. 17, 2021, deposition with Congress, Wren said she fundraised specifically for the “Save America” rally, which she called the “Million MAGA March.” 

She said donations from Fancelli, the heiress to Publix, were distributed to several groups tasked with organizing the rally (starting on Page 46 in the PDF), including Turning Point Action, Save the U.S. Senate PAC, Tea Party Express (which Wren suggested because the organization had experience with bussing protesters to designed locations), Rule of Law Defense Fund RAGA and Women for America First.  

In her testimony, Wren discussed the amounts Fancelli committed to the various organizations listed in the two versions of the budget presented among Smith’s documents, including $1 million for Turning Point Action (Page 49), $50,000 for Bluebonnet Fundraising LLC (Wren’s company) and $300,000 for Women for America First (Page 51). 

Wren also explains how the amounts were amended. The annotated copy of the budget on Page 317 of Smith’s documents reflected several of those changes.

Fancelli deposed, pleads the Fifth

On Feb. 18, 2022, the congressional January 6 Committee deposed Fancelli. While she invoked her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, the 132-page transcript mentioned evidence that corroborated Wren’s claims. 

The evidence came from Fancelli, whose records the committee subpoenaed for the investigation.

The evidence, which included text messages and emails read by the interrogators, indicated Fancelli was prepared to donate as much as $3 million toward the rally. She received the proposed budget via email and her accountant helped her amend it. The evidence also suggested she did not expect the rally to turn into a violent attack on the Capitol. 

The committee’s final report said her financial support made the rally possible. 

On Pages 24 and 25 of the PDF, the interrogator read a text exchange between Wren and Taylor Budowich, a then-Republican operative who served as White House deputy chief of staff between January and September 2025:

(…) on Saturday, December 26th, which is the date that Ms. Wren was at your home, Ms. Wren texts, “I’m at Julie Fancelli’s.” “Guess what the budget is she just gave me for our bus project?” “You won’t guess.” “$3 million … ” 

And Mr. Budowich responds with several “lol”s and says, “probably could do it for 3.”

And then Ms. Wren responds, “we can use some for save the us senate.” “I’ll call you when I leave here.” And then turning to the next page, she says, “she wanted to just wire me the 3 mill lol.”

And Mr. Budowich responds, “rich people are so odd.” 

At one point (Pages 40-41), an interrogator quotes language from a budget plan regarding funding for RAGA’s “legal efforts to fight the election fraud around the country.” Because this language appeared in one of Smith’s unsealed documents, it suggests Fancelli received that same version.

Fancelli’s deposition also gives clues about discrepancies between the budget in Smith’s documents and her actual donations. On Page 40, the interrogator reads from an email sent by Marianne Parsons, Fancelli’s accountant, as part of an ongoing conversation about the proposed budget:

And next it says the “Rule of Law Defense Fund- we are cutting that by $50,000 … please trim how many or how much each attorney general gets for expenses and other expenditures.” 

In our email to RAGA, we inquired about the presence of any attorneys general at the rally.

None of this evidence suggests Fancelli wanted or expected the rally to turn into an attack on the Capitol. On Page 89 of her deposition, the interrogator read a text message she had written:

Ms. Fancelli, if I could clarify, on Wednesday, January 6th, at 1:50 p.m., when you asked, “What is really happening?!”, presumably, with the question mark and exclamation mark, it’s possible that you had seen things on the news that indicated that something might be going wrong at the Capitol, and you were trying to check with somebody who was actually there and present. 

Jan. 6 committee’s report on Fancelli’s role

The congessional committee’s final report, published in late 2022, summarized Fancelli’s role in the events of that day:

Fancelli worked with Wren to create a multimillion-dollar budget to convene as many supporters of President Trump as possible To ensure that Fancelli’s dollars made maximum impact, Wren contacted some of the major players who were rallying supporters for January 6th. Wren emailed Kylie Kremer and exchanged texts with [Alex] Jones and [Cindy] Chafian. Fancelli’s goal was clear: she wanted to spend $3 million to “get as many people there as possible.” The resulting budget allocated $500,000 to a busing program and a centralized ad campaign by the Tea Party Express to promote the event. Another $500,000 went to assisting WFAF [Women for America First] and Jones in their organizational efforts.

(Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’ podcast inspired Fancelli to support the movement. Jones spoke at the rally. Cindy Chafian was one of the organizers of the rally.)

Fancelli did not respond to our queries as of this writing.

Fancelli has donated money to Republican candidates since at least 2016, according to data from the Federal Election Commission. For example, in 2016, she gave money to Secretary of State’s Marco Rubio’s presidential bid and to the campaign of former  Rep. Carlos Curbelo, a Republican from Florida. The Miami New Times reported Fancelli donated to a pro-Trump “dark money” group in 2019, though we did not find evidence of those donations on the FEC website. 

For further reading, Snopes examined in 2021 whether Trump directly incited the attack on the Capitol in his Jan. 6 speech.