Posts on social media claim a top adviser to President Joe Biden was arrested by the military Nov. 28.
"U.S. Marines on Saturday served a military arrest warrant on Deep State agent Mike Donilon, an American attorney and campaign consultant who served as a Senior Advisor to fake President Joe Biden," reads a Dec. 1 Facebook post.
The claim, which originated on the website Real Raw News, is parroted by a number of other Facebook users. The Real Raw News blog has accumulated more than 500 interactions on Facebook and nearly 500 likes on Twitter, a search of the social media analytics tool CrowdTangle found.
But the claim is nonsense. A Pentagon spokesperson confirmed to USA TODAY that Donilon was not arrested by the Marine Corps. Real Raw News frequently writes false stories about nonexistent military arrests and executions.
USA TODAY reached out to the Facebook users who shared the post and Real Raw News' Michael Baxter for comment.
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U.S. Marine Corps Capt. Ryan Bruce, a spokesperson for the Pentagon, told USA TODAY in an email that "no reference of the Marine Corps in the story is based in fact."
A Google search of the phrases "Mike Donilon arrested" and "Donilon arrest" turned up only repeat postings of the Real Raw News article and a Lead Stories fact-check debunking it.
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