Obama Didn’t Stage Bin Laden Death
The Claim
President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden staged Osama bin Laden’s death.
News posted on
Emerging story
On October 13, 2020, U.S. President Donald Trump retweeted an article posted by Twitter user Oscar the Midnight Rider 1111. The Twitter account has since been deleted, but a screenshot of the retweet follows.
Evidence of the retweet also appears in the Trump Twitter Archive.
The claim soon went viral on social media.
Misbar’s Analysis
Robert J. O’Neill, the Navy Seal attributed with bin Laden’s killing, immediately responded to Trump’s retweet.
The article linked in the tweet directs to DJHJ Media, which is ranked by Media Bias Fact Check as a “questionable source” that relies on baseless conspiracy theories and sensationalized reporting. Its claims have been linked to the QAnon web of conspiracy theories.
The article describes an interview with “CIA whistleblower" Allen Harrow Parrot. In the interview, he claims, amongst other allegations: “Seal Team 6 killed Osama’s double, based on one of the wives who screamed that and that is why they didn’t save the body, they threw the parts over the mountains, and John Brennan told everyone to lie.”
Searching for Allen Harrow Parrot online only leads to articles and posts about the interview and a 2010 documentary about falconry. He does not have any online presence beyond this. It is unclear how a falconer would have become a CIA whistleblower.
It is of course within the realm of possibility that Parrot's claims are correct and that, for reasons unknown, Obama arranged for a body double to be killed in bin Laden’s stead. However, following the tenets of Occam’s Razor: since every major news outlet reported on bin Laden’s death, O’Neill verifies that he killed bin Laden, and the claim that bin Laden’s death was staged is supported only by fringe conspiracy theorists, we rate this claim as false.
