House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in 2018 this year would be her last as the chamber’s Democratic leader, and there’s some speculation she might retire from Congress entirely.
But a recent Facebook post announcing purported “breaking” news claims that her colleagues couldn’t wait.
“Whole Congress ERUPTS as House Democrats KICKS Nancy Pelosi from office,” the grammatically incorrect post from Sept. 27 said.
It was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook.)
The post includes a nearly 18-minute video with a variety of footage, including a speech from former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson and remarks from conservative pundit Ben Shapiro. But nothing in the video supports the claim made in the post.
The U.S. House of Representatives can expel members for “disorderly behavior” with a two-thirds majority vote, and it’s happened only five times.
Three lawmakers were expelled in 1861 for fighting on behalf of the Confederacy during the Civil War. More recently, in 1980, former Rep. Michael Myers, D-Pa., was expelled for bribery, and in 2002, former Rep. James Traficant, D-Ohio, was expelled on corruption charges.
The expulsions in the past century drew wide media coverage, and the expulsion of Pelosi — not just a lawmaker but also the House speaker — would be big news. And yet, there has been none.
That’s because this Facebook post is Pants on Fire!
This fact check was originally published by PolitiFact, which is part of the Poynter Institute. It is republished here with permission. See the sources for this fact check here and more of their fact checks here.
