This image of Trump in the Oval Office was originally posted in September 2020
- This article is more than one year old.
- Published on May 11, 2021 at 06:00
- 2 min read
- By AFP Australia
Copyright © AFP 2017-2025. Any commercial use of this content requires a subscription. Click here to find out more.
The image was shared in this Facebook post published on April 29, 2021.
It shows Trump and Wood at the Oval Office of the White House.
The post’s caption reads: “Lin Wood I was right. No Joey in the Oval Office. But I did run into our President of the United States. President Trump is hanging out and working in the office in which we re-elected him to serve in a historic landslide victory on November 3, 2020.”
The post circulated online after Wood reportedly shared a series of posts and photos on the encrypted messaging app Telegram in April 2021, claiming that he recently saw Donald Trump "hanging out and working" in the Oval Office and suggesting that President Joe Biden was dead.
When asked by Newsweek why he shared the posts on Telegram, Wood responded that he has a “sense of humor.”
The image was shared in Facebook posts alongside a similar claim here, here and here.
The claim is false.
A Google reverse image search of the image in the post found this archived tweet from Wood's account that was originally posted on September 5, 2020, when Trump was still US President.
“I met with @realDonaldTrump in the Oval Office at White House on March 11, 2020 at President’s request. I have not published photo earlier but thought today was good day to so do for context after leftist & Gannett attack article. Official White House Photo by Joyce N. Boghosian,” the tweet reads.
Another archived version of the tweet can be found here.
The image was shared on Wikimedia Commons. The caption states it was published on September 8, 2020.
Wood’s Twitter account has been permanently suspended since January 2021 after violating the platform’s rules, which include threatening or promoting violence, according to US magazine Newsweek.
Before his suspension, he had spread QAnon conspiracy and baseless claims about the 2020 presidential election, including saying Trump won the election, The New York Times reported.
As of May 11, 2021, there are no credible reports that Wood visited the White House or that Trump sat in the Oval Office in April 2021.
AFP Fact Check has also debunked a claim from Wood that Antifa, a far-left movement, stormed the US Capitol in January 2021.
Is there content that you would like AFP to fact-check? Get in touch.
Contact us
