Fact Check

Hillary Clinton Appointed to Replace Disgraced US Senator?

Reports that Hillary Clinton would be filling an open U.S. Senate seat in New York, vacated by a senator who resigned after being indicted for fraud, are fake news.

Published March 21, 2017

 (Joseph Sohm / Shutterstock.com)
Image Via Joseph Sohm / Shutterstock.com
Claim:
Hillary Clinton was named to fill an open U.S. Senate seat in New York, vacated by a senator who resigned after being indicted for fraud.

On 17 March 2017, the web site known as The Resistance: America's Last Line of Defense (aka "The Resistance: Twisted News for Conservative Minds") posted an article positing that the governor of New York had tapped Hillary Clinton to fill a vacant seat in the U.S. Senate created when the incumbent resigned after being indicted for fraud:

New York Governor Andrew Buono has taken it upon himself to send disgraced presidential candidate and career criminal Hillary Rodham Clinton back to the US Senate to replace Senator Vince McCallum, who was indicted for fraud just this morning. McCallum, who immediately resigned from the Senate, apologized to his constituents and the governor before surrendering himself to federal custody.

Under New York law, Governor Buono has the exclusive right to appoint a senator to fill the empty seat until it comes up for election, which in this case won’t be until 2020. The White House has filed an injunction in federal court to block the appointment until questions of special elections can be considered, but New York Attorney general Carlton Mendez told The New York Times that the state constitution is clear and that Cuomo is well within his rights to appoint Clinton.

There was no truth to this story. New York had no senator named Vince McCallum (New York's representatives in the U.S. Senate are Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand, neither of whom has been indicted for fraud or resigned), and Hillary Clinton has not appointed to fill any opening in elective office. This report originated with the America's Last Line of Defense web site, whose disclaimer clearly identifies the site's content as satirical:

DISCLAIMER: The Resistance may include information from sources that may or may not be reliable and facts that don’t necessarily exist. All articles should be considered satirical and any and all quotes attributed to actual people complete and total baloney. Pictures that represent actual people should be considered altered and not in any way real.

Sources

Stryker.   "BREAKING: Hillary Clinton Appointed to Replace Disgraced US Senator."     The Resistance: America's Last Line of Defense.   17 March 2017.

David Mikkelson founded the site now known as snopes.com back in 1994.