Back in 2016, we analyzed a widely-circulated list titled "You Had a Hunch the News System Was Rigged?", which purportedly documented that multiple prominent network news media executives had familial ties to the Obama administration.
In the years since then, references to the Obama administration have been dropped from the footer of the list, and several new names of prominent and supposedly related political figures have been added to the beginning of the list. Our previous article covered the original entries on the list, while this update tackles those that have subsequently been added (shown in bold below):
YES, CALIF GOV. GAVIN NEWSOME IS NANCY PELOSI'S NEPHEW.
AND YES, ADAM SHIFF'S SISTER IS MARRIED TO GEORGE SOROS' SON.
AND YES, JOHN KERRY'S DAUGHTER IS MARRIED TO A MULLAH'S SON In IRAN
And Yes, Hillary's daughter Chelsea IS married to George Soros' nephew.IF YOU HAD A HUNCH THE NEWS SYSTEM WAS SOMEWHAT RIGGED AND YOU COULDN'T PUT YOUR FINGER ON IT, THIS MIGHT HELP YOU SOLVE THE PUZZLE.
ABC News executive producer Ian CAMERON is married to SUSAN RICE, Obama's former National Security Adviser.
CBS President DAVID RHODES is the brother of BEN RHODES, Obama's Deputy National Security Adviser for Strategic Communications.
ABC News correspondent CLAIRE SHIPMAN is married to former Obama White House Press Secretary JAY CARNEY.
ABC News and Univision reporter MATTHEW JAFFE is married to KATIE HOGAN, Obama's former Deputy Press Secretary.
ABC President BEN SHERWOOD is the brother of Obama's former Special Adviser Elizabeth Sherwood.
CNN President VIRGINIA MOSELEY is married to former Hillary Clinton's Deputy Secretary TOM NIDES.
All of the newly added entries to this list are false statements, as detailed below:
Is California Gov. Gavin Newsom the Nephew of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi?
False.
In 1963, Nancy Patricia D'Alesandro married Paul Frank Pelosi and began carving out a career for herself in politics. Since 1987, Nancy Pelosi has represented various districts in California in the U.S. House of Representatives and currently holds the position of Speaker of the House. Gavin Christopher Newsom, a former mayor of San Francisco and lieutenant governor of California, was elected governor of California in 2018.
At one time, Pelosi and Newsom had something of a familial relationship via marriage, but it was extremely tangential and ceased to exist several decades ago. The gist of this relationship was that from 1956 to 1977, Nancy Pelosi's husband's brother, Ron Pelosi, was married to Gavin Newsom's aunt, Barbara Newsom, making Nancy Pelosi's brother-in-law an uncle-by-marriage of Gavin Newsom. However, that tenuous familial connection stretches the meaning of the word "nephew" to the breaking point, and as noted, it terminated when Ron Pelosi divorced and remarried over four decades ago.
Is Rep. Adam Schiff's Sister Married to George Soros' Son?
False.
In 2018 Rep. Adam Schiff of California, the ranking minority member of the House Intelligence Committee, authored a rebuttal to Rep. Devin Nunes's memo alleging that the FBI had improperly obtained a warrant to surveil Trump campaign adviser Carter Page during an investigation into claims of Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. A rumor was then floated on internet forums attempting to discredit Schiff by declaring that his sister was married to the son of international financier and philanthropist George Soros.
As we pointed out in a separate article, although a woman named Melissa Robin Schiff did indeed marry Robert Soros, the son of George Soros, in 1992, she is not related to Adam Schiff (who has no sister).
Is John Kerry's Daughter Married to a Mullah's Son in Iran?
False.
As we also noted in another separate article, Vanessa Bradford Kerry, the daughter of former Secretary of State John Kerry from his previous marriage to writer Julia Stimson Thorne (from whom he was divorced in 1988), married Brian Vala Nahed in 2009. However, Brian Nahed is not the "son of a mullah in Iran." Brian Nahed's parents were born in Iran, but they permanently left that country to immigrate to the U.S. over forty years ago and now live in Los Angeles, where Brian's father (like Brian himself) works as a physician. Brian Nahed was not born in Iran, he has never held Iranian citizenship, he has never worked or lived in Iran, and has never even been to Iran. He's a natural-born U.S. citizen from New York who has lived, attended school, and worked in the United States his whole life.
Is Hillary Clinton's Daughter Chelsea Married to George Soros' Nephew?
False.
In 2010 Chelsea Clinton, the daughter of former U.S. President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, married American investor Marc Mezvinsky, whom actor Scott Baio later supposedly "discovered" was the nephew of George Soros. However, in yet another article, we detailed that Mezvinsky's parents are former Rep. Edward Mezvinsky of Iowa and former Rep. Marjorie Margolies-Mezvinksy of Pennsylvania, neither of whom is the child of a sibling of George Soros. Soros has two nephews, Peter Soros and Jeffrey Soros (the children of his late brother), neither of whom employs the pseudonym 'Marc Mezvinsky' or is furtively married to Chelsea Clinton.
We also note that these supplemental entries, in addition to sharing the quality of all being factually wrong, do not fit with the rest of the original list as they all involve politicians and not network news media executives.