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Fact Check: No, Malia Obama was not arrested for shoplifting in Bel Air
Viral posts falsely claim Malia Obama was arrested for shoplifting in Bel Air. No records support this; it’s part of recurring far-right hoaxes.
Posts claiming that Malia Ann Obama, the daughter of former President Barack Obama, was arrested for shoplifting in Bel Air have gone viral on social media. However, the news is fake and the former President's younger daughter was not "booked and released on a 40,000 bond," as the post claims.
No records show that Malia Obama was arrested for shoplifting, either at Bel Air, Maryland, or the Bel Air neighborhood in California (San Diego County). In fact, claims about Malia Obama being arrested have a long history in far-right social media.
False posts about Malia and her sister, Sasha Obama's arrest, can be traced back to as early as 2016. TheLastLineOfDefense, a satirical source, falsely claimed that the Obama sisters were arrested in Hawaii for vandalism. In 2017, the same account claimed that Malia was arrested in Chicago during a dogfighting ring bust.
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Then, again in 2017, claims went viral that Malia Obama was fired from her US Embassy internship for smoking cannabis. Another claim stated that she was arrested as part of a crackdown on an Antifa attack in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
In 2018, it was claimed that she was arrested for cocaine possession; then in 2019, claims that she was arrested for selling items stolen from the White House went viral; then again, claims that she was arrested at Harvard for using a "white, powdery substance."
Such fake news about Malia Obama has been rampant over the years. The recent one about her arrest for shoplifting is another addition to that long, long list.
