A unanimous jury found former President Donald Trump guilty May 30 on all 34 counts of falsifying business records in an alleged scheme to cover up a hush money payment to adult film star Stormy Daniels.
An image that appeared on social media soon after showed a shouting Trump being frogmarched by police and left some people wondering: Was he whisked off to custody?
“GUILTY!” the May 30 Instagram post said.
“Is the above picture real?” one account commented on the post, which was flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram.)
The image appears to have been generated using artificial intelligence. A photo of a former U.S. president being taken away by law enforcement following an historic verdict would be widely publicized by news outlets across the world. But reverse image searches for the picture turned up no news reports.
One account commenting on the Instagram post wondered if it was AI: “His skin isn’t this smooth.”
In the image, Trump is wearing a navy blue and white striped tie. In the courtroom, he was wearing a solid royal blue tie. And more importantly: He wasn’t taken into custody. Trump spoke to reporters after the verdict and his sentencing is scheduled for July 11. There’s no guarantee he’ll receive a jail sentence.
There’s no match for the image in wire photos captured by journalists on the ground in New York.
We rate claims this image shows Trump getting arrested after his guilty verdict May 30 False.
