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| - Is there a public record of a memo showing President Donald Trump prohibited the use of the word "felon" "inside the White House or on White House grounds" as of February 14, 2025? No, that's not true: The White House couldn't confirm the existence of such an announcement when contacted by a Lead Stories reporter. The White House website doesn't show it and Trump did not post about it on Truth Social, either. The social media account that originally posted the memo has previously posted other fake Trump announcements.
The claim appeared in a post (archived here) on X on February 14, 2025. It said:
Trump just banned the word Felon. LOL.
The post shared what looked like an official White House document that continued:
In light of recent events, until further notice I am directing all staff, operations personnel, cabinet members and White House visitors to stop using the word 'Felon' while inside the White House or on White House grounds, whether in conversation or in writing. Failure to comply with this directive will result in immediate expulsion and/or disciplinary action.
This is what the post looked like on X at the time of writing:
(Source: X screenshot taken on Fri Feb 14 18:29:07 2025 UTC)
The White House said it couldn't confirm the existence of such an announcement when contacted by a Lead Stories reporter by phone on February 14, 2025.
In contrast, the "document" shared on social media on February 14, 2025, showed a number that began with 5G.
The account that posted the claim, "Rogue WH Snr Advisor" (archived here), calls itself "Media Personality." Its bio reads "Top 10 Twitter account according to my blog 'The Top 10 Accounts on Twitter.'" Lead Stories previously debunked another unsubstantiated claim shared (archived here) by this account.
Other Lead Stories fact checks of claims mentioning Donald Trump are here.
Updates:
2025-02-14T20:58:59Z2025-02-14T20:58:59Z
Added response from White House and 2019 example letter.
About Us
Lead Stories is a fact checking website that is always looking for the latest false, misleading, deceptive or inaccurate stories, videos or images going viral on the internet.
Spotted something? Let us know!.
Lead Stories is a fact checking website that is always looking for the latest false, misleading, deceptive or inaccurate stories, videos or images going viral on the internet.
Spotted something? Let us know!.
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