Fake News Claims Malia Obama Arrested for 'Antifa' Assault on Old Woman

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Malia Obama leaves the State Dining room of the White House , January 12, 2017 in Washington, DC. Getty Images/Olivier Douliery

Former first daughter Malia Obama was the subject of last week's "fake news" articles that accused her of being one of 10 people arrested for an "Antifa" inspired assault and hate crime against an elderly woman in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

The article also stated Obama's arrest confirmed the former president and his family were racist.

The completely bogus stories claimed former President Barack Obama's eldest daughter took part in an assault of an older white woman who "was doing nothing but coming out of her local Catholic church," according to an online article published by conservative "fake news" website The Last Line of Defense.

The story that went online on November 4 alleges all 10 of the "attackers" were arrested and that Malia Obama was one of them, citing a made up list of people arrested. All of those "arrested" were students at Harvard, where Obama began her freshman year back in August.

The picture used in the story is a collage of mugshots, showing seven women and three men. But it's clear the photo used of Obama was not a mugshot at all.

On November 4, the site first posted the "assault" of a 97-year-old woman named Mabel Gouldman, who was said to be beaten by "four armed thugs wearing black scarves and hoods" with a crowbar. The post included a picture of an older woman purported to be Gouldman with awful bruises on her face.

Fact-check site Snopes debunked both accounts.

Two days later, another "fake news" site, Popular News Today, picked up the article and linked back to The Last Line of Defense but also added that the police officer who arrested Obama was "found dead under suspicious circumstances," according to PolitiFact.

The Last Line of Defense posts a disclaimer about its work all the way at the bottom of its web pages.

"In a cynical world where the news of the day often seems fake, The Last Line of Defense offers today's busy conservative a place to go to read things they'll enjoy and congregate with a bunch of people they agree with," the disclaimer reads. "So while everything on this site is a satirical work of fiction, we are proud to present it to those who will have called it real anyway."

The stories served as examples of conservative "fake news" sites further stoking not only perceived hatred towards President Obama but that the left is rising up in "civil war" with the so-called "Antifa," or anti-fascists leading the charge.

The leftist movement was recently blamed by right-wing conspiracy theorists for Sunday's mass shooting at a Sunderland Springs, Texas church that left 26 people dead.

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