An article circulating on social media claims that the Marine Corps ‘rebuked’ U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and told her ‘we don’t work for you’. This report is false.
The story was first published by Real Raw News on Jan. 13 here (archived version: archive.vn/pHHtn ) and has since been replicated in different websites, that refer to the publication as the source ( here , here , here , here , here ).
Citing an alleged “Pentagon source speaking under promise of anonymity”, the article claims that General David H. Berger, Commandant of the United States Marine Corps ( twitter.com/cmc_marinecorps ) “refused House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s request to use the Corps to safeguard Biden’s Jan. 20 inauguration from Trump Supporters and insurrectionists”.
Reuters found no further reports to support this claim nor any coverage of the alleged exchange. Real Raw News could not be reached for comment at the time of this article’s publication.
Capt Casey Littesy, Communication Strategy and Operations Officer for the Headquarters Marine Corps told Reuters via email that the article is “unequivocally false and inaccurate”.
Drew Hammill, a spokesman for Pelosi said in an email to Reuters that the article is “false”.
In a joint statement here with the top U.S. military leaders, General David H. Berger, condemned the Capitol riots and also said that President-elect Joe Biden would be inaugurated on Jan. 20 and become their commander in chief ( here ).
LT Brown, a spokesperson for the Joint Task Force–National Capital Region, a joint service command charged with providing ceremonial and public affairs support to the 59th presidential inauguration, ( here ) told Reuters via email that Marines assigned to the JTF-NCR units are “solely providing ceremonial support”.
The United States Secret Service was not immediately available to respond Reuters’ request for comment regarding any participation of the Marines Corps for security purposes.
Following the storming of the U.S. Capitol, the National Guard was authorized to send up to 15,000 troops to Washington ( here ).
VERDICT
False. An article claiming the Marine Corps ‘rebuked’ U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is false, according to the respective representatives for the Marine Corps and Nancy Pelosi.
This article was produced by the Reuters Fact Check team. Read more about our fact-checking work here .
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.