Conspiracy claims Biden will be arrested in operation “Castle Rock” – Fact Check

A bizarre conspiracy circulating on social media claims that a military operation will occur within the United States on inauguration day that will see President Elect Joe Biden arrested. Such claims assert that the operation will begin when General Hyten orders it so from his Telegram account.

FALSE

A number of intertwined conspiracies circulating on social media claim that Biden will not be inaugurated on January 20th, and instead will be arrested during a military operation. Such claims also frequently make the following assertions –

– There will be a social media, Internet and possibly a power blackout during the operation.
– Trump will remain president, or the military will take charge of the United States until Trump is re-elected into office.
– All mainstream media outlets will be taken offline.
– Military tribunals will be shown on television showing “treasonous” politicians being convicted of various crimes.
– This operation will begin when the Vice Chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff announces so from his Telegram account using a code word “castle rock”.
– Other spin-off theories include the claim that “castle rock” is a person that will take charge of the country, or is a code word for the White House. Other theories claim that “Q” is “castle rock”. Other theorists claim Trump is “castle rock”. Others claim the military operation to arrest Biden is dubbed “castle rock”.
– The frequency of how often Secretary of State Mike Pompeo tweets is an indicator of when this operation will begin.

Most of the theories are based on nothing other than a small handful of prolific conspiracy theorists claiming this is what they have heard from their anonymous contacts within the government. One such conspiracy theorist is UK based Simon Parkes whose online audience has grown exponentially since the Capitol rioting because of his insistence that Joe Biden will not be inaugurated president.

Parkes had earlier claimed that much of the US and possibly the UK would experience widespread power blackouts in the week preceding Biden’s inauguration as the above mentioned military operations commenced. Such blackouts did not occur.

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Additionally, the Telegram account allegedly belonging to General Hyten does not appear to be an official account belonging to him. It was only created on January 18th, and has not been confirmed by any official White House or military sources, nor does it have the “verified” tick Telegram affords verified accounts. General Hyten does not appear to use social media in any official capacity.

The claim that high ranking military officials would announce top secret military operations on brand new, unverified Telegram accounts is of course entirely absurd, but this hasn’t stopped the fake Telegram account accruing over 220,000 followers in as little as 24 hours.

Many others claim the frequency of Pompeo’s tweets on Twitter are an indicator to when such military operations will commence. We’ve been to Pompeo’s Twitter account and cannot see any discernable pattern in the frequency of his tweets. Pompeo acknowledges in a pinned tweet that his account will soon be archived when the new administration begins on January 20th 2021.

There is simply no evidence (or any evidence offered) to specifically debunk any individual claim, other than to note that they are entirely lacking in substance and sources, and are offered by wholly unreliable conspiracy theorists with a demonstrable history of spreading wild claims that have not come to fruition.