False: Military intelligence shows that officers were planning a coup against President Obama.

By: Arron Williams
February 7 2023

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Context

A video of conspiracy theorist Jerome Corsi claiming that a group of U.S. military generals planned to commit a coup against President Obama has been shared on Facebook. The video has over 20,000 views and 1,000 likes. Corsi further claims that the coup was reconsidered because Trump ran for president and that the military would instead run a legitimate operation to root out traitors and the Deep State. The video also claims that QAnon is part of military intelligence.

In Fact

There is no credible evidence that U.S. military officials were planning a coup against Obama. Numerous news articles did report tensions between U.S. military officials and Obama, but there is no mention of a plot or planned coup. As reported in a 2013 Politico article, tensions between military officials and Obama were high, especially concerning the conflict in Syria and military funding. However, the article makes no mention that tensions were so high that military officials were considering a coup. Furthermore, tensions alone are not sufficient evidence to support these claims of a coup.

In the video, Corsi claims that a group of generals came to him and told him they were ready to commit a coup against Obama but provides no further evidence to support this, which means the claim is just an assertion and lacks credibility.

As mentioned in a 2020 PolitiFact fact check, Corsi is a conservative author and conspiracy theorist who has promoted conspiracies about Obama's birth certificate, published false claims about Dr. Anthony Fauci's connection to the COVID-19 pandemic and spread broader QAnon conspiracy theories. 

According to a 2021 BBC article, the QAnon conspiracy theory is completely unfounded and began in 2017 following a series of anonymous posts on the website 4chan by a user called "Q," who claimed to have high-level U.S. security clearance. QAnon is considered dangerous and has been tied to at least two murders, a high-profile suicide, and several incidents that were de-escalated by authorities. However, there is no evidence to support or validate this nor evidence any part of the conspiracy is based on military intelligence. 

Logically has covered QAnon extensively and found no evidence to support claims made by the conspiracy. These articles and fact-checks are available through the fact-checking library. 

The Verdict

Claims that military generals and officials were planning a coup against Obama lack evidence and credibility. QAnon is a known conspiracy theory that spreads misinformation and lacks evidence to support its claims. Therefore, we have marked this claim as false.