A rumor that users circulated online in early April 2025 claimed U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett, D-Tex., collected her dead grandmother's Social Security checks for 13 years.
For example, on April 4, the America's Last Line of Defense Facebook page posted (archived) an image showing a photo of the congresswoman superimposed over the grave of a person with the maiden name of Crockett. The post read, "Jasmine Crockett's DOGE audit isn't going well for her. The woman who claims Elon Musk is 'scamming the people' has been conveniently overlooking her dead grandmother's Social Security checks for 13 years. 'They go into her bank account as a representative payee. To a dead woman.' Once again, the culprit is the person screaming that the auditor is at fault for their fraud."
(America's Last Line of Defense/Facebook)
The owner of the Facebook page commented under the post, including a link to an article (archived) hosted on The Dunning-Kruger Times website. The article began:
Jasmine Crockett "Forgot" to Report Grandmother's Death, Collected Social Security for 13 Years
Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett is in hot water after a shocking revelation that she has allegedly been collecting $2,600 a month in Social Security payments for her late grandmother, who has been, inconveniently for her defense, dead since 2012.
When confronted, Crockett reportedly shrugged and said, "Oops."
Many different users sharing the rumor on Facebook and X seemed to interpret it as a factual recounting of real-life events. However, there was no evidence of Crockett collecting anyone's Social Security checks.
Rather, the America's Last Line of Defense Facebook page and The Dunning-Kruger Times website both belong to the America's Last Line of Defense network of Facebook pages and websites, whose owner describes its content as satirical in nature.
A search for the name on the grave in the post's photo located an obituary. That obituary mentioned many family members of the deceased, none named Jasmine.
Crockett's office did not yet respond to an emailed request asking if they wished to comment on the matter.
The bio (archived) for the America's Last Line of Defense Facebook page reads, "The flagship of the ALLOD network of trollery and propaganda for cash. Nothing on this page is real." The photo included in the post itself displayed a label reading "ALLOD."
Meanwhile, The Dunning-Kruger Times features an "About Us" page describing its content as "a subsidiary of the 'America's Last Line of Defense' network of parody, satire, and tomfoolery." The page also makes a humorous mention of Snopes.
The name of the satire-based website referenced the Dunning-Kruger effect, defined by Britannica as "a cognitive bias whereby people with limited knowledge or competence in a given intellectual or social domain greatly overestimate their own knowledge or competence in that domain relative to objective criteria or to the performance of their peers or of people in general."
Other Facebook pages owned by America's Last Line of Defense, Reagan Was Right and America - Love It Or Leave It, also featured posts promoting the rumor.
Two previous fact checks examined similar untrue rumors claiming Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., also collected their dead grandmother's Social Security checks. Another article examined the untrue claim that Crockett arrested a judge after he insulted her.
For background, here is why we alert readers to rumors created by sources calling their output humorous or satirical.