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Times-Union readers want to know:

I was sent an email that said that former President Barack Obama have a bronze statue made of himself to leave in the White House. Is that accurate?

The emails have made their way across the internet. But reports that Obama ordered a $200,000 life-size bronze statue of himself to be permanently installed in the White House are totally false.

Conservative Flash News posted the story on May 21, FactCheck.org reported, and Facebook users flagged it as potentially fake. (FactCheck.org is one of several organizations working with Facebook to help identify and label viral fake news stories flagged by readers on the social media network.)

The phony story has actually been around a lot longer than May.

The earliest version found by FactCheck.org was published on Dec. 31, 2016, on EmpireNews.net, a site that says it is intended for entertainment purposes only Our website and social media content uses only fictional names, except in cases of public figure or celebrity parody or satirization, the site states on its About/Disclaimer page.

Since then, many more sites have republished the story, despite a line in the Empire News disclaimer saying its content may not be reprinted or re-transmitted, in whole or in part, without the express written consent of the publisher.

Only some of the posts included a link to the story on EmpireNews.net, FactCheck.org noted. And only some tagged the story as satire, making the intent clearer to readers.

The fake story claims that Obama ordered the statue with plans to have it permanently erected in the entryway of the White House, so that all who enter can remember me fondly. The president, according to the story, says that his legacy should not be diminished, and that this is the only way he can keep an eye over Trump, as well as future presidents.

It also says that the statue will not be allowed to be removed, citing a bogus White House tradition that every president is allowed to leave one thing in the White House that must never be touched by future presidents.

Some versions of the story included a photo of a statue of Obama supposedly in the White House Oval Office, but the photo is a fake, too.

The image looks to be a combination of two photos: one of a real statue of Obama outside of the Capitol building in San Juan, Puerto Rico, taken by Flickr photographer Paul Sableman in 2013 and the other of a replica of the Oval Office commissioned by a Texas man who collects presidential memorabilia, FactCheck.org and Snopes.com note.

The Oval Office didnt look like what the photo shows when Obama was president, and the image doesnt show the current decor, either, FactCheck.org reports.

Officials in Puerto Rico unveiled the bronze statue of Obama and one of former President Lyndon B. Johnson on Presidents Day in 2012. They were the latest additions to the Avenue of Heroes, which features statues of every president who visited the U.S. territory while in office, dating to Theodore Roosevelt.

The original story on EmpireNews.net featured the real photo of the Obama statue in San Juan, not a doctored image of the White House.

Carole Fader: (904) 359-4635

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Fact Check: Is Obama statue story true? - Florida Times-Union