No, Kobe Bryant didn’t tweet about having dirt on Hillary Clinton before his helicopter crashed

We’ve debunked many claims that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has killed political enemies. The typical formula for these conspiracies is as follows: Someone in the Clinton family orbit dies in an accident or commits suicide. Official accounts confirm the means of death by accident or suicide. Then conspiracists suggest the "real" story is that the individual was offed before they could reveal damaging information about the Clintons.

We are not surprised, then, to see it again following news of NBA legend Kobe Bryant’s deadly helicopter crash. A Jan. 26 Facebook post follows this roadmap to misinformation, showing what looks like a screenshot of a Kobe Bryant tweet with the time and date "9:30 a.m. - Jan 26, 2020." (The helicopter Bryant was riding in crashed just before 10 a.m. Jan. 26 in Calabasas, Calif.)

The supposed tweet says: "I have information that will lead to the arrest of Hillary Clinton."

It was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) 

That’s because Bryant didn’t tweet that. He didn’t tweet anything on Jan. 26. 

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Searching his account for any tweets about the Clintons, we found one from January 2013. 

He tweeted a photo of himself with former President Bill Clinton. 

"Great event with President Clinton and @KVBFF for renovation of Step Up on Vine!" he wrote.

We rate this Facebook post Pants on Fire.