A picture authentically confirmed a memo from the White Home’s chief butler accusing employees of stealing cutlery and tableware.
A picture circulated on-line in Could 2026 that claimed to authentically present a memo from the White Home’s chief butler accusing employees of stealing cutlery and tableware.
For instance, a Threads consumer posted the alleged memo on Could 7. It began (archived):
It has come to the eye of the Butler’s Workplace that the continued pilferage, disapperaance, unauthorized relocation, and possible theft of White Home cutlery and associated desk service gadgets has now reached a stage that may solely be described as each operationally disruptive and deeply irritating.
Based on the memo, allegedly despatched by Edwin P. Markham, the White Home’s chief butler, 1,103 items of cutlery and tableware from the White Home stock had been lacking on April 29, 2026.
The memo circulated mainly on Threads (archived, archived, archived) but in addition on Facebook (archived). Some customers appeared to interpret the rumor as true. Snopes readers contacted us to research its legitimacy.
The declare appeared to originate from a Fb consumer referred to as Robert Hawks, who posted (archived) the alleged memo on Could 7, 2026. Hawks appeared to say possession of the publish later that very same day, reposting the alleged memo and writing (archived): “My solely remorse is that I considered a approach nice joke to high the entire thing with and that was to demand the reason of 2433 lacking salt shakers.”
Due to this and since there have been parts throughout the textual content itself that exposed it wasn’t a real White Home doc, we have rated this declare a faux.
A White Home spokesperson referred to as the alleged memo “Faux Information” in an e-mail on Could 7.
Snopes contacted Hawks to substantiate whether or not he created the memo and for his response to the publish circulating on-line with out indications that it was a joke and await a reply.
Except for Hawks’ personal remark, different parts of the alleged memo revealed it to be faux.
For instance, under a list of allegedly lacking cutlery and tableware, the White Home’s “chief butler” wrote:
Of specific concern is the recurring depletion of salad forks. Within the case of salad forks, the White Home fully ran out twice and needed to make the most of, on one event, the salad forks from the alternate Air Power One and, on a second event, a bag of plastic forks bought on the native Save-On in Torqueville, Maryland.
“Torqueville, Maryland” doesn’t exist. It could possibly be a reference to a fictional location within the “Vehicles” motion pictures.
Moreover, although the White Home does have butlers as a part of the family employees, we discovered no proof the presidential residence makes use of the phrases “chief butler” or “Butler’s Workplace” as they appeared on the memo.
Based on the White Home Historic Affiliation, a nonprofit, nonpartisan group that preserves and shares the historical past of the White Home, the chief usher oversees family employees together with butlers from the White Home Usher’s Workplace. The lead butler, according to the affiliation, makes use of the French title “maître d’hôtel” or “head butler.”
Snopes has beforehand investigated quite a lot of claims that got here from from memos, together with whether or not the FBI designated LGBTQ+ people as terrorists, or whether or not the Trump administration deliberate to swap out paper currency with “Trumpcoin.”
