Fake ‘Evidence’ Pegging Minnesota Shooting Suspect as a Liberal Democrat
By Sam Howard and Sarah Komar
What happened: In the days following the shooting of two Democratic lawmakers and their spouses in Minnesota, right-wing social media users have shifted from making vague claims that the suspected shooter is a left-wing Democrat to promoting fabricated evidence to render that claim more convincing.
Context: Early on June 14, Minnesota state Rep. Melissa Hortman, state Sen. John Hoffman, and their spouses were shot in their suburban Minneapolis homes, in “politically motivated” attacks, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz said in a June 14 press conference. Hortman and her husband, Mark, died, while Hoffman and his wife, Yvette, were critically wounded. After a two-day manhunt, Vance Boelter, 57, was arrested and charged with murder and other crimes, U.S. Attorney Joseph Thompson said during a June 16 press conference.
A closer look: As Reality Check reported earlier this week, conservatives on social media were quick to label Boelter a liberal and a Democrat. In the ensuing days, they cited a range of supposed evidence to make this narrative more convincing.
NewsGuard has identified three prominent false claims falsely linking Boelter to Democratic causes.
Fake Walz link: Conservatives are falsely claiming that the wife of Vance Boelter, Jennifer Boelter, interned for Walz, the former Democratic vice-presidential candidate, in 2010, when Walz served in the House of Representatives. The accounts cited congressional pay documents from 2010 that show that a Jennifer Boelter interned in Walz’s House office from August to December 2010.
Actually: Vance Boelter’s wife is named Jennifer Boelter. However, asked if Vance Boelter’s wife interned from then-Rep. Walz, Claire Lancaster, director of communications for Gov. Walz’s office, told NewsGuard in a June 16 email, “No, she did not.” The Minnesota Star-Tribune (Trust Score: 100/100) reported on June 15 that a different Jennifer Boelter interned for Walz’s office in 2010, citing a Walz spokesperson.
T-shirt hoax: Right-leaning accounts shared a photo supposedly showing Boelter wearing a “Resist” T-shirt illustrated with a handgun, standing next to a woman wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with “I think therefore I am…a Democrat”. Some social media users also claimed the woman was Boelter’s wife, Jennifer.
Actually: Neither of the Boelters is in the photograph. The photo shows a pair of Texas Democrats, Houston lawyer Brandon Trachtenberg and his wife Lillie Schechter, a former chair of the Harris County Democratic Party, attending a June 14, 2025, anti-Trump rally in Houston, Trachtenberg confirmed in a Facebook post.
Immigration motivation: Some social media users claimed that Boelter shot the two lawmakers, state Rep. Melissa Hortman and state Sen. John Hoffman, because they voted to make undocumented immigrants ineligible for MinnesotaCare, a state-subsidized health insurance program. This claim was cited to argue that the lawmakers were targeted because they did not adopt the liberal position on the issue.
Actually: Only one of the two lawmakers, Hortman, voted to repeal undocumented immigrants’ eligibility for MinnesotaCare, according to Hortman and Hoffman’s voting records published on the Minnesota Legislature’s website. Sen. Hoffman voted against the repeal. There is no evidence that Boelter’s stance on healthcare for undocumented immigrants motivated the attacks.
More context: As previously reported in Reality Check, accounts by friends of Boelter, voting records, government officials, and an alleged manifesto that authorities said was found in Boelter’s vehicle are strong evidence that he was not a Democrat or liberal and based on comments made by his roommate, he may have voted for Donald Trump.
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