“Former U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney, a Wyoming Republican, is getting a divorce because of an affair with Rep. Jamie Raskin, a Maryland Democrat.”96% Radioactive Baloney — Dangerously ToxicVerified blind by 5 frontier AIs · Baloney Inspection Report: baloney.ai/baloney/former-u-s-rep-liz-cheney-a-wyoming-republican-is-getting-a
The Rating Card
The correction — what is actually true
The Baloney Sampler
The reports found no credible evidence that Liz Cheney is divorcing Philip Perry or had an affair with Jamie Raskin. Snopes specifically checked the Cheney-Raskin affair-divorce allegation, traced it to satire/troll social-media material, and found no supporting evidence. The only “support” was viral partisan circulation tied to their January 6 committee work.
Official background sources also cut against the rumor: the Office of Rep. Jamie Raskin identifies Sarah Bloom Raskin as his wife, while U.S. Congress and the Biographical Directory of the U.S. Congress support the public identities/backgrounds involved. The reports found no court docket, filing date, named attorney, spokesperson statement, on-record source, or mainstream reporting.
Other ways to slice it — phrasings that might have changed the rating
“Liz Cheney and Jamie Raskin served together on the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack.” The reports identify that professional connection as real, while rejecting the leap from committee work to an affair or divorce.
“The rumor that Liz Cheney is divorcing because of an affair with Jamie Raskin circulated on partisan social media and satire/troll pages.” The reports found the allegation circulated online and Snopes traced it to satire or fabricated social-media material, which is evidence of circulation rather than truth.
“No credible news report, court record, official document, or on-record source supports the claim that Liz Cheney is divorcing because of an affair with Jamie Raskin.” All five reports found no divorce filing, court docket, credible reporting, named source, or official document supporting the allegation.
Written from the panel’s reports by OpenAI · gpt-5.5. Nothing here changed the score.
22:48:35SCORING MODEL V2 — MEDIAN OF 5 COUNTED LAB SCORES: 96, 94, 98, 97, 87 → 96.✓
22:48:35SOURCE RULE — LABS CITED 17 SOURCES: 0 DISCARDED FOR HAVING NO URL, 4 DISCARDED AS DEAD LINKS (404/410), 3 COULD NOT BE OPENED BY US AND ARE MARKED UNVERIFIED.✓
22:48:35SOURCE RULE — PRIMARY MASTER RULED ON 11 SOURCES: 0 DISCARDED FOR HAVING NO URL, 0 DISCARDED AS DEAD LINKS, 3 MARKED UNVERIFIED, 8 VERIFIED.✓
How This One Was Sliced
Station 1 · Blind Inspection — Five Graders, Zero Peeking
Each lab scored the claim independently, without seeing the others. Open a breakdown for its evidence, its sources, and how sure it was.
Anthropic · EQUAL WEIGHT · 36.9s
claude-opus-5
96%BALONEY
ROUND-1 BREAKDOWN
Evidence offered for the claim
The claim circulates on social media (Facebook/X posts, AI-generated 'news' aggregators and satire-farm pages of the 'America's Last Line of Defense' variety), which gives it surface familiarity — but virality is not evidence.
Both figures are real and were politically linked in the public mind: Cheney (R-WY) and Raskin (D-MD) both served on the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack, which makes a cross-party 'alliance' narrative superficially plausible to partisan audiences.
No formal denial or defamation suit from either family has been widely publicized, which rumor-spreaders cite as 'proof' — an argument from silence with no evidentiary value.
Evidence against the claim
No mainstream outlet (AP, Reuters, NYT, WaPo, Politico, CNN, Fox News, Casper Star-Tribune, Wyoming Tribune Eagle, Baltimore Sun) has reported a Cheney divorce filing or any affair. A sitting member of Congress and a nationally prominent former member would generate saturation coverage; complete silence across all outlets is decisive.
Liz Cheney has been married to attorney Philip Perry (former DHS and OMB general counsel) since 1993; they have five children, and no divorce petition has been reported in any jurisdiction where they reside.
Jamie Raskin has been married to Sarah Bloom Raskin — former Deputy Secretary of the Treasury and former Federal Reserve governor — since 1990. He has repeatedly and publicly discussed their marriage and family, including in his 2022 bestseller 'Unthinkable' about their son Tommy's death, and during his 2022–23 cancer treatment, when Sarah was described publicly as his caregiver. They have continued to appear together publicly.
The claim offers no verifiable specifics — no court, docket number, filing date, named attorney, statement from a spokesperson, or on-record source — the standard signature of fabricated celebrity/political gossip.
The 'affair' framing matches a recurring template used by hyperpartisan and satire-farm content mills, which manufacture stories designed to discredit Republicans who broke with Donald Trump; Cheney has been a frequent target of such fabrications.
The claim is also imprecise about Cheney's status in a way that suggests low-quality sourcing: she left the House in January 2023 after losing the 2022 Wyoming primary, so no current 'Rep. Cheney' exists to be reported on by the Capitol press corps.
Nothing in Wyoming or Maryland public records reporting, nor in any court-records-based journalism, has surfaced a dissolution-of-marriage filing for either couple.
How sure this lab was
93/100 — the lab’s own confidence in the score above, not a second reading of the claim.
No credible evidence from verified news outlets, official records, or fact-checkers was identified supporting the claim that Liz Cheney is divorcing because of an affair with Jamie Raskin.
The claim appears to rest on unsupported online rumor rather than documented divorce filings, named sources, photographs, statements, or reporting from reputable outlets.
Evidence against the claim
Snopes directly fact-checked the Cheney/Raskin affair-divorce allegation and found no evidence supporting it.
Rep. Jamie Raskin’s official House biography identifies Sarah Bloom Raskin as his wife, undermining the implication that a documented public relationship with Cheney exists.
Liz Cheney’s own public biography identifies Phil Perry as her husband; I found no reliable reporting that she has filed for or is getting a divorce from him.
CNN reporting on the death of Raskin’s son identifies Sarah Bloom Raskin as Raskin’s wife, consistent with official biographical information and inconsistent with the rumor’s implication.
How sure this lab was
91/100 — the lab’s own confidence in the score above, not a second reading of the claim.
There is no credible evidence to support this claim. It originated entirely as an unsubstantiated rumor on social media.
Evidence against the claim
Public records and statements confirm that neither Liz Cheney nor Jamie Raskin has filed for divorce; Cheney remains married to Philip Perry, and Raskin remains married to Sarah Bloom Raskin.
Multiple independent fact-checking organizations have traced the rumor to fabricated social media posts designed to smear the two politicians due to their collaborative work on the January 6th House Select Committee.
No legitimate news organization, journalistic entity, or credible source has ever reported or corroborated an affair between the two representatives.
How sure this lab was
100/100 — the lab’s own confidence in the score above, not a second reading of the claim.
Sources
Perplexity · EQUAL WEIGHT · 6.9s
sonar-pro
97%BALONEY
ROUND-1 BREAKDOWN
Evidence offered for the claim
The claim appears to have originated from a social-media post associated with America's Last Line of Defense, a self-described satire/troll network; this is evidence that the rumor circulated, not evidence that the underlying events occurred.
Liz Cheney and Jamie Raskin served together on the House committee investigating January 6, and reporting has described them as having a close professional relationship; no cited source establishes a romantic relationship.
Evidence against the claim
Snopes rated the story bogus and reported that it originated as satire from America's Last Line of Defense, whose content is not presented as factual. Snopes found no evidence that Cheney was getting divorced or that she and Raskin had an affair.
The available fact-checking report states that no court records, credible news reports, or official documents support the alleged divorce or affair, and that Cheney remains married to Philip Perry.
The claim provides no verifiable filing, named court document, direct statement, or credible independent reporting. The alleged affair and divorce are therefore unsubstantiated, while the source trail points to fabricated or satirical material.
How sure this lab was
96/100 — the lab’s own confidence in the score above, not a second reading of the claim.
Unverified partisan social-media posts and blogs have circulated the rumor, typically tying it to Cheney’s work with Raskin on the January 6 committee.
Evidence against the claim
No divorce filing, separation announcement, or affair involving Cheney and Raskin has been reported by any mainstream news organization.
Liz Cheney’s public biographies continue to list her 1993 marriage to Philip Perry and their five children with no mention of divorce.
Jamie Raskin remains married to Sarah Bloom Raskin; no infidelity reports exist.
A scandal of this nature between two nationally known members of Congress would have produced extensive, sourced coverage; none exists.
How sure this lab was
82/100 — the lab’s own confidence in the score above, not a second reading of the claim.
The panel’s strongest evidence is negative but highly probative: evaluators found no divorce filing, separation announcement, on-record source, credible news report, court record, or official document supporting either an affair or a Cheney divorce tied to Jamie Raskin. I gave the most weight to the specific Snopes fact-check cited by one evaluator, which reportedly traced the claim to satirical or fabricated social-media material and found no evidence for the allegation. I also gave weight to official government and congressional biographical sources identifying Raskin’s spouse and Cheney’s congressional biography/background. I gave less weight to Wikipedia because it is useful for basic public biography but not decisive for a current divorce allegation. I discounted partisan blogs and low-reliability aggregators as proof of the claim; at most, they show that the rumor circulated. The allegation is a serious personal smear unsupported by credible evidence, so it belongs at the top of the Radioactive Baloney range, but not at 99 because the reports do not establish a long, years-spanning public debunk history of the archetypal “zombie” kind.
All five evaluators agreed that the claim is unsupported and overwhelmingly false; they differed mainly in how high to score it, ranging from 87 to 98, and in how much they relied on Snopes, official biographies, Wikipedia, or the absence of mainstream reporting.
Blind Validation Master · never saw the Primary’s work
claude-opus-5
97% BALONEY
All five independent reviews converge on the same conclusion: the claim is fabricated. Snopes traced it to 'America's Last Line of Defense,' a satire/troll content farm, and found no evidence of either a divorce or an affair. Public and official records cut directly against it: Liz Cheney has been married to Philip Perry since 1993 (five children, no reported filing), and Jamie Raskin's official House biography and abundant public record confirm his ongoing marriage to Sarah Bloom Raskin since 1990, including extensive public discussion of their family in his 2022 book and during his cancer treatment. No court docket, filing date, named attorney, spokesperson statement, or on-record source is offered. A scandal involving two nationally prominent members of Congress would draw saturation coverage; the complete silence across AP, Reuters, NYT, WaPo, Politico, CNN, Fox and local Wyoming/Maryland outlets is decisive. The only 'evidence for' is viral partisan circulation, which carries no evidentiary weight, plus the superficially plausible hook that the two served together on the January 6 committee. The statement is additionally imprecise in ways that signal low-quality sourcing. This is overwhelmingly false and defamatory in character, placing it high in Radioactive Baloney; I stop just short of 99 because the reports document one prominent debunking and continued spread rather than a long, repeatedly re-debunked zombie career.
AGREEMENT TEST PASSED — MASTERS SCORED 98% AND 97% · BLIND VALIDATION CONFIRMED THIS SCORE · NO RE-EVALUATION REQUIRED
Median of 5 counted lab scores: 96, 94, 98, 97, 87 → 96.
The Evidence
Evidence offered for the claim
Social-media rumorDEBUNKED — Unverified posts and blogs have circulated the story, but the evaluators found that virality is not evidence of a divorce, affair, filing, or statement.
Professional associationDEBUNKED — Cheney and Raskin served together on the House January 6 committee, but the panel found that a public working relationship does not establish a romantic relationship.
Satire-source trailDEBUNKED — One evaluator found the rumor associated with America’s Last Line of Defense, a satire/troll network; that supports only that a fabricated story circulated, not that the events occurred.
Evidence against the claim
No credible reporting Evaluators found no mainstream news report, official statement, named source, court record, docket, filing date, or verifiable document supporting a Cheney divorce caused by an affair with Raskin.
Specific fact-check The cited Snopes fact-check reportedly rated the Cheney-Raskin affair-divorce story bogus and found no evidence that Cheney was getting divorced or that she and Raskin had an affair.
Public spouse information Raskin’s official House biography identifies Sarah Bloom Raskin as his wife, and evaluators noted that Cheney’s public biography identifies Philip Perry as her husband.
No verifiable specifics The claim lacks the basic markers of a real divorce or scandal report: no court, docket number, filing, attorney, spokesperson statement, or on-record witness.
Sources · Reliability · Why Accepted or Discounted
ACCEPTED — Accepted for official biographical information identifying Sarah Bloom Raskin as Jamie Raskin’s wife; it does not by itself adjudicate the rumor but is relevant background.
ACCEPTED — Accepted as the most directly relevant cited source because it specifically examined the Cheney-Raskin affair-divorce allegation and found no supporting evidence.
DISCOUNTED — Discounted as proof of the allegation because the panel characterized the rumor as unverified and unsupported; this source is useful only as evidence that the claim circulated.
DISCOUNTED — Discounted as a weaker secondary fact-check compared with the specific Snopes report and official sources; not needed for the central finding.
DISCOUNTED — Discounted because the cited page is a general Liz Cheney profile, not a fact-check of this specific affair-divorce allegation.
Every link was opened when this claim was inspected. A dead link was discarded before publication; “unverified” means the site refused our automated check and the link is the one the panel cited. A source without a URL was never kept.
“Former U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney, a Wyoming Republican, is getting a divorce because of an affair with Rep. Jamie Raskin, a Maryland Democrat.”96% Radioactive Baloney — Dangerously ToxicVerified blind by 5 frontier AIs · Baloney Inspection Report: baloney.ai/baloney/former-u-s-rep-liz-cheney-a-wyoming-republican-is-getting-a
