In December 2025, a rumor spread that the Department of Government Efficiency had discovered that U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, an independent from Vermont, owed $1.6 million in unpaid taxes.
A post on Facebook with a photograph of Sanders shared the claim on Dec. 24, adding that the senator was being referred to the Department of Justice for tax evasion (archived):
(America’s Last Line of Defense)
Bernie Sanders has 30 days to come up with $1.6 million in unpaid taxes on income he didn’t declare until DOGE found it earlier this year.
Sanders failed to report his grant money as income, even though $5 million of it went into his Cayman Islands accounts.
He’s also being referred to the Justice Department for tax evasion.
Some users replying to the post seemed to take the rumor as a fact. Snopes readers searched the website and reached out by email, seeking to confirm whether the rumor was true.
Multiple web searches revealed no evidence DOGE had uncovered that Sanders owed more than $1 million in back taxes, however.
Rather, the rumor about Sanders being referred to the DOJ for tax evasion originated with America’s Last Line of Defense — a Facebook account that describes its output as being humorous or satirical in nature. Its bio states: “The flagship of the ALLOD network of trollery and propaganda for cash. Nothing on this page is real.”
Further, a watermark on the photograph of Sanders that illustrated the claim read “NOTHING on this page is REAL.”
The fictional story spread as news spread that Sanders was set to swear in New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani, often described as a democratic socialist. Mamdani was set to take office Jan. 1, 2026.
ALLOD has a history of making up stories for shares and comments, sometimes relying on artificial-intelligence writing software to do its storytelling.
Snopes has addressed many such satirical claims by ALLOD in the past, including false rumors about the net worth of progressive lawmakers and a rumor that Chelsea Clinton owed money to the U.S. Agency for International Development.
For background, here is why we alert readers to rumors created by sources that call their output humorous or satirical.
