Not the same, sometimes rumours are true and just get called lies to protect the guilty.
After all Harvey Weinstein was long rumoured to be a predatory sex pest and utter monster of a man, the people who believed that were called fools idiots and liars, but it turned out they were in point of fact his VICTIMS.

A perfect description of the way the Obstructionist republican fascist do their bidding against us!!!

Rumors would seem to occupy the same rung of the ladder as idle gossip, often done in whispers, behind the scenes. "Rumor has it..." is often an indirect reference, sometimes accurate, sometimes not, but never fully forthright. Lies, on the other hand, are willful untruths. Lies are either premeditated deception, or spontaneous responses to attempts to get at the truth. To be sure, rumor mongers are a problem, but liars are a scourge that should be eliminated from society. In fact, liars may be the ones who fabricate the content spread by rumor mongers.