Day 1,237: Trump’s latest conspiracy theory: 75-year-old man feloniously shoved by police was ‘provocateur’ who ‘fell harder than was pushed’
No wonder his poll numbers are tanking. Donald Trump can’t stay off Twitter or engaging in ridiculous conspriacy theories.
His latest, on Tuesday, caused elected Republicans to flee reporters rather than answer questions about it. It dealt with the graphic video below that left a septuagenarian bloodied and unconscious.
Trump implied that the man shoved to the ground, Martin Gugino, a member of a group that focuses on affordable housing and member of a human rights organization, was a radical “ANTIFA provocateur” who “fell harder than [he] was pushed.” Trump implied the entire thing was a “set up,” despite two of the police officers earning felony charges over their actions that has left Gugino still hospitalized as of Tuesday.
In his tweet, Trump cited his latest favorite sycophantic outlet, OANN. The author of the piece that Trump alluded to works for a Russian propaganda network.
The reporter on the OANN piece was Kristian Rouz — who, according to the Daily Beast, is a Russian national who also works for the Russian propaganda outfit Sputnik.
OANN said it based its reporting on an account in the Conservative Treehouse blog post that, without evidence, labeled Gugino a “75-year-old professional agitator and ANTIFA provocateur.”
The Conservative Treehouse blog, which has 168,600 Twitter followers, was founded in 2011. It does not disclose its ownership, but identifies itself as being run by a “Rag Tag Bunch of Conservative Misfits.”
Trump’s tweet is garbage of the highest order. It’s the type of fake news that Trump falsely claims the big outlets gin up against him.
The Gugino story takes a random characterization and theory by an obscure far-right website of a man violently assaulted, funnels it as a “report” through a less obscure but also far-right outlet, and it ends up getting tweeted by Trump to the world.
1,237 days in, 225 to go
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