May 26, 2020

Trump Keeps Promoting a Baseless Murder Conspiracy Theory, Despite Pleas From the Widower

The tweets, which aim to smear Joe Scarborough, have yet to be removed.

Chris Kleponis/ZUMA

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President Trump on Tuesday continued to baselessly suggest that Joe Scarborough, the MSNBC host and former Florida congressman, murdered his former staffer Lori Klausutis, despite mounting condemnation over his relentless promotion of the entirely debunked conspiracy theory. The latest tweet promoting this meritless allegation came shortly after the New York Times published a letter from Klausutis’ husband urging Twitter to remove the president’s tweets about his late wife, who died in 2001 from a fall stemming from an undiagnosed heart condition.

“I’m asking you to intervene in this instance because the President of the United States has taken something that does not belong him—the memory of my dead wife—and perverted it for perceived political gain,” Timothy Klausutis wrote to Twitter’s Jack Dorsey last week. 

“My wife deserves better.”

While it’s not clear if Trump has read the letter, he appeared to indirectly acknowledge some of the criticism on Tuesday. “The opening of a Cold Case against Psycho Joe Scarborough was not a Donald Trump original thought,” he tweeted. “This has been going on for years, long before I joined the chorus.” Of course, by tweeting about the false theory once more, Trump was again fanning its flames.

Trump appears to be indulging in the conspiracy theory in order to smear Scarborough, an outspoken critic of the president. That effort comes as the United States approaches 100,000 deaths from the coronavirus pandemic.

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