Donald Trump’s detractors actively spread info about his son-in-law apparently covering up cyber tracks by purging tweets, after media claims that the president was a tax evader. Turns out Jared Kushner never tweeted at all.
The New York Times story that broke on Sunday alleged that Trump has been avoiding paying federal income taxes over the past two decades.
This, if true, could potentially criminally implicate the president’s family members, who, for years, have been involved in Trump’s business dealings.
Hence the surety with which some anti-Trump online commenters were quick to suspect foul play in speculation about Kushner’s twitter account having no posts at all.
This led to multiple claims that Kushner had purposely “completely deleted” all of his tweets, as a way to hide some information that could legally implicate him in any alleged tax malpractice.
Jared Kushner completely deleted all of his tweets right after the tax story broke. pic.twitter.com/lEkqmH5EGx
Many other commenters took those claims for granted and cheered the news that Trump’s “party [was] ending,” believing that Kushner must have been “cleaning house” by deleting tweets.
The party is ending. The fleecing of our country is ending. Some people are going to spend a long time in prison or Russia – their choice.
Holy crap!!!! They are cleaning house and flushing the evidence!!!!!!!
Some more ‘internet-savvy’ users even cynically thought that Kushner’s alleged efforts were futile because somebody was sure to have copies of his tweets.
I’m sure somebody has copies of them all anyhow
Users who have seen Kushner’s account at least once, however, quickly debunked the alleged low-effort conspiracy, as he “didn’t have any tweets up before the tax story.” This would have been easy to verify by simply using the Internet Archive website.
Ah, yes, the old “Jared Kushner deleted his tweets” thing. This crops up occasionally. He’s never tweeted at all. Nothing to delete. https://t.co/sI1cL7wBWS
As @pbump and others noted, this is false. Kushner didn’t have any tweets up before the tax story. People went viral tweeting the same false “Jared deleted” stuff amid Mueller news in 2017. pic.twitter.com/GtcPNjRPSV
The false impression that Kushner’s account gives off to the over eager, never-Trump crowd actually spawned a similar story in 2017. Then Resistance Twitter thought he deleted his posts shortly after DOJ Special Counsel Robert Mueller revealed charges against three former Trump campaign officials, most notably including lobbyist and former Trump 2016 campaign consultant Paul Manafort.
In fact, Kushner is known to never post tweets, despite having an account since 2009.
The Times’ report claims that Trump paid no federal income taxes in 10 of the 15 years before he was elected president. Moreover, he allegedly paid just $750 in 2016 and 2017. The paper of record didn’t specify where it obtained Trump’s tax data, perhaps because leaking such information would be illegal.
On Sunday Trump personally commented on the NYT report saying it was “totally fake” and “made-up.”
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