Update: Screenshots show Kessler's tweets with context messages from community notes, as highlighted by our friends at Twitchy.
Earlier this week we highlighted how The Washington Post's Glenn Kessler got savaged over Twitter for his fact-check claiming that Republicans were making it too much of a big deal when it comes to Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg's association with George Soros. Mere days later, he's at it again, expressing outrage that members of the Trump family would dare to share reports that the judge in former and potentially future President Donald Trump's case, Juan Manuel Merchan, is an apparent 2020 Biden donor whose daughter once worked for Vice President Kamala Harris' presidential campaign.
Both Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr. had tweeted such reports, though only the tweet from the latter remains up, as of Wednesday morning. In addition to tweeting out a report from Breitbart, Donald Trump Jr. also retweeted those who shared a report from the Daily Mail.
Seems relevant… yet another connection in this hand picked democrat show trial. The BS never ends folks.
— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) April 4, 2023
Daughter of Judge on Trump Case Worked on Biden-Harris Campaign https://t.co/5FtA7K9732
According to Kessler, though, the Trump family members were sharing "totally irrelevant" that was "obviously intended to intimidate."
(I removed the photos from their tweets so as not to spread the image further)
— Glenn Kessler (@GlennKesslerWP) April 4, 2023
Mia also reported on the judge's connection, which looks to be a clear conflict of interest, citing Federal Election Commission (FEC) filings as well as screenshots of LinkedIn pages of his daughter, Loren, and details from the Breitbart report.
Kessler was, once again, quickly savaged for his take. Mollie Hemingway, editor-in-chief at The Federalist, was quick to emphasize how it had not been a good week for the fact-checker.
Did you really just deceptively edit these tweets in order to falsely portray the LINKING OF A NEWS STORY ABOUT A PUBLIC FIGURE as the posting of a private individual's photo? Wow, BANNER FREAKING WEEK, GLENN.
— Mollie (@MZHemingway) April 4, 2023
Our friends at Twitchy also highlighted some noteworthy replies pointing out just how ridiculous Kessler's concerns are that he doesn't facts that are relevant to the case against Trump to come out.
Dude is straight-up lying.
— Bonchie (@bonchieredstate) April 4, 2023
What they posted was a news article talking about how she worked for Kamala Harris. Is Kessler suggesting you can't post news articles now?
Community Notes, get to work. https://t.co/Pd5ESFo8R7
So this is the lefts talking point today ? So far I’ve seen 8 of these. And it’s a huge lie
— Nikki mac🐊🐊🇺🇸 (@Nikkimac187) April 4, 2023
Does the Washington post ever get anything right? They posted a news articles. You guys are a bunch of clowns.
— Nobody (@nobody4873) April 4, 2023
Yellow journalism at its finest. Come get him WaPo and get him back behind the firewall so he can pretend he’s legitimate.
— Mr Squirrel (@MortvilleRoyal) April 4, 2023
Donald Trump Jr. also retweeted other users taking issue with overreactions from Kessler and others.
Journos like @GlennKesslerWP are trying to ban people from sharing this storyhttps://t.co/I1r7xUXKOE
— Comfortably Smug (@ComfortablySmug) April 4, 2023
You call yourself a fact checker. You routinely fact check people for things like leaving context out of their statements - so why did you lie and say Don Jr. and Eric posted a picture of the judges daughter instead of telling the truth that they posted a link to a news story?
— Andrew Surabian (@Surabees) April 4, 2023
This tweet is a lie. Don posted a Breitbart story about the Judge's daughter working for Kamala Harris. But of course Joyce is a dishonest hack so she'll leave this tweet up instead of deleting it. https://t.co/tewKAHaVEy
— Andrew Surabian (@Surabees) April 4, 2023
Kessler, as it turns out though, is not the only member of the mainstream, leftist media to freak out, with examples coming from The Daily Beast and The Independent. CNN's John King called out the Trump family, as did Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), with the latter claiming over Twitter that this "threatening a judge's family" had something to do with Trump's innocence and that it amounted to "fascist movements."
Disgraceful how willing @cnn/@JohnKingCNN are to knowingly lie on TV. Multiple outlets wrote about the judge's daughter working for Kamala Harris. Don tweeted a link to one of those stories. He didn't post a pic or threaten her. So dishonest, but the "fact checkers" will ignore. https://t.co/1Okz3ojTYX
— Andrew Surabian (@Surabees) April 4, 2023
Google looks like it is getting involved in the situation, as a Google search of the article title that Eric Trump had initially tweeted bears a message that "It looks like the results below are changing quickly." This has happened before, including to do with an ethics complaint filed against Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) for a campaign video announcing his Senate run.
Tweets from Tuesday night show screenshots of Kessler's tweets being slapped with context notes.
Community Notes correcting the @washingtonpost fact checker’s lies in real time is flat out amazing. pic.twitter.com/384O5KaYwK
— Clay Travis (@ClayTravis) April 5, 2023
New Twitter Feature idea: If you get shamed by @CommunityNotes three times in a week like @GlennKesslerWP, your Verified Check becomes a Clown Emoji for Two weeks.
— ALX 🇺🇸 (@alx) April 5, 2023
Thoughts?
cc: @ElonMusk pic.twitter.com/kgerW1s0Hd
I’ve not been a huge fan of the Community Notes, but to dunk on Mr Pinocchio is too much fun!! pic.twitter.com/z3v4RJG1bW
— Jeff Cunningham (@jeffrygc) April 5, 2023
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