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A GOP Staffer Crowdsourced a Resolution From a Conspiracy Subreddit
A GOP Staffer Crowdsourced a Resolution From a Conspiracy Subreddit
This past Wednesday, a group of Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee presented an amendment calling for an investigation into alleged misconduct on the parts of Hillary Clinton and James Comey. It was a way to frustrate Democrats, but, more than that, it provided an opportunity to publicly discuss their very favorite thing: the many bygone misdeeds of Crooked Hillary. The amendment may sound to some readers like it's been ripped out of a conspiracy forum, because that's exactly what happened.
Sponsored by first-term Representative Matt Gaetz (R-Florida), the amendment itself sought to hijack what began as a resolution from Representative Pramila Jayapal (D-Washington) asking for information about Comey's firing. In response to Jayapal's proposal, Gaetz and a few fellow Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee effectively replaced the Democrats' resolution with one of their own. The new amendment (which you can read in its entirety here) asks for an investigation into things like "the propriety and consequence of immunity deals given to possible Hillary Clinton co-conspirators" and "James B. Comey’s refusal to investigate then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton regarding" a number of matters, including many of which may have come directly from r/The_Donald.
Thursday night, three Twitter users discovered that a staffer for one of the resolution’s sponsors attempted to crowdsource a number of the resolution's salient points from r/The_Donald, a subreddit notorious for playing host to unfounded conspiracy theories and anti-Islam tendencies. In other words, not a conventional source of legislative inspiration.
... snip
r/The_Donald has also provided a breeding ground for a number of unfounded conspiracies. Most recently, it helped promote the Seth Rich murder conspiracy theory, which eventually found its way to Sean Hannity. Before that, r/The_Donald also acted as an incubator for the Pizzagate subreddit, which ultimately led to a man firing a rifle inside of a crowded restaurant. Devinm666 apparently sought to give that same community a platform in Congress.
Read more: https://www.wired.com/story/republican-staffer-the-donald-resolution?mbid=social_tw_nat
This past Wednesday, a group of Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee presented an amendment calling for an investigation into alleged misconduct on the parts of Hillary Clinton and James Comey. It was a way to frustrate Democrats, but, more than that, it provided an opportunity to publicly discuss their very favorite thing: the many bygone misdeeds of Crooked Hillary. The amendment may sound to some readers like it's been ripped out of a conspiracy forum, because that's exactly what happened.
Sponsored by first-term Representative Matt Gaetz (R-Florida), the amendment itself sought to hijack what began as a resolution from Representative Pramila Jayapal (D-Washington) asking for information about Comey's firing. In response to Jayapal's proposal, Gaetz and a few fellow Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee effectively replaced the Democrats' resolution with one of their own. The new amendment (which you can read in its entirety here) asks for an investigation into things like "the propriety and consequence of immunity deals given to possible Hillary Clinton co-conspirators" and "James B. Comey’s refusal to investigate then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton regarding" a number of matters, including many of which may have come directly from r/The_Donald.
Thursday night, three Twitter users discovered that a staffer for one of the resolution’s sponsors attempted to crowdsource a number of the resolution's salient points from r/The_Donald, a subreddit notorious for playing host to unfounded conspiracy theories and anti-Islam tendencies. In other words, not a conventional source of legislative inspiration.
... snip
r/The_Donald has also provided a breeding ground for a number of unfounded conspiracies. Most recently, it helped promote the Seth Rich murder conspiracy theory, which eventually found its way to Sean Hannity. Before that, r/The_Donald also acted as an incubator for the Pizzagate subreddit, which ultimately led to a man firing a rifle inside of a crowded restaurant. Devinm666 apparently sought to give that same community a platform in Congress.
Read more: https://www.wired.com/story/republican-staffer-the-donald-resolution?mbid=social_tw_nat
