August 10, 2019

A Trump Official Just Posted on Instagram That Jeffrey Epstein Was “Hillary’d”

Conspiracy theories involving the Clintons are circulating on social media.

Lynne Patton, regional administrator at the Department of Housing and Urban DevelopmentCheriss May/NurPhoto/Getty

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Jeffrey Epstein, the multimillionaire accused of sex trafficking, was found dead in his New York jail cell Saturday morning in an apparent suicide. Details of his death emerged first through ABC News and quickly circulated among New York media outlets, but Lynne Patton, regional administrator at the Department of Housing and Urban Development, had another idea of what happened.

“Hillary’d!!” she posted on Instagram around 10 a.m., alongside a screenshot of a Daily Mail story that described Epstein’s manner of death. She added the hashtag, “#VinceFosterPartTwo,” a reference to the former Clinton aide whose death by suicide has fueled conspiracy theories for more than two decades. 

Patton, one of the highest-ranking officials at HUD, was not alone in seizing on conspiracy theories. Within hours of Epstein’s death, “Clintons” and “ClintonBodyCount” were among the highest-trending topics on Twitter. Among the biggest drivers of the latter hashtag were an Infowars host and two accounts associated with the QAnon conspiracy, according to Alex Kaplan, a Media Matters researcher who focuses on far-right media. 

On her Instagram page, Patton has waded into controversial territory before. In April, she posted a message mocking Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) for “cying” over the deluge of death threats she received after President Donald Trump tweeted an out-of-context attack on her. “In response, a few of Patton’s 84,000 followers took the opportunity to comment and some added death threats of their own,” Mother Jones’ Nathalie Baptiste reported at the time. “One Instagram user said he was surprised that no one had killed the congresswoman yet. Another user said someone should ‘just do it’ rather than just threatening Rep. Omar.”

More recently, Patton has faced criticism from ethics watchdogs over her habit of promoting political content from her professional social media accounts. In May, she retweeted a post mocking Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) that possibly violated federal law barring government officials from politicizing their positions. “It may be a Hatch Act violation. It may not be,” she wrote in a Facebook post explaining her decision. “Either way, I honestly don’t care anymore.”

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

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