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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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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