Donald Trump's 'Star of David' Tweet About Hillary Clinton Posted Weeks Earlier on Racist Feed
An image of Hillary Clinton that was widely criticized as anti-Semitic after it was tweeted by Donald Trump, the Republican party's presumptive nominee for president, appears to have originated two weeks ago on a Twitter account devoted to bigoted memes.
Trump tweeted the graphic on Saturday attacking Clinton in an image that included what appears to be a Jewish Star of David layered over $100 bills. The tweet calls Clinton "the most corrupt candidate ever." Painting Jews as corrupt money-grubbers out to secretly control the government has been a well worn anti-Semitic trope since long before World War II.
Trump's tweet set off a firestorm on the social media platform where the term "Star of David" was soon trending nationally and spiked on Google search. On Sunday, it was roundly condemned by Jewish leaders.
Still, the Trump campaign has refused to answer numerous requests for comment or provide any answers regarding the origin of the tweet, who inside the campaign found it and where and why Trump chose to disseminate it to his more than nine million followers.
Within hours of the tweet on Saturday, Trump tweeted the image a second time but the six-pointed star was replaced with a circle. The original was then deleted without explanation. The genesis of the image was not known until the website mic.com reported Sunday that the six-point star meme was originally posted June 15 by a user with the handle @FishBoneHead1. The account owner's bio reads: "Comedian: Probably offend you if you are Liberal, Politically Correct, Feminist, Democrat or Piers Morgan."
On Sunday, that account appeared to have been shut down, but it was unclear by whom. Various memes on the user's feed include violent imagery and bigoted, offensive visions of Clinton, African-Americans, immigrants and Muslims.
NBC News found the original tweet by @fishbonehead1 by dragging the image used in Trump's tweet into Google image search and restricting the search to the month of June. The only image that the search returned was emblazoned with @FishBoneHead1 on the bottom left.
This is not the first time Trump has been forced to disavow or distance himself from anti-Semitic or white supremacist connections. In January, Trump retweeted a photo from an apparent neo-Nazi supporter's account, which included anti-Semitic imagery and quotes from Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels, one of Adolf Hitler's closest aides.
Additionally, Trump retweeted from the account, @WhiteGenocideTM, less than a month later. That tweet has since been deleted.
In late February, Trump faced swift backlash after failing to immediately disavow former KKK grand master David Duke during an interview with CNN.
Leaders of his own party were publicly appalled. Trump eventually tweeted an official disavowal and blamed a faulty earpiece for his initial response. But anti-Semitic and white nationalist rhetoric has continued to dog the candidate.
Trump has been accused of knowingly whipping up racist sentiment among his supporters. He denies it but declines to explain how anti-Semitic memes keeping making their way into his own tweets.
"We are outraged to see that his campaign is sourcing material like this offensive image form white supremacist websites and online sources," said Todd Gutnick, communications director with the Anti-Defamation League.
"It is long overdue for Mr. Trump to reject the anti-Semites and racists," Gutnick said in a statement to NBC News.
The ADL, which was founded in 1913 to combat anti-Semitism and promote social justice, set up a task force in recent weeks to examine attacks on social media aimed at Jewish journalists. According to the ADL, attacks by white supremacists and other anti-Semites have particularly targeted journalists who "have been critical of presidential candidate Donald Trump or his family."
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I was confused as to why the new image with the words appearing in a circle was obviously layered over the old image (you can see the tiny points of some of the star edges looking out). This explains why. How much more open about pandering to neo-nazis is he willing to get?