Donald Trump Jr. is always looking for ways to support his father.
Monday morning was no different, as Trump Jr. found a tweet from what appeared to be WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange claiming there was a “double standard” from people when comparing responses from President Donald Trump and other leaders in the wake of the white supremacist violence in Charlottesville, Virginia.
The only problem? The account Trump Jr. retweeted is fake.
The account, @JuliannAssange (notice the extra “n”) tweeted “Trump condemned hours ago. Did Obama denounce BLM or Antifa? Hillary? CNN? Double standard is driving the hate. True equality will fix it.”
Trump Jr. likely found the tweet as a bit of solace amid the growing outrage and criticism surrounding his father’s response to the Charlottesville violence and death of a peaceful protester that stemmed from it.
To be fair, the fake Julian Assange account looks nearly identical to Assange’s real account. However, you can tell the difference by looking at when the two accounts were created as well as the disparity in follower numbers. (Assange’s real account has over 300,000 followers while the fake account has around 13,600.)
The real Julian Assange account has not made any mention of a “double standard” like the fake one did.
President Trump condemned the violence from “many sides” in the aftermath of violence in Charlottesville, prompting the White House to begin damage control—including much stronger denouncements from Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Vice President Mike Pence, both of whom used the words “white supremacists,” unlike the president.
Trump Jr. has a bit of a history of falling for (or following) fake Twitter accounts. Last month he followed @DPRK_News, a fake account that pretends to represent North Korea.