The Jefferson County Republican Party shared an image of a fake tweet on its Facebook page yesterday, but to its credit promptly removed the post after learning that the picture wasn’t real.
The image showed an inflammatory tweet by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) insisting that states should extend COVID-19 restrictions to prevent an economic recovery that could help President Trump win reelection.
As numerous fact-checking sites quickly established, Ocasio-Cortez never tweeted this. The image itself was a photo of the fake tweet on another screen, presumably to add some gritty authenticity to the deception.
Locally, commenters on the JeffCo GOP page flagged the post as fake within minutes, sharing links to a Snopes article debunking the faked tweet.
Via Facebook message, Denise Mund, Chair of the Jefferson County Republican Party, thanked the Colorado Times Recorder for reaching out, saying that page administrators removed the post as soon as they realized that the post wasn’t real.
“The two of us who manage the page didn’t see that it was flagged as false,” said Mund. “Our policy is to take down posts like that. It’s been deleted.”
The Jefferson County Republicans weren’t the only ones fooled by the forgery, which was widely shared over the past 48 hours.
Actor and right-wing conspiracy theorist James Woods shared it, as did NFL coach Jack Del Rio, whose post Tuesday evening helped signal boost the Photoshopped image. Conservative talk radio host Rush Limbaugh even read it aloud on his show yesterday.
