MAGA Influencers Spread Fake SCOTUS Barricade Videos Before Trump Ruling
Will Dunham/Reuters
Several right-wing accounts on X pushed a false narrative Monday that barricades had been installed around the Supreme Court ahead of its ruling regarding former President Donald Trump’s sweeping claims of immunity from criminal prosecution.
In a since-deleted post, Turning Point USA contributor and serial plagiarist Benny Johnson shared a 22-second video clip of barricades surrounding the high court.
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The clip began to gain traction and the same video soon showed up on several other right-wing accounts. One widely circulated post by @dom_lucre received more than 1 million views as of publication.
“BREAKING NEWS: A fence is being installed at the U.S. Supreme Court. The last time this happened was prior to the Roe v Wade decision,” the caption read.
But it didn’t take long for others to correct the reports. NBC News court reporter Daniel Barnes posted a photograph of the court taken Monday night from across the street—showing clearly that no such barrier or fencing had been erected.
It turns out that the footage was from 2022, after the leak of the conservative-majority court’s draft opinion overturning Roe v. Wade. The video was recorded on the morning of May 5 by Mitchell Miller, a Capitol Hill reporter for Washington, D.C. radio station WTOP.
The footage appeared on several other conservative accounts with large follower numbers, including @QTHESTORMM and @InterStarMedia, the latter of which later acknowledged the error, claiming their sources “got it wrong this time” and that “even our most trusted sources can make mistakes.”
A separate video also claiming new fencing had surrounded the court also made the rounds, enough so that it reached Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA). The congresswoman has not commented since news of the fake videos were confirmed.
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“This could be for the Presidential Immunity case later this week,” she wrote. While the post Greene was referring to has since been deleted, her response is still up as of publication.
The Supreme Court has until early July to decide Trump v. United States.
Read more at The Daily Beast.