As news broke of an unverified document detailing supposed Russian dirt on President-elect Donald Trump—including sordid allegations involving urine and prostitutes in Russia—users on the subreddit r/The_Donald and 4chan’s /pol/ forum took a victory lap.
Not because they found the story funny, but because they claim they planted it as a fake. Proof that it’s all an elaborate 4chan ruse, however, is thin.
Reddit’s r/The_Donald users pointed to an anonymous 4chan post from Nov. 1, exactly one week before the election, that Redditors say proves “/pol/ really invented this rumor” involving Trump’s alleged business and personal ties to Russia.
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“So they took what I told Rick Wilson and added a Russian spy angle to it. They still believe it. Guys, they’re truly fucking desperate—there’s no remaining Trump scandal that’s credible,” the anonymous post from Nov. 1 reads. Wilson is a Republican operative who managed Evan McMullin’s independent campaign and has been an outspoken critic of Trump.
There are no details in the post, which is archived here, about what was allegedly told to Wilson—simply that the user purportedly gave him fake information. It also doesn’t explain how this would have gotten to intelligence agencies.
Wilson’s access to a shocking Donald Trump story had been flaunted by himself and others many weeks before the 4chan post. Wilson himself had been publicly pronouncing that a bombshell involving Trump was set for imminent release a month before the election, even going so far as to say that it could end the race.
The report made public Tuesday, which was reported to have been shared privately with both Trump and President Obama, was not a well-kept secret in media and political circles in the run-up to the election, making it possible to leak to 4chan, where users post anonymously.
Wilson dismissed all of r/The_Donald and 4chan’s claims in a tweet Tuesday night. “You’re wrong if you believe 1. What we had came from /pol 2. That I was Buzzfeed’s source. Try again, boys,” he wrote.
“The information was out there looooong before the 4chan posts,” he replied to another user.
Reached by phone earlier in the evening, Wilson told The Daily Beast that the Russian allegations were “making the rounds before anyone talked about it publicly.” He said that they were being discussed as early as a year and a half ago.
“Trump always knew it was out there,” Wilson said. “He thought he could bullshit his way through it.
“This stuff is real and it’s bad. It’s going to be something that weighs on him,” he added.
For what it’s worth, Wilson has been the object of ire and ridicule on 4chan before, particularly after an MSNBC appearance in which he referred to some Trump supporters as “childless single men who masturbate to anime.” So it is conceivable 4chan’s story was invented to seek further retribution.
The intelligence-community documents had reportedly been shopped to several news outlets in the months leading up to the election, and were alluded to in a Mother Jones article the day before the 4chan post.
The New York Times reported Tuesday night that details of the reports were swirling in the fall of 2016.
Then last week, the heads of America’s intelligence agencies were said to have provided a summary of the unverified reports to both President Obama and President-elect Trump. No one has been able to confirm the veracity of the information contained within the documents.
Reacting to published reports on Tuesday night, Trump tweeted in all-caps: “FAKE NEWS—A TOTAL POLITICAL WITCH HUNT!”
Trump fans seemed to agree.
The top post on r/The_Donald, the largest pro-Trump community on the internet, links to a screenshot of a 4chan post that claims “/pol/acks (/pol/ users) mailed fanfiction to anti-trump pundit rick wilson about trump making people piss on a bed Obama slept in” and that “the cia has concluded that the russians plan to blackmail Trump with this story we made up.”
The memos, which were presented after intelligence agencies asserted that Russia was involved in various hacking campaigns during the presidential election, purport that the Russian government has been seeking ways to influence Trump for many years, including with real-estate deals. Trump did not complete major deals in the country despite discussing them.
According to American officials cited by The New York Times, the former British intelligence officer who was allegedly responsible for gathering the material was considered a reliable source with experience in Russia.
“There’s nothing they can’t push him to do,” Wilson told The Daily Beast when it comes to Russia and Trump.
