Famous satirical fake news website The Resistance: The Last Line of Defence published not one but two fake stories about the recent leak of Donald Trump's 2005 1004 tax form. The stories are titled "BREAKING: Rachel Maddow And Source Of Trump Tax Return Leak Arrested Immediately After Show" and "BREAKING: MSNBC Forced To Fire Rachel Maddow Over Illegal Trump Tax Documents" respectively, and they both mention non-existent Trump spokesman "Jeff Derpinger".
One story opens like this:
The White House OIC warned Rachel Maddow before her show that while the tax documents she obtained were authentic, it was illegal for her to publish the. In a statement to the show, Trump spokesman Jeff Derpinger even threw Maddow a bone by confirming the numbers on the president's form 1040 from 2005.
"She could have easily used that statement, still had the numbers she reported and not gotten herself into such hot water by publishing those forms illegally," Derpinger told Fox News, "This is her own fault." Maddow, who was arrested, charged and released last night right after the show aired, says she doesn't regret doing her job and reminded the public that the "free press," otherwise known as the lying media, has a duty to expose Trump.
While the other one went:
Rachel Maddow and the source of the leak of Trump's tax return, David K. Johnston, have been arrested for illegally publishing the personal tax returns of a sitting president without permission. During the show, they tried to hide behind the 1st Amendment, guaranteeing the free press the right to report on unsolicited material. Unfortunately for them, they published material that was solicited and the White House has proof.
Jeff Derpinger from the WHOIP told The Wall Street Journal:
"The president made sure by executive order on the first day he was in office that he would be exempt from the dishonest tactics of the lying media. The White House sent an email to the Maddow show explicitly forbidding them from publishing the return but they went ahead and published anyway. This is Trump's America. He's not a politician; he's a businessman. His taxes aren't anyone's business but his own."
The FBI raided Maddow's office and found the evidence they needed to cart her and her source off in handcuffs. They will be arraigned in Federal Court in the morning.
Both stories are entirely fake and there is no truth to these hoaxes at all. The Resistance: The Last Line of Defense is a fake news website that carries following disclaimer on its about page:
DISCLAIMER: The Resistance may include information from sources that may or may not be reliable and facts that don't necessarily exist. All articles should be considered satirical and any and all quotes attributed to actual people complete and total baloney. Pictures that represent actual people should be considered altered and not in any way real.
The site also tends to include nonsensical phrases or insults hints in the list of "categories" under the article titles:
According to Buzzfeed the site was originally meant to troll conservatives with over the top satirical articles but now appears to be used as a 'source' by a large network of actual fake news sites (not related to the original creator) that all repost the same articles mentioning it as the source but not acknowlediging the satire disclaimer. This causes many people to believe the fake stories especially when they are being shared on social media where all context is removed and only the title, image and description remain. Sites in the network appear to include:
- American News
- Newsbreakshere
- Amposts
- Conservative Info corner
- Conservative Army
- Open Magazines
- True Trumpers
- Blue Vision News
- Conservative Flash News
- Red Country
- Newsfeedhunter
We expect these two stories to start popping up on these sites in short order. You can already see one of the stories being shared around if you look at the Trendolizer graph at the end of this article. If you notice anyone spreading these fake stories around you can help by pointing them to this article here because nobody likes fake news.
