Rep. Ilhan Omar pressed Twitter to suspend President Trump after his account shared a tweet Wednesday that falsely claimed to show her partying during last week’s anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks.
Originally posted by conservative commentator Terrence Williams and subsequently shared by Mr. Trump, the tweet contained a video of Ms. Omar, Minnesota Democrat, dancing Friday at an event hosted by the Congressional Black Caucus. Mr. Williams falsely claimed that the clip was filmed days earlier on the anniversary of Sept. 11, and Mr. Trump shared that tweet, adding that it depicted the “new face of the Democrat Party.”
“The President of the United States is continuing to spread lies that put my life at risk,” Ms. Omar reacted on Twitter. “What is Twitter doing to combat this misinformation?”
“They have a responsibility and they set community standards and clearly the president has shown many-a-times that he has violated their community standards,” she later told Politico. “I don’t even know why his account is not fully suspended — why he’s not deplatformed.”
The original tweet posted by Mr. Williams was taken off Twitter later Wednesday, though the president’s post amplifying the since-removed video remains online and has been retweeted more than 14,000 times within roughly a day of being posted by the president.
A spokesperson for Twitter confirmed that Mr. Williams had deleted the erroneous tweet, Politico reported. The company did not comment on the president’s post, the report said.
Mr. Trump has regularly taken aim at Ms. Omar, a former Somali refugee and naturalized U.S. citizen who is among a handful of fellow first-term progressive congresswomen of color colloquially known as “The Squad.” He has repeatedly shared edited footage of the congresswoman that takes her past comments about 9/11 out of context, and he infamously said two months ago that Ms. Omar and fellow Squad members should “go back” to the “corrupt” countries where they are from.
Ms. Omar, a member of the powerful House Foreign Affairs Committee, previously said that she has received death threats amid coming under fire from Mr. Trump.
The White House did not immediately return a request for comment.
• Andrew Blake can be reached at ablake@washingtontimes.com.
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