Donald Trump unwittingly connects himself to bizarre Russian version of Wall Street Journal
Donald Trump is so obsessed with Russia, he eagerly cowers to Vladimir Putin at every turn. He’s so obsessed with Russia, he and his campaign and his family spent the entire 2016 election meeting with the Russians and trying to conspire with them to alter the outcome of the election. Trump is obsessed with Russia, it’s where we all know he’ll try to flee if he decides to make a run for it when he’s inevitably indicted after he’s no longer in office.
So when Donald Trump makes a Twitter gaffe that connects him to what appears to be a bizarre Russian version of the Wall Street Journal, it’s enough to make you sit up and notice. Could it have been random happenstance? Maybe. But has anything about Trump and Russia ever turned out to have been random happenstance?
Late last night, Donald Trump bragged on Twitter about how the “country is doing great” because the stock market is up. Nevermind that the vast majority of Americans are not invested in the stock market, and that some other more relevant economic indicators are not in good shape. What stood out is that Trump attributed his tweet to @WallStreetJour – an obscure account with very few followers that claims to be the “Russian version of the Wall Street Journal” and was only active for a brief period in 2013. Minutes later, Donald Trump deleted that tweet and posted it again, this time attributing it to the official @WSJ account that has sixteen million followers and is obviously the real Wall Street Journal.
Donald Trump has posted numerous tweets which accurately included attribution to the official @WSJ account. There would be no reason for him to suddenly think that it was instead @WallStreetJour – or to even be aware that the @WallStreetJour account existed, unless he’s had prior dealings with it. Notably, this Russian language faux-WSJ account was only active for one week in 2013, shortly after Trump visited Moscow – which is where the 2016 election conspiracy between Trump and Russia is widely believed to have originated.
