False viral claim about Donald Trump’s Puerto Rico response originates from Russia-connected Facebook account

| 12:37 am EDT October 2, 2017
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Over the weekend, a Facebook post went viral from an individual claiming to be in Puerto Rico, who insisted that Donald Trump’s relief effort was in fantastic shape. By midnight on Sunday, the post in question had received nearly half a million shares from Trump supporters. However, our research reveals that the post originated from a Facebook account with strange connections to Russia, calling its legitimacy into question.

The post was made by a Facebook user named “Jim Bates” who claims to live in San Juan, Puerto Rico. He posted “I live in Puerto Rico. We ARE getting help. From Army, Navy, FEMA, Volunteer Ministers and celebrities. Turn off CNN. They lie.” Here’s a screen capture of the post in question:

In his post, he provided no evidence to support any of these claims. Some aspects of his Facebook account raise eyebrows. For instance, eight of the twenty-one public Facebook groups listed on Bates’ profile page are Russian groups complete with names in Cyrillic script. Here are a few examples of the groups that Bates has joined:

When run through Google Translate, the names of these Russian groups translate to confusing phrases like “Employee as part of a team” and “SLIMMING COURSE P6N. REVIEWS” which do not give away anything about the nature of Mr. Bates’ connection to Russia. Bates claims to be representing the “Church of Scientology Puerto Rico” but he’s using what appears to be a personal PayPal account to raise money on behalf of his church’s Puerto Rico relief effort. This calls into question whether the Church of Scientology would allow its members to individually raise money in its name by using their personal PayPal accounts.

Regardless of the other curiosities and anomalies involved, here’s the bottom line. There was an overwhelmingly viral false claim about Donald Trump’s supposedly impressive Puerto Rico relief response this weekend, and it originated from a Facebook account which has clear connections to Russia. Considering Trump’s own vast connections to Russia, this is beyond bizarre.