Matt Gaetz Deletes Lee Harvey Oswald Tweet After Top Conservatives Tricked (newsweek.com)
Matt Gaetz Deletes Lee Harvey Oswald Tweet After Top Conservatives Tricked
Matt Gaetz has deleted a picture of Lee Harvey Oswald after he and several other conservative figures were tricked into retweeting a picture of President John F. Kennedy's assassin on Memorial Day.
Journalist Ken Klippenstein trolled prominent
Republicans, including Florida Congressman Rep. Gaetz, American Conservative Union Chairman Matt Schlapp and conservative commentator Dinesh D'Souza into sharing the picture of the infamous killer.
Klippenstein tweeted at the conservative figures and pretended Oswald, who was pictured wearing his army uniform, was a family member.
He asked Rep. Gaetz: "Congressman, my grandpa's a big fan of yours and is a veteran, he would be thrilled if you could RT this photo of him for Memorial Day. Here he is as a young Private First Class."
"Happy Memorial Day."
Rep. Gaetz retweeted the photo and Klippenstein's comments along with a flag emoji while Schlapp said: "Wow @kenklippenstein it's my honor to retweet the photo of a veteran on a day we remember his fallen friends. God bless your grandfather."
D'Souza also retweeted the photo along with Klippenstein's comments.
Rep. Gaetz along with D'Souza and Schlapp all deleted the photo after it came to their attention who the photo was of.
While many
Twitter users ridiculed the Republicans for falling for Klippenstein's prank, controversial conservative commentator
Candace Owens hit out at the journalist and alleged the Oswald picture in question was photoshopped.
In response to Klippenstein, Owens said: "It is not 'political correctness' to have a soul and a modicum of decency.
"Reminder: These men died—the majority of them on foreign soil—so that you could be free. You do not photoshop murderers into their uniforms so that you can have a laugh."
Klippenstein later appeared to taunt Owens by retweeting a comment by Travis Akers where he claimed she did not know about Oswald's time in the
U.S. military.
It read: ".@RealCandaceO thinks @kenklippenstein photoshopped the face of Lee Harvey Oswald onto a man in uniform, not knowing Oswald was actually a veteran and that the picture was him in uniform.
"But then again, she did drop out of college."
Klippenstein commented alongside the retweet: "Candace has treated me very badly!"
The photo of Oswald in military uniform that was shared by the Republican figures was not photoshopped and is the same one that was found in his wallet on the day he was arrested in connection with the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
Oswald served in the army and was ultimately given an "undesirable discharge" from the Marine Corps Reserve in September 1960.
He would later become one of the most infamous and well-known figures in American history when he shot and killed President Kennedy in Dallas, Texas, on November 22, 1963.
Oswald himself was assassinated two days later on live television by nightclub owner Jack Ruby.
Newsweek has reached out to Rep. Gaetz, Schlapp, D'Souza, Owens and Klippenstein for comment.
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