#JusticeforCarolyn and #CarolynGombell hashtags were all over Twitter this week after a parody account called “God” claimed that US President Donald Trump “killed his personal assistant, Carolyn Gombell, in October 2000”.
“He strangled her because he'd gotten her pregnant and was threatening to tell the press. Then he bribed NYPD Police Chief Bernie Kierik to cover it up. IT'S TIME TO INVESTIGATE. #JusticeForCarolyn”, the person behind the account told its 6.1 million followers in a series of tweets.
“And OF COURSE you won't find any reference to this stuff online. It's called a cover-up, people. Don't be naïve”, God added.
Most of the claims made by the twitterian were visibly roasting and absurd, given the fictional nature of Carolyn Gombell as a character. However many of Trump’s critics picked up on the hoax, as many had previously lashed out at Twitter for refusing to delete the US president’s tweets after he claimed, in a similar fashion, that Joe Scarborough, former Florida congressman and co-host of MSNBC’s Morning Joe programme, was somehow involved in the death of his intern Lori Klausutis in 2001.
The 28-year-old Klausutis was found dead in Scarborough’s office, with her head reportedly fractured. Forensics later determined that the woman died from an undiagnosed heart condition while collapsing and hitting her head on a desk, but the authenticity of these findings has been questioned by many, including the US president himself.
Trump’s recent comments on the matter prompted Klausutis’s husband Timothy to appeal to the social media company urging it to remove “horrifying” misinformation about his wife’s death, something Twitter was unable to do, despite expressing condolences about the “pain” these statements were inflicting on the woman’s family. Some now believe that the new stunt, accusing Trump of similar deeds could facilitate the platform’s willingness to change its rules, with political journalist and Trump’s critic Bill Palmer claiming that “If Trump can demand investigations into imaginary murders, the rest of us can too!”
For many social media users, however, the trend was simply a new way of making fun of the president, following numerous replies and the flood of memes that God’s “revelations” have provoked.