A tweet and several public statements by Donald Trump claiming that Tommy DiMassimo, the man who attempted to climb on stage and attack him during a Dayton, Ohio rally on Saturday, has “ties to ISIS,” are apparently false.
Trump continued to defend his claim on NBC’s Meet The Press on Sunday in an exchange with Chuck Todd. As Politicifact reported the exchange:
On Meet the Press, Todd said, “That turned out to be a hoax. Did you go over the top there on that?”
Trump responded, “No, no, no, no. He was, if you look on the Internet, if you look at clips…”
Todd repeated, “It turned out to be a hoax. Somebody made that up, sir.”
Trump then said, “Well, I don’t know what they made up. All I can do is play what’s there. He was walking, dragging the American flag on the ground. Is that a correct statement? Was that a hoax, too? Was he dragging the flag on the ground?”
After further back and forth, Trump said, “No, excuse me, you didn’t see the clip. He was playing Arabic music, he was dragging the flag along the ground, and he had Internet chatter with ISIS and about ISIS. So I don’t know if he was or not. But all we did was put out what he had on his Internet. … (He) had chatter about ISIS, or with ISIS.”
When Todd repeated that the video appeared to be a hoax, Trump responded, “Okay, look, well, was it a hoax that he’s dragging the flag? Was that him? It looked like the same man to me. He was dragging a flag along the ground and he was playing a certain type of music. And supposedly, there was chatter about ISIS. Now, I don’t know. What do I know about it? All I know is what’s on the Internet.”
Breitbart News had quoted Trump in three different stories without contradicting the claim, but investigation reveals a number of disparities that obviously call that claim into question.
At press time, the tweet by Donald Trump is still on his twitter account and reads “USSS did an excellent job stopping the maniac running to the stage. He has ties to ISIS. Should be in jail!” along with a link to the video.
USSS did an excellent job stopping the maniac running to the stage. He has ties to ISIS. Should be in jail! https://t.co/tkzbHg7wyD?ssr=true
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 12, 2016
There is no substantive corroborating evidence that indicates Tommy DiMassimo has ties to ISIS. Nobody has offered any evidence from Tommy DiMassimo’s social media that he supports or has any ties to the Islamic State
The only purported evidence that links to the Islamic state is a video that was tweeted out by Trump. However, there is nothing about the video that suggests it is a recruiting video for ISIS. In fact, the tweet from Donald Trump links to the following tweet, which makes the preposterous allegation that the present United States president, George Soros, and Bernie Sanders hired an ISIS sympathizer to assassinate Trump.
https://twitter.com/ToTheXToTheY/status/708892283676962816
The tweet links to what is apparently the origin of the story, a news blog called The Conservative Treehouse. At press time, that blog had not corrected the story.
The “ISIS recruiting video” is actually an edited version of another video, which was posted by the YouTube account Tommy DiMassimo. That video was apparently taken down and the soundtrack replaced with Arabic music and a graphic up front.
https://youtu.be/Q0Kwcp2DLFo
There is not only no evidence that the video Donald Trump tweeted out is an ISIS recruiting video, but there are indications that it wasn’t from anyone connected to or sympathetic with ISIS at all.
Although the “ISIS video” has been removed from YouTube, screenshots that have spread across the Internet that apparently show the video it’s an original form indicate that the avatar for the supposed ISIS sympathizer account is a cartoon picture of a purple cat green rat.
Most damning, however, is the translation of the text that went along with this recruiting video. It says in Arabic:
تومي د هو مجرد كيس نضح الأم الأبله وطي آخر يحاول أن يكون باردا ويصلح . ويعتقد أن من خلال الوقوف على العلم الأمريكي المقدس انه سيكون رجل كبير ولها الخصيتين كبيرةولكنهيثبت فقط أن قضيبه
Which, according to Google Translate, means:
Tommy d is just a douche bag mother f*cker and another tries to be cool and fit. It is believed that by standing on the sacred American flag that will be a big man and have testicles … only that his penis
Even assuming that Google translate is partially wrong (and incoherent), this does not appear to be anything an actual ISIS supporter would say, but instead seems to be somebody mocking Tommy DiMassimo.
Based on his alleged attack on Donald Trump and as his joyful desecration of the American flag, there is no doubt that many would detest Tommy DiMassimo.
That being said, ISIS represents a grave security threat to people around the world, and accusations about someone being connected to that group should not be thrown around lightly, particularly by someone seeking the office of the presidency.
At press time, the Trump campaign has not responded to a requestion for comment by Breitbart News.
Correction: The original story reported that the avatar of the deleted YouTube account was a purple cat. In fact, it appears to be a green rat.
Follow Breitbart News investigative reporter and Citizen Journalism School founder Lee Stranahan on Twitter at @Stranahan.
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