4Channers Claim Donald Trump Intel Was Their Dirty Work
But there's little substance to their allegations.
Longtime fans of Donald Trump want to take credit for Tuesday night’s leaked intel about the president-elect. 4chan’s /pol/ board, a corner of the internet full of trolls that helped turn meme Pepe the Frog into a hate symbol, claims that they are behind the information in unverified documents outlining how Russians manipulated Trump and the election, along with details about several sexual acts performed by Trump.
A November 1, 2016 post on 4chan from an anonymous user alleges that they tipped off Republican political strategist Rick Wilson with information about Trump, with Wilson then adding a “Russian spy angle.” The original post has since been archived, but can be viewed here. There’s few details as to what exactly this anonymous user told Wilson. One post on the thread writes, “is it the sextape orgy thing? how can anybody even believe that?” which is something that was referenced to in the report, but lacks any specifics.
The anonymous 4chan claim has made the rounds, gaining attention on the /r/The_Donald subreddit. Additionally, many 4channers have also been celebrating how BuzzFeed circulated the unconfirmed reports. One person writes, “BUZZFEED ALREADY ADMITS THE GOLDEN SHOWERS LEAK WAS FAKE LMAO.”
A 4chan post has given a “recap” of the happenings. The anonymous poster writes that a member of the board “mailed fanfiction to anti-trump pundit Rick Wilson about Trump making people piss on a bed Obama slept in,” which the poster alleges Wilson thought was real and gave to the CIA. You can see the whole post below.
Wilson has attempted to dispel the idea that the intel he received was from 4chan. He tweeted a denial on Tuesday night.
Meanwhile, news outlets cite other sources and attribute the intel to other sources. CNN reports that the information in these unverified memos came from a source claiming to be a former British intelligence operative. This person allegedly learned from Russian sources when he was working in Moscow that the Kremlin knew compromising information about the president-elect.