Online Lies About Spies
How a fake letter revived a claim the UK bugged Donald Trump
On June 22, 2017, an anonymous user under the poster ID “yFIaEkoh” posted a forged letter to 4chan, an online forum popular with far-right and conspiracy theorist groups. The letter claimed to show that Britain’s electronic intelligence agency, GCHQ, spied during the 2016 U.S. presidential elections on the campaign of then-candidate Donald Trump at the behest of President Barack Obama.
Despite repeated exposure as a fraud, including on 4chan itself, the letter continued to circulate and was used to bolster claims that Trump remains the victim of an international “deep state” conspiracy aimed at undermining his presidency.
@DFRLab tracked the forgery across the internet, as a case study in how fakes can continue to spread through willing or engaged audiences, even when their falsehood is manifest.
The letter, dated November 2016, purported to be a request from then-GCHQ director Robert Hannigan to UK Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, to extend permission “to surveil” Trump’s New York headquarters, “at the request of the US President”.
The text of the letter provided some logistical details, which implicated then-National Security Advisor Susan Rice.
To judge by the image posted online, the letter had been printed out on GCHQ headed paper, signed by Hannigan, then folded twice and scanned:However, several internal factors confirm that the letter was a forgery. Paragraph four referred to “former MI5 agent Michael Steele,” who had provided “actionable leads” on apparent “communications with Russian hostile actors.” This was a glaring error: in fact, it was a former MI6 agent, Christopher Steele, who produced a dossier on Trump’s Russian connections.
Even if the author of a “TOP SECRET” document had been so sloppy as to give the source’s name — which is unlikely — it is beyond plausibility that they would get both Steele’s first name and his affiliation wrong in a communication with their own government.
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https://medium.com/dfrlab/online-lies-about-spies-b1f5fb86aed4