Over the weekend, some news sites reported that Trump, who's been banned from Twitter and Facebook, had joined the far right social media platform Gab. With the handle "Real Donald Trump," he'd even posted a letter written by his lawyers that referred to his second impeachment trial as "a public relations stunt."
But alas, as all things Trump go, the "Real Donald Trump" is actually a fake, run by Gab's CEO Andrew Torba. According to Vice, Torba had set up the account five years ago as a placeholder in case Trump ever wanted to join, and had posted Trump's tweets – back in the days when Trump was permitted to tweet.
From Vice:
Since Trump's Twitter account was banned last month, it has been silent, but that changed on Friday when the account suddenly, without warning posted an update.
There was no indication about who had posted the update, and that led many people on Gab — including many of the QAnon influencers who have made the platform their new home in recent weeks — to claim that Trump had finally taken control of his account.
And over the weekend, multiple mainstream media outlets decided to print that speculation as fact, claiming that Trump had suddenly taken charge of the account and was now posting updates between rounds of golf in Florida.
In a message on the site on Sunday, Torba blasted the media for writing the stories without fact-checking them first, but then went on to reveal that he was the one who posted the update Friday, without any warning or explanation.
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