On Tuesday, Donald Trump shared a baseless, easy-to-disprove conspiracy theory involving Barack Obama, the Navy SEALs, and Osama Bin Laden with his tens of millions of followers on Twitter. The president retweeted an article from “conservative propaganda site” DJHJ Media (we will not be linking to it) alleging that Obama and Joe Biden may have “killed” the Navy’s SEAL Team 6, the “global manhunting machine” that assisted in the death of Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, in a cover-up that goes all the way to the top, as cover-ups often do. Not only that, but it also “claims Bin Laden’s body double was actually killed in the raid and that Biden then ordered a Navy SEAL helicopter be shot down in order to stop the “truth” from coming out,” according to Newsweek.
Naturally, the theory is a big hit among the QAnon crowd.
Sheer lunacy https://t.co/50LUxy8eP7
— Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) October 13, 2020
The account that Trump retweeted has since been suspended, but the president promoting the far-right conspiracy theory did not sit well with Robert O’Neill, the Navy SEAL who (controversially) claims to have been the one who killed Bin Laden.
“I know who I killed, homie,” he wrote. “Very brave men said goodby to their kids to go kill Osama bin Laden. We were given the order by President Obama. It was not a body double. Thank you Mr. President. Happy birthday @USNavy,” he tweeted.
O’Neill, a vocal Trump supporter in the past, was in the news earlier this year after Delta Airlines banned him for not wearing a mask on a flight.