A fabricated tweet attributed to Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene circulated online days after social media “sleuths” hatched a baseless conspiracy theory that she is the Capitol pipe bomber. Let’s take a look at the facts.
![A tweet that says “Holy [redacted]. This can’t be real can it?” The photo in the tweet is a screenshot of a fake tweet from Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene that reads, “People can’t really be convicted on such flimsy circumstantial evidence as ‘having a similar gait’ or ‘owning the identical shoes’ or ‘being in DC and not having any alibi for that time’ can they?! I don’t recognize America.” The News Literacy Project has added a label that says “Fake tweet.”](https://rumors.newslit.org/content/images/2021/10/FAKE-MTG-tweet-LARGE.png)
NewsLit takeaway
Conspiracy theorists often engage in motivated reasoning and confirmation bias to manufacture “evidence” for their beliefs. In this case, anonymous posters online scrutinized photos of Greene to find similarities with people involved in the Jan. 6 insurrection and with the Capitol pipe bomber, who was captured in video footage released by the FBI. Greene is a controversial lawmaker who embraces QAnon beliefs and actively espouses conspiracy theories — and some reporting alleges she met with two Jan. 6 protest organizers prior to the event, a charge her spokesman denied.Greene also has downplayed the Jan. 6 attack and described it as “just a riot.” But there is no evidence indicating that she had anything to do with the attempted pipe bombing.
NLP’s viral rumor rundown is a regular feature in The Sift, its weekly email newsletter for educators, and in Get Smart About News, its weekly email newsletter for the general public. You can subscribe to these newsletters here. Send suggestions, questions or feedback on this rumor or on the viral rumor rundown blog to thesift@newslit.org.
