The U.S. labor secretary did not have a good day, but it was not as bad as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s daughter claimed.
Alex Acosta appeared before reporters Wednesday to answer questions about his mishandling of the 2008 prosecution of registered sex offender Jeffery Epstein.
Wednesday’s press conference did nothing to squelch the understandable outrage over Acosta’s decision to agree to an absurdly lenient plea deal that saw Epstein serve just 13 months in county jail. Acosta said a lot that did not help his case.
But what the labor secretary did not say was this: “Mr. Epstein was a very wealthy and important person, his friends even more so, and these girls – much as we sympathized with them – just weren’t either of those things.”
That quote is 100% fabricated. Its author was trying to make a joke, and in the process spread fake news. Yet it is being treated on social media as the real deal. And for that, we have Christine Pelosi to thank.
The bogus “quote” is the brainchild of Atlantic columnist David Frum, who tweeted it as a sarcastic paraphrasing of Acosta’s overall press conference message. However, Frum soon deleted his tweet after it became clear social media users were taking it seriously.
sorry – that sardonic comment should not have been phrased in a way that looked like a quotation, deleted.
— David Frum (@davidfrum) July 10, 2019
Pelosi appears to have missed the memo. She cribbed the fake quote in its entirety and posted it to her own social media feed where it soon earned roughly 1,350 retweets. Though that is not exactly mega-viral, it is more than enough to start an indestructible narrative.
“#Acosta straight up admitting his double standard of justice,” she tweeted. “‘Mr Epstein was a very wealthy and important person, his friends even more so, and these girls – much as we sympathized with them – just weren’t either of those things.” … #AcostaResign.”
Pelosi quietly deleted her tweet Wednesday with no explanation. Of course, that did nothing to put the stupid genie back into its stupid bottle. This fake quote is here to stay thanks to gullible social media users, including members of the press who really should know better. On the bright side, a lot of reporters worked hard to correct the record immediately. Unfortunately, it is hard to destroy one of these bogus narratives once they have taken flight.
What is amazing about Pelosi’s efforts to grow the body of fake news stories is that the Acosta presser actually contained some pretty damning quotes. It certainly did nothing to help his public image or even improve the likelihood he retains his post.
Yet, more than anything else that Acosta actually said today, this fabricated “quote” will undoubtedly be the thing that most people hear about because a friend of a friend of a friend will share it on their Twitter or Facebook pages.
That is the nature of fake news. It is damn near impossible to stop, and no one side can claim clean hands.
