I went through 3,000 of Cesar Sayoc's tweets going back to Jan/2017 & it's scary how corrupted his mind was by every far-right conspiracy from Podesta child sacrifices, to Obama being a Muslim, to Pizzagate. Also noticeable how his rhetoric got more threatening as time went on.
He was obsessed w/all things Trump. He went to multiple rallies, the inauguration, he visited Trump-branded properties.
What’s interesting, is his rhetoric didn’t seem to turn toward ominous threats until early this year when he started targeting TV & CNN personalities, politicians, and others. Prior to that it was all conspiracy memes and photos at Trump properties/events mixed w/personal photos.
There’s a real danger to the conspiracies out there especially combined with hostile and dehumanizing rhetoric. We saw it with the man who went Comet Ping Pong. People believe these things.
So, I wanted to add to this thread, because I’ve been asked about it and our past reporting. There’s a sort of belief that these conspiracies just permeate dark corners of the Internet but it’s not true. People who shared these conspiracies made their way into the Trump Admin.
Some examples from our reporting: Christine Bauserman, who resigned from Interior when we reported she was a birther who spread George Soros/Adam Schiff conspiracy
William C. Bradford, Trump's appointee to head the Energy Department's Office of Indian Energy. He resigned when we reported he was a birther.
Ximena Barreto, a HHS appointee who spread PizzaGate and the Seth Rich conspiracy theory. She resigned earlier this year.
Todd Johnson, a Mattie side at Defense who resigned when we reported he posted birther conspiracies about then-President Barack Obama and shared a video that claimed Obama was the Antichrist.
Ken Isaacs, his nomination for the top UN refugees post failed. He spread conspiracies that the Clintons killed people and shared InfoWars.
Can you believe this, and what Democrats are allowing to be done to our Country? pic.twitter.com/4aDpASkjIU
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 18, 2018