Andy Ngo 🏳️‍🌈 Profile picture
NYT bestselling journalist. Senior editor @TPostMillennial. Fact checker @CommunityNotes. Support my journalism & send news tips to: https://t.co/qNoFCtvckk

May 27, 2022, 12 tweets

This thread from a man who claims @GregAbbott_TX sent a representative to offer money to pose w/the governor for #Uvalde has gone ultra-viral with the left. But I looked into who is really behind the account. Jason R. Nauertz, 43, is not from Texas. He's from Spokane, Wash.

Jason R. Nauertz has claimed on Twitter to be a 9/11 responder, a Purple Heart recipient, & to have had another nephew that was killed. No one with his name has received a Purple Heart.

He is an anti-Trump activist who has boasted about shooting at cars with Trump flags.

Many left-wing verified accounts have amplified the claims & made it go viral with no independent scrutiny. It conforms to their bias so that's good enough to be true. An editor at the Austin Chronicle (@YorkshireTX) was among them.

Multiple Pulitzer-winning LA Times columnist Patt Morrison helped amplify the claims.

.@cbs46 news anchor @shongables amplified the claim a #Uvalde family member was offered cash to pose with Gov. @GregAbbott_TX, as did @KeithOlbermann, who frequently falls for hoaxes. @USATODAY digital producer @BGisBrandonGray as well.

Left-wing activist Amy Siskind, who has shared many hoaxes, amplified the claim. @SassyMamainLA, an editor for Entertainment Weekly (@EW), called for the FBI to investigate Gov. Abbott.

Other journalists also jumped on the story.

Jason Nauertz, the Spokane man who claimed in an ultra-viral thread to be a family member of a deceased nephew in the #Uvalde shooting who @GregAbbott_TX tried to bribe, had also claimed to be black. His Facebook profile before it was deleted shows photos of a man who isn't black

Actress Rosanna Arquette thanks Jason Nauertz for his "courage."

Katie Hall, a reporter for the Austin newspaper @statesman & chair of the @austinnewsguild reached out to Jason Nauertz to ask him to help her amplify his claims. archive.ph/g9ygX

Jason R. Nauertz also claimed to have been a prisoner of war, a 9/11 first responder, a Purple Heart recipient, having another nephew killed prior to #Uvalde, & being offered a bribe by Gov. @GregAbbott_TX. archive.ph/a2pyh

Update:
The man behind the account (@mycancerjourne3) that claimed in a viral thread (retweeted over 32k times by the left) that Texas Gov. Abbott offered a bribe now claims he was hacked. He has locked or disabled his account & has deleted posts about the #Uvalde shooting.

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