Giuliani attack on Twitter prompts backlash

by Owen Daugherty - 12/04/18 8:58 PM ET

President Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani claimed Tuesday that Twitter allowed someone to hack his tweet to plant a hyperlink to a site critical of Trump.

In a tweet sent on Nov. 30, Giuliani took shots at special counsel Robert Mueller, calling for “supervision” of his investigation because he filed indictments at inconvenient times for Trump.

{mosads}The link Giuliani included in his tweet redirected straight to a page displaying only the words “Donald J. Trump is a traitor to our country.”

Four days later, Giuliani acknowledged the link and blamed Twitter.

“Twitter allowed someone to invade my text with a disgusting anti-President message,” he tweeted Tuesday evening.

Twitter allowed someone to invade my text with a disgusting anti-President message. The same thing-period no space-occurred later and it didn’t happen. Don’t tell me they are not committed cardcarrying anti-Trumpers. Time Magazine also may fit that description. FAIRNESS PLEASE

— Rudy Giuliani (@RudyGiuliani) December 5, 2018

Social media users pointed out that what likely happened was that someone bought a domain name matching the inadvertent link for the purpose of posting an anti-Trump message to troll Giuliani.

Twitter users were left scratching their heads at Giuliani’s statement.

What actually happened: Giuliani’s tweet contained a grammatical error that just so happened to resemble a url with a .in domain that, completely outside of Twitter, was quickly purchased by someone who created a website that displayed the “disgusting anti-President message.” https://t.co/NbRKpcXpcF

— Briän Ries (@moneyries) December 5, 2018

What do these words mean? https://t.co/myjYRFgbXm

— Brian Schatz (@brianschatz) December 5, 2018

Just tried to buy helsinki.either.

Didn’t work.

(You’ll only get it if you get it. ) https://t.co/FfgvhUf45W

— David Jolly (@DavidJollyFL) December 5, 2018

good time for a reminder that trump originally named giuliani as his cybersecurity adviser https://t.co/yhs4m9JmY2

— Ashley Feinberg (@ashleyfeinberg) December 5, 2018

when your racist grandpa uses the tweeter machine https://t.co/Khb0xZYFhu

— shauna (@goldengateblond) December 5, 2018

Giuliani is turning a typo into a full on conspiracy theory tonight. https://t.co/SZmTMD7guW

— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) December 5, 2018

A spokesperson for Twitter told The Hill that any suggestion that the platform artificially injects anything into someone’s tweet is false and that the service worked as designed.

The missing space after a period in Giuliani’s tweet created a clickable link because .in is the top domain for India, the spokesperson added.

Updated on Dec. 5 at 10:13 a.m.

Tags Brian Schatz Donald Trump Robert Mueller