'bile and misinformation'
Widower of late Joe Scarborough staffer says Trump has 'perverted' her memory
President Trump continues to baselessly accuse MSNBC host Joe Scarborough of murdering a staffer — and the staffer's widower wants Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey to step in.
Trump has recently revived a conspiracy theory suggesting without evidence that Scarborough was involved in the 2001 death of Lori Klausutis, a 28-year-old staffer in his Florida congressional office, despite the fact that a medical examiner said she died from a heart condition, no foul play was suspected, and Scarborough wasn't in the same state at the time.
Klausutis' widower, Timothy Klausutis, has now written a letter to Dorsey published by The New York Times on Tuesday, in which he says he has "struggled to move forward with my life" because of the "barrage of falsehoods, half-truths, innuendo and conspiracy theories" about his late wife's death, and this "bile and misinformation" is now being spread on Twitter both by the president and by Donald Trump Jr.
"My request is simple: Please delete these tweets," Klausutis writes to Dorsey. "...I'm asking you to intervene in this instance because the president of the United States has taken something that does not belong to him — the memory of my dead wife — and perverted it for perceived political gain."
Klausutis goes on to ask Dorsey to think about Lori's niece and nephews, as they "have never met their aunt and it pains me to think they would ever have to 'learn' about her this way." He concludes, "My wife deserves better."
The Times' Kara Swisher reports that Twitter executives have been "trying to figure out what to do" about Trump's tweets, and the idea of labeling them as false is being discussed. Swisher, however, argues removing them is the right move, as this would "send a strong message that this behavior is not tolerated." Read the full letter via The New York Times.