You already know the story: using Twitter, malignant sociopath and mentally unstable con man Donald "Unhinged" Trump savagely and falsely smeared the memory of a former Joe Scarborough office worker, Lori Klausutis, implying she was Scarborough's mistress and was murdered by him 19 years ago. Trump's main target was MSNBC host Scarborough, who has become a harsh critic and who can take care of himself. But the collateral damage done by Trump to Ms. Klausutis' memory and to her family and husband has been truly depraved and malicious.
After a heart wrenching appeal by her widower (pdf) to Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey to delete Trump's cruel tweets about his wife's death, Twitter responded minimally, not by deleting those offensive tweets, but putting a "fact check" box on Trump's dishonest tweets about voting by mail. It gets worse, because Twitter claimed that Trump hadn't violated its terms of service over the Klausutis tweets.
Anyone else leveling false and defamatory accusations against someone on Twitter would have been, at a minimum, suspended for a period of time, if not banned outright. Apparently Dorsey believes that protecting his hindquarters from a vindictive and lawless Trump is more important than following his own rules and common human decency.
BONUS I: Karen Tumulty responds to the Twitter argument that it's in the "public interest" for the views of "world leaders" to be shown:
Perhaps you could argue that there is a “public interest” in knowing that a deranged man sits in the Oval Office. But Trump has provided plenty of evidence of that already. Whatever the demons that drive him, they have gained even more control of his mind and his itchy fingers amid the coronavirus pandemic that has thrown the country he leads into the greatest crisis in memory. [snip]
... Trump is going to get even worse between now and the November election. We have not seen the bottom, because there is no bottom. Twitter should also remove those tweets that soil the memory of Lori Klausutis — and show that its supposed standards actually mean something.We won't be holding our breath.
BONUS II: A professor of psychiatry says Trump's obsession with this smear indicates dementia:
#Presidementia #TrumpDementiaSyndrome — Bizarre, deranged Trump tweets promote baseless conspiracy theory. Normal, sane adults do not behave or think this way. Dementia impairs judgment as well as impulse control & reality testing in senile individuals. https://t.co/nktZSsZmiz— John M. Talmadge, MD (@JohnMTalmadgeMD) May 26, 2020
BONUS III: Right- wing Wall Street Journal and Washington Examiner blast Trump.
