Rudy Giuliani Turns Typo Into Baseless, Anti-Twitter Conspiracy Theory

Normal behavior from the president’s former cybersecurity adviser.

SMG/Zuma

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.

It was business as usual for Rudy Giuliani, who on Friday took to Twitter to bash special counsel Robert Mueller and the ongoing Russia investigation. As with previous such attacks, the latest diatribe from the president’s lawyer featured multiple typos and odd spacings.

But thanks to the work of one mischievous user, Giuliani’s latest error-ridden tweet took an even more embarrassing turn that, for a prankster seeking to make a fool of one of the president’s more prominent allies, could not have been executed more perfectly. 

It happened as Jason Velazquez, a web designer from Atlanta, noticed that Giuliani on Friday had inadvertently created a hyperlink in his tweet by failing to include a space between a period and the following word. Velazquez clicked the accidental link and realized no one had registered the domain. “Without thinking, I went and purchased the domain and then I thought, ‘I could literally put whatever I want up and he would either have to delete the tweet or leave it up because you can’t edit a tweet,'” he told the Washington Post.

Realizing the opportunity, Velazquez created a site with a simple message: “Donald J. Trump is a traitor to our country.” 

Days later, Giuliani, who once served as Donald Trump’s cybersecurity adviser, finally noticed. On Tuesday night, he blasted off a baseless conspiracy theory accusing Twitter of allowing “someone to invade my text with a disgusting anti-President message.”

“Don’t tell me they are not committed card-carrying anti-Trumpers,” he wrote.

The mockery quickly rolled in, with many pointing out that Giuliani was the victim of a successful viral prank. A Twitter spokesman also weighed in, telling the New York Times that “the accusation that we’re artificially injecting something into a tweet is completely false.”

As of Wednesday morning, Giuliani’s tweet has not been deleted.

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with The Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with The Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate