Trump Shares Newsmax Conspiracy About Georgia Republican’s “Brother” Working For China

Shutterstock/Georgia Secretary Of State

December 30, 2020, 10:13 am

President Donald Trump tweeted about Georgia’s Secretary of State, Brad Raffensperger, on Tuesday night as part of an ongoing propaganda campaign challenging the results of the 2020 election. And while it’s not the first time Trump has gone after Raffensperger in the post-election fracas, he took the extra step of alleging Raffensperger’s brother “works for China.”

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…The consent decree signed by the “Secretary”, with the consent of Kemp, is perhaps even more poorly negotiated than the deal that John Kerry made with Iran. Now it turns out that Brad R’s brother works for China, and they definitely don’t want “Trump”. So disgusting! #MAGA

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 30, 2020

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Daily Beast senior reporter Matt Wilstein countered on Twitter early Wednesday morning, linking to his article and declaring Raffensperger doesn’t have a brother.

One problem with Trump’s unhinged conspiracy theory about Brad Raffensperger’s brother…

Brad Raffensperger doesn’t have a brother. https://t.co/52dR0WDXw4

— Matt Wilstein (@mattwilstein) December 30, 2020

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He did have to backtrack a bit on that assertion a little later on, however. CNN high-profile fact-checker Daniel Dale confirmed that the Georgia Secretary of State does indeed have a brother as well as sisters, albeit without ties to China.

Dale, in the tweet thread, confirmed something that might sound familiar to anyone following the election: That Trump was “echoing a debunked conspiracy theory.”

There remains no basis for Trump’s claim a sibling works for China – it’s some dude by the same last name. But I’m sorry for spreading the inaccurate statement that he doesn’t have a brother at all. A good reminder about the need to double-check even things that seem verified.

— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) December 30, 2020

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As Wilstein reported, “Georgia reporter Stephen Fowler was one of the first to debunk the theory that Brad is related to Ron Raffensperger, a random man with the same last name who serves as CTO for a subsidiary of the Huawei conglomerate.”

Newsweek, in its reporting on the story, published text of the now-unavailable Fowler tweets on the matter, which said, “There’s posts/memes floating around claiming Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger’s ‘brother’ Ron is CTO of a Huawei subsidiary, ergo China, ergo suspicion with Dominion [Voting Systems]. ‘Ron+Brad are not bros and look nothing alike!!!'”

The publication added, from Fowler, “The ‘theory’ is that Ron Raffensperger is Brad Raffensperger’s brother, and somehow because Huawei is a Chinese company, that somehow China owns Dominion (it doesn’t) and somehow nefariously installed machines in GA. Pesky thing is – Raffensperger doesn’t *have* a brother.”

Newsweek also noted that “the supposed link between the two men first appeared in an article published by The Gateway Pundit but which is no longer available. Dominion Voting Systems has been at the center of unsubstantiated allegations of voter fraud in the recent election.”

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Raffensperger has been defending the validity of the Georgia election results he oversaw, despite Trump’s allegations of widespread voter irregularities throughout the state. Newsweek quoted Raffensperger challenging the allegations sharply: “There are those who are exploiting the emotions of many Trump supporters with fantastic claims, half-truths, misinformation, and frankly, they’re misleading the president as well, apparently.”

According to Georgia Public Broadcasting, which published a fact-check article on Wednesday, Raffensperger has four siblings in total. None are named Ron.

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*First Published: December 30, 2020, 10:13 am