Image by Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images

In the (entirely justified) rush to criticize Donald Trump, people are turning towards some outlandish stories in order to sate their (justified) rage. First, there were the crop of false hate crime allegations just post election (we covered one of the false allegations in this article” regarding Trump and Russia. We can also add to the list the false claims of plagiarism from Israeli company Articoolo as reported by Buzzfeed (to be clear, Buzzfeed reported the false claims as false; they did not peddle what Trump would call “fake news”).

Articoolo puts it, “about as intellectually fulfilling as a backwash of used tea leaves.”

You can see where this is headed. According to the Buzzfeed article, writers John Templon and Anthony Cormier were sent an email by a blogger named Kumar who claimed that Trump’s inaugural address had used text generated by Articoolo. A shocking enough claim, and, given the debased English of many of Trump’s speeches, it is not inconceivable that he would use a sort of political SEO to write a speech.

Forwarding the News

Thoughtful, balanced reporting from the Forward and around the web, bringing you updated news and analysis each day.

Terms(Required)

I agree to the Forward's Terms of Service and Privacy Policy

Email(Required)

The claim, however, was untrue. With proper due diligence, Buzzfeed investigated the accusation and found no evidence to support the claim. What’s more, they also found that the accuser, Kumar, was himself a made up person (is Kumar “fake news?”). The story gets weirder – “according to a widely used internet tracking service” the same device was used to open emails sent to both Kumar and Articoolo CEO Doran Tal. The implication, denied by Tal, is that Tal and Kumar are one in the same.

It seems convincing enough, but it prompts the question: why would an Israeli CEO pull a stunt like this? Trump’s speeches, especially when he goes off the cuff, are so laughably juvenile in their syntax and content that the allegation of plagiarism reflects more poorly on the original text than on Trump. If he’s stolen from Articoolo, then it’s a software to avoid. So again, why the stunt? Oscar Wilde’s old adage, “There is only one thing in life worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about,” proves astute yet again – we’re writing about the company, aren’t we?

The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.

Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.

Readers like you make it all possible. We’ve started our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we need 1,800 readers like you to step up to support the Forward by April 21. Members of the Forward board are even matching the first 1,000 gifts, up to $70,000.

This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism, because every dollar goes twice as far.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

2X match on all Passover gifts!

$90 → $180 $180 → $360

$360 → $720

Other amount