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ADL: Trump CNN Wrestling Video Uploader Has Anti-Semitic Background

WASHINGTON (JTA) — The anonymous Reddit user who is claiming responsibility for the altered video depicting President Trump bodyslamming someone with CNN superimposed over his head has a history of racism, anti-Semitism and incitement to violence, according to the Anti-Defamation League.

White House spokesman Sean Spicer said in a one-sentence email to a JTA request for a response to the ADL report on the .GIF file, “The video did not come from Reddit,” the social media platform. He did not say where the video came from.

Trump tweeted the GIF on Sunday. It was drawn from a staged encounter years ago between wrestling impresario Vince McMahon and Trump, who are friends.

ADL in its analysis stopped short of confirming that Reddit user HanAssholeSolo was behind the clip, saying instead that he “appears to have created the version of the edited clip tweeted by the president and posted it on a sub-Reddit commonly used by President Trump supporters.”

It noted that the Reddit user on Monday celebrated Trump’s use of the GIF as a personal victory and that other Reddit users congratulated him or her.

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