Pro-Trump sycophants online briefly made the hashtag #ImpeachObama trend on Twitter in response to right-wing speculation that President Obama may have known or even ordered illegal spying on the Trump campaign.
Last Friday, President Trump accused the FBI of sending an undercover “spy” into his campaign during the 2016 election. Although there is no evidence to support Trump’s spying claim, many outlets did report that FBI informant Stefan Halper had met with Trump campaign officials whom federal agents had received intelligence suggesting they were linked to Russia. Trump responded on Twitter, where he claimed that if the reports were correct, it would be the “all time biggest political scandal,” although no evidence has been provided thus far to suggest Halper acted improperly as part of the FBI’s counterintelligence investigation into Russian activities.
On Sunday, Trump announced he would demand that the Department of Justice investigate his claims that the FBI had “infiltrated or surveilled” his 2016 campaign for political reasons and whether “demands or requests were made by people within the Obama Administration.” After Trump met with DOJ officials, it was announced that Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz would be investigating whether there was evidence to support the president’s claims.
Wall Street Journal assistant editor and Fox News contributor James Freeman became particularly fixated on Trump’s allusion that Obama may have played a hypothetical role in the alleged spying, reasoning that if the FBI actually did conduct illegal surveillance of the Trump campaign, Obama would have surely known about it.
In response to Freeman’s fixation, former Pizzagate activist and One America News pro-Trump pundit Jack Posobiec felt inspired to create the hashtag #ImpeachObama and implore his followers to get it trending on Twitter:
Let's get #ImpeachObama trending!
— Jack Posobiec?? (@JackPosobiec) May 21, 2018
Mike Flynn Jr., the son of former national security adviser Michael Flynn, who pled guilty to lying to the FBI about his communications with a Russian ambassador, hopped aboard.
#ImpeachObama https://t.co/TMgxlg6SlO
— ??MFLYNNJR?? (@mflynnJR) May 21, 2018
Jacob Wohl, a young hedge fund manager and Trump sycophant, joined in. “Right now, one person is worried about impeachment,” he wrote, “and it’s not President Trump”:
Right now, one person is worried about impeachment, and it's not President Trump #ImpeachObama
— Jacob Wohl (@JacobAWohl) May 21, 2018
A Keyhole analysis shows the hashtag campaign reached nearly 3 million people, primarily in the United States.
