Trump tweets false conspiracy claim about Georgia’s secretary of state’s nonexistent brother
President Trump, who has spent a lot of time over the past week at his golf course in West Palm Beach, Florida, took to Twitter to attack Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger’s brother -- except that Raffensperger doesn’t have a brother.
In a tweet Tuesday evening just before midnight, the president called Raffensperger and Georgia’s Governor Brian Kemp a “complete disaster” as he peddled his baseless claims of election fraud.
“Now it turns out that Brad R’s brother works for China, and they definitely don’t want ‘Trump’” he wrote in a tweet. “So disgusting! #MAGA”
Trump’s tweet bolsters a popular theory in far-right conspiracy circles in recent days -- that the Georgia's secretary of state is related to a Huawei Enterprise Storage Solutions executive with the same name. Huawei has been blacklisted by the Trump administration for its ties China.
Raffensperger, however, does not have a brother. He has two sisters and neither work for Huawei.
The White House has not responded to multiple requests for comment on the tweet, and has not responded to whether the president plans to take it down, issue a correction or has apologized to the Georgia secretary of state.
-ABC News’ Ben Gittleson and Adam Kelsey