We’ve previously caught WorldNetDaily editor Joseph Farah spreading Russian propaganda that attacks Ukraine as part of Russia’s unprovoked war against it. His wife, Elizabeth — who helps him run WND, particularly in the wake of his recent health issues — has taken being a Putin puppet to a new level on her Twitter/X account.
Farah declared in a July 1 post: “Zelenskyy’s wife just ordered a 4,000,000€ Bugatti! 4 million Euros!! What other shopping sprees have yet to be exposed!!! The charge of corruption and lack of accountability has hit new milestone!” She attached an image claiming to show a receipt for said car, a pricey Bugatti, made out to Volodymyr Zelensky’s wife, Olena Zelenska. The following day, she wrote a post declaring, “I may despise Putin, but do we REALLY WANT to be at WAR with Russia[?]” adding as purported evidence: “When the President of Ukraine’s wife, buys a 4 million euro car, are we really sure we know where our $ is going?” She added a post to that with an image of the alleged receipt.
Just one problem: The image has been repeatedly exposed as a fake. As a more credible, non-WND publication detailed:
The story appeared on an obscure French website just days ago – and was swiftly debunked.
Experts pointed out strange anomalies on the invoice posted online. A whistleblower cited in the story appeared only in an oddly edited video that may have been artificially created. Bugatti issued a sharp denial, calling it “fake news”, and its Paris dealership threatened legal action against the people behind the false story.
But before the truth could even get its shoes on, the lie had gone viral. Influencers had already picked up the false story and spread it widely.
One X user, the pro-Russia, pro-Donald Trump activist Jackson Hinkle, posted a link seen by more than 6.5m people. Several other accounts spread the story to millions more X users – at least 12m in total, according to the site’s metrics.
It was a fake story, on a fake news website, designed to spread widely online, with its origins in a Russia-based disinformation operation BBC Verify first revealed last year – at which point the operation appeared to be trying to undermine Ukraine’s government.
Our latest investigation, carried out over more than six months and involving the examination of hundreds of articles across dozens of websites, found that the operation has a new target – American voters.
In that respect, the Russian propaganda operation found a willing sucker in Elizabeth Farah, which puts the lie to her claim of despising Putin. Her bogus posts remain live as of this writing, and she has offered no apology for spreading Russian propaganda. WND, meanwhile, has done no reporting so far on the fake story that duped her — of course, given its own enthusiasm for publishing fake news, don’t expect it to publish news that makes its management look bad.
If WND’s co-owner so eagerly falls for false propaganda, that shows what a shoddy source of “journalism” WND is.