A story at the Free Wood Post, claiming that “The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) has officially designated Donald Trump and his campaign as a hate group,” has captured the attention of anti-Muslim activist (and member of the Accuracy in Media’s increasingly discredited “Citizens’ Commission on Benghazi”) Clare Lopez:
Lopez’s tweet was approvingly quoted by another anti-Muslim activist and right-wing favorite, Frank Gaffney:
Just one problem with the story: it’s a fake.
The first clue is the banner on the Free Wood Post website, which proclaims “news that’s almost reliable.” There’s also a prominent link to a “satire disclaimer” at the top of the page, which states: “Free Wood Post is a news and political satire web publication, which may or may not use real names, often in semi-real or mostly fictitious ways. All news articles contained within FreeWoodPost.com are fiction, and presumably fake news. Any resemblance to the truth is purely coincidental, except for all references to politicians and/or celebrities, in which case they are based on real people, but still based almost entirely in fiction.”
We found nothing on the SPLC website designating the Trump campaign as a hate group, though it has criticized the “extreme, anti-Muslim rhetoric” peddled by Trump and Gaffney, among others.
If Lopez and Gaffney fall so easily for fake stories, that doesn’t say much about their supposed expertise in bashing Muslims.