HuffPost senior politics reporter Jennifer Bendery is reporting that President Donald Trump is using the phrase “17 Angry Democrats” as some sort of Bat signal for the QAnon conspiracy theorists:
I recently learned that Trump is now using the number 17 in tweets because Q is the 17th letter of the alphabet, and QAnon folks (pro-Trump conspiracy theorists) see this as a signal that he is confirming their conspiracies are true.
Have a nice normal day! https://t.co/jwRoduVAkB
— Jennifer Bendery (@jbendery) August 9, 2018
You see, he’s used the phrase 3 times in tweets:
In the past week, Trump has used the phrase "17 Angry Democrats" three times in tweets. He's not referring to any particular 17 Democrats at all. He's sending a crazy QAnon conspiracy signal. pic.twitter.com/JnrIAO0ipf
— Jennifer Bendery (@jbendery) August 9, 2018
Background here:
Some background on the QAnon conspiracy theory/number 17 stuff. https://t.co/88GnGMkMls pic.twitter.com/DQPTrszJh8
— Jennifer Bendery (@jbendery) August 9, 2018
As for the 17 number, media accounts have put the number of prosecutors at 17, with more being added. From Bloomberg in an article titled, “Mueller Taps More Prosecutors to Help With Growing Trump Probe'”
Mueller and his team of 17 federal prosecutors are coping with a higher-than-expected volume of court challenges that has added complexity in recent months, but there’s no political appetite at this time to increase the size of his staff, the officials said.
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And Bendery is wrong about the number of times Trump has tweeted the phrase. It’s 4 times, not 3. The one she omitted actually explains it all. Mueller added more prosecutors to his time and Trump changed the phrase from “13 Angry Democrats”:
There is No Collusion! The Robert Mueller Rigged Witch Hunt, headed now by 17 (increased from 13, including an Obama White House lawyer) Angry Democrats, was started by a fraudulent Dossier, paid for by Crooked Hillary and the DNC. Therefore, the Witch Hunt is an illegal Scam!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 29, 2018
Trump first used “13 Angry Democrats” back in May:
The 13 Angry Democrats in charge of the Russian Witch Hunt are starting to find out that there is a Court System in place that actually protects people from injustice…and just wait ‘till the Courts get to see your unrevealed Conflicts of Interest!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 7, 2018
And originally, way back in March, Trump called them “13 hardened Democrats”:
Why does the Mueller team have 13 hardened Democrats, some big Crooked Hillary supporters, and Zero Republicans? Another Dem recently added…does anyone think this is fair? And yet, there is NO COLLUSION!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 18, 2018
We’ll start screen-grabbing because it looks like she’s starting to backtrack:
Maybe I'm wrong on this. Here's Trump last week "officially" upping his 13 references to 17. Then again, why keep citing 17 over and over again at all? pic.twitter.com/EITWMtsrPf
— Jennifer Bendery (@jbendery) August 9, 2018
And now she’s claiming it doesn’t even matter if her reporting is accurate or not:
Intentional or not, Trump's now-regular use of "17" has gotten the attention of folks over at Reddit's QAnon hub. https://t.co/Ofa48ejmVH pic.twitter.com/YAYo6O3fiY
— Jennifer Bendery (@jbendery) August 9, 2018
Screenshots for posterity:
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