The fake image shared by Marjorie Taylor Greene on Twitter (left) and the real image taken in 2015 ... [+]
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene shared a photo of Sen. Lindsey Graham holding a Bud Light can on her official Twitter account on Sunday. The beer can appears to show Dylan Mulvaney, the trans woman who recently sparked outrage from Republicans for simply being trans and promoting a special can with her face on it. But the photo Greene shared isn’t even real.
Greene, a congresswoman from Georgia, is notorious for spreading questionable information that often turns out to be incorrect. And it’s not clear whether Greene knows the image she shared on Twitter was created using image editing software like Photoshop.
The original photo was taken on October 27, 2015 in Boulder, Colorado and shows Graham holding up a beer with his sister Darline Graham Nordone on the left and CNN host Dana Bash on the right. The photo was taken at Walnut Brewery by photographer Jason Bahr in the lead up to the 2016 presidential election, according to Getty Images.
At that point Graham was still vying for the Republican nomination to be president, though Donald Trump would eventually secure the nomination and win against Democratic challenger Hillary Clinton, despite the fact that Trump lost the popular vote by almost 3 million votes.
BOULDER, CO - OCTOBER 27: (R-L) Dana Bash, Senator Lindsey Graham, and his sister Darline Graham ... [+]
While Greene and Graham are both Republicans, they’re currently sparring in public over the recent leak of classified documents, allegedly by 21-year-old Jack Teixeira, a member of the Massachusetts Air National Guard who reportedly worked as an IT tech. Teixeira allegedly posted hundreds of highly sensitive military documents on a private Discord server called Thug Shaker Central to impress his online friends, most of whom were high school kids.
Rep. Greene has tried to insist Teixeira was working as a whistleblower to inform the U.S. public about the war in Ukraine.
“Jake Teixeira is white, male, christian, and antiwar,” Greene wrote on Twitter on Thursday, getting Teixeira’s first name wrong.
“That makes him an enemy to the Biden regime. And he told the truth about troops being on the ground in Ukraine and a lot more,” Greene continued.
But Graham took issue with Greene’s characterization of Teixeira as some kind of political prisoner. And he told ABC’s This Week on Sunday morning that members of the U.S. military will go to jail if they leak sensitive documents.
“If you’re a member of the military intelligence community and you disagree with American policy and you think you’re going to be okay when it comes to leaking classified information, you’re going to go to jail,” Graham said.
“It’s one of the most irresponsible statements she could make,” Graham said, referring to Greene, adding that any leaks of classified documents “puts America in serious danger.”
Several prominent conservative commentators have sided with Greene’s interpretation of Teixeira’s case, including Fox News host Tucker Carlson who often insists the war between the Ukraine and Russia could lead to World War III. But there’s no evidence that Teixeira was trying to act as some kind of whistleblower.
“I would definitely not call him a whistleblower. I would not call OG a whistleblower in the slightest,” the Washington Post quotes one of Teixeira’s online friends as saying.
But why would Greene share a fake image of Sen. Graham holding a Bud Light with Dylan Mulvaney’s face? Apparently she wants to associate Graham with Bud Light, which has faced calls from Republicans to be boycotted. Some people on Twitter and Facebook have even shared videos purporting to show outraged Bud Light drinkers steamrolling over thousands of cases of Bud Light. The only problem? That video is from February and actually shows a local government in Mexico destroying beer confiscated at the U.S.-Mexico border during the pandemic.
