Timothy Klausutis, the widowed husband of the woman who Donald Trump has baselessly suggested was killed by MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough, has written a powerful letter to Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey calling for the deletion of the president’s tweets promoting the conspiracy theory.
Trump has this month insinuated in multiple tweets that Scarborough, a former GOP representative, may have been responsible for the 2001 death of Lori Klausutis, when she was an intern in his congressional office.
Authorities ruled 28-year-old Klausutis’ death an accident: She hit her head on a desk after collapsing from a previously undiagnosed heart condition. No foul play was suspected.
“My request is simple: Please delete these tweets,” Timothy Klausutis wrote in his letter to Dorsey last week that Kara Swisher, a New York Times opinion writer, shared online Tuesday alongside her latest column, headlined “Twitter Must Cleanse the Trump Stain.”
In the letter to Dorsey, Klausutis lamented the “constant barrage of falsehoods, half-truths, innuendo and conspiracy theories” surrounding the death of his wife.
He also slammed conspiracy theorists, including Trump, who “continue to spread their bile and misinformation on your platform disparaging the memory of my wife and our marriage.”
Klausutis acknowledged he is “a research engineer and not a lawyer,” but said Trump’s unfounded accusations were in violation of Twitter’s terms of service.
“An ordinary user like me would be banished from the platform for such a tweet,” he noted. “But I am only asking that these tweets be removed.”
Concluded Klausutis:
I’m asking you to intervene in this instance because the President of the United States has taken something that does not belong him — the memory of my dead wife and perverted it for perceived political gain. I would also ask that you consider Lori’s niece and two nephews who will eventually come across this filth in the future. They have never met their Aunt and it pains me to think they would ever have to about her this way. My wife deserves better. Thank you for your consideration.
“We are deeply sorry about the pain these statements, and the attention they are drawing, are causing the family,” a Twitter spokesperson said in a statement to HuffPost. “We’ve been working to expand existing product features and policies so we can more effectively address things like this going forward, and we hope to have those changes in place shortly.”
Trump’s unfounded tweets about Scarborough, who has been a fierce critic of the president, have drawn widespread ire from both sides of the aisle.
Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) on Sunday told Trump to “just stop” promoting the “completely unfounded conspiracy.”
“Just stop,” he tweeted. “Stop spreading it, stop creating paranoia. It will destroy us.”
Mika Brzezinski, Scarborough’s wife and “Morning Joe” co-host, on Wednesday slammed Trump as “a sick person,” later claiming she was in talks with Dorsey about the issue.
Brzezinski and Scarborough on Tuesday tweeted excerpts from the letter:
Trump, meanwhile, indicated on Tuesday morning that he would not be giving up promoting the theory anytime soon. He launched a renewed attack on Scarborough, describing him as “a total Nut Job.”
