Donald Trump's NAMBLA Donation Hoax

About

Donald Trump's NAMBLA Donation Hoax refers to the false rumor that the then 2016 Republican presidential candidate refused to disclose his tax returns because he did not want to reveal the records of charitable donations he had allegedly made to the North American Man/Boy Love Association (NAMBLA), a pedophile and pedrasty advocacy organization. Upon the launch of the hoax on Reddit in July 2016, it quickly proliferated across social media platforms as a way to mock Trump's habitual use of the phrase "many people are saying" when citing unfounded claims and far-fetched conjectures in his campaign speeches.

Origin

On July 29th, 2016, Redditor RIPrince submitted an article titled "Trump Suggests Nothing Will Prompt Him to Release Tax Returns" to the /r/politics^[2] subreddit. In the comments section, another Redditor speculated that Trump was keeping his tax return private to prevent the discovery that he donated to NAMBLA (shown below). The comment has since been deleted.

"But why doesn’t Trump want to release his [tax returns]? Could it be because he donated a sizable amount of money to NAMBLA and he wants to cover it up? I’m not saying Trump donated money to NAMBLA, but people are saying that. It’s something I’ve heard, but I don’t believe Donald Trump donated several million dollars to NAMBLA over the last several years. Still, if he did that would be a great reason to not release his tax returns. But look, I’m not here to say whether or not Donald Trump donated millions to NAMBLA, I’m just here to let you know that every candidate has released his tax returns over the last 40 years, so there has to be a reason he doesn’t, and several very smart people are saying he contributed millions of dollars to NAMBLA."

Spread

In August 2016, the Reddit bot account AutoModerator began responding to all comments mentioning the keywords "tax return" in the /r/EnoughTrumpSpam^[1] subreddit with a message claiming the presidential candidate would not release his tax returns because he "donated to NAMBLA" (shown below).

"Speaking of tax returns, did you hear Donald Trump is refusing to release them because Donald Trump has donated to NAMBLA? That's what all the best sources, the most tremendous sources are saying, and if they're all saying that Donald Trump donated to NAMBLA, well, I can see why Donald Trump would want to cover up his donations to NAMBLA. I'm not claiming that Donald Trump donates to NAMBLA, but that's what these excellent sources are alleging, that Donald Trump does indeed donate to NAMBLA."

On August 2nd, Redditor dannylanduf submitted a post titled "<-----Amount Trump has donated to NAMBLA" to /r/EnoughTrumpSpam.^[3] Within two weeks, the post gained over 9,600 votes (67% upvoted) and 300 comments. On August 3rd, Redditor trevize1138 posted a screenshot of an argument with a Trump supporter over the NAMBLA accusations to /r/EnoughTrumpSpam.^[1] On August 4th, a fake Fox News website was launched on Clonezone.link^[6] featuring a satirical article titled "NAMBLA neither confirms nor denies Trump's donation allegations" (shown below).

On August 9th, NY Mag^[7] published an article titled "Many People Are Saying Donald Trump Gives Money to Pedophiles, According to a Very Reputable Robot." The same day, comedian Patton Oswalt tweeted to Fox News television host Sean Hannity about the "disgusting Trump/NAMBLA nonsense" (shown below).^[5]

Meanwhile, Snopes^[4] published an article about the NAMBLA donation rumor titled "Bot Trumps Trump," listing the accusation that Trump donated "millions of dollars" to the organization as "false."

Search Interest

External References