Turning Point USA Aide Booted Over Phony Presidential Seal Snafu

US President Donald Trump arrives to address the Turning Point USAs Teen Student Action Summit 2019 in Washington, DC, on July 23, 2019. (Photo by NICHOLAS KAMM / AFP) (Photo credit should read NICHOLAS KAMM/A... US President Donald Trump arrives to address the Turning Point USAs Teen Student Action Summit 2019 in Washington, DC, on July 23, 2019. (Photo by NICHOLAS KAMM / AFP) (Photo credit should read NICHOLAS KAMM/AFP/Getty Images) MORE LESS
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Turning Point USA has fired an aide it deemed responsible for an embarrassing incident Tuesday when the presidential seal projected behind President Donald Trump was actually doctored to include Russian and golfing imagery.

“We did let the individual go,” a Turning Points spokesman told The Washington Post. “I don’t think it was malicious intent, but nevertheless.”

The spokesman blamed the incident on a hasty Google search for the seal.

Charles Leazott, a former Republican who created the image to blow off steam after the 2016 election, isn’t buying the explanation.

“That’s a load of crap,” he told the Post. “You have to look for this. There’s no way this was an accident is all I’m saying.”

Leazott had no idea his graphic had been used until he was inundated with messages after the event. A picture of Trump standing before the fake seal is now his computer background.

“I’ve got to be honest, I am so tickled in the most petty way possible that the President of the United States, who I despise, stood up and gave a talk in front of this graphic,” he said. “Whoever put that up is my absolute hero.”

The eagle in the fake seal has two heads, bearing a close resemblance to the bird featured on the Russian coat of arms. It’s also clutching a bundle of golf clubs in its talons, in lieu of the usual arrows. A banner above the bird reads: “45 es un títere” in Spanish, or “45 is a puppet.”

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  1. Turning Point USA believes in small government.

    Sounds like its own management lacks oversight and review functions.

  2. That aide will be working at The Onion by next week. He won’t be hurting for work.
    I don’t understand the “snafu” reference. This aide did exactly what he wanted to do; it wasn’t done out of confusion. I’ll bet money he said goodbye to work mates before that board was installed on stage.

  3. “The spokesman blamed the incident on a hasty Google search for the seal.”

    A likely story, right? On the other hand, it was up there, yooge, directly in line of sight, right behind the “President,” for fifteen minutes and nobody noticed.

    The first time I saw this story, my first reaction was that the story was fake. Should have known. Trump’s razor.

  4. “a hasty Google search.”

    That seems either unlikely (that is, this is a lie meant to cover up something done deliberately) or dimwitted on the aide’s part–and to be frank it’s hard for me to imagine someone dimwitted enough to not know the eagle in the seal doesn’t have two heads. And I know Turning Point USA isn’t this administration. But this sort of thing has been a frequent occurrence with the Trump folks and his allies: a lack of attention (or indifference) toward detail. (And, yes, yes–toward the bigger stuff, too.)

    ETA: I checked Google Images just now, and, well, NOW there are plenty of the fake image leading the pack. Whatever one might think of Google’s algorithms, though, that assuredly was not the case two days ago.

  5. I take it he really is an operative of the Deep State (a wholly owned subsidiary of the Clinton Foundation) who just deposited a check signed by George Soros that he picked up at a Brooklyn pizza shop.

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