Republican congressional hopeful Carl P. Paladino Wednesday changed his story about material on his Facebook page linking recent mass killings in Buffalo and Texas to "false flag" ideas that claim government involvement in similar tragedies, explaining he now remembers posting the piece authored by a Rochester friend.
"Yes, I did it," he said. "I just didn't remember the fact that I published it; I couldn't remember. It was written by Jeff Briggs, a good friend from Rochester. I published it because he is a friend."
A post on congressional candidate Carl P. Paladino's Facebook page repeated conspiracy theories about the recent mass shootings in Buffalo and Texas, linking them to the kind of "false flag" ideas that claim government involvement in similar tragedies.
Paladino said Tuesday he did not post the article, which contended that Democrats aim "to revoke the 2nd amendment and take away guns," and claimed "the Texas shooter was receiving hypnosis training" apparently under the direction of the CIA, according to a report on the Media Matters website. But on Wednesday he said he now recalls that he only "scanned" the article before posting, and that he often forwards material with which he does not agree.
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"Sometimes it's contrary to what I think," he said, adding he does not subscribe to the "conspiracy theories" outlined in the article but accepts some of its other points.
On Tuesday Paladino said he asked his secretary to remove the post from his Facebook page and that he would never write anything similar. Asked Tuesday if he reposted the passage or if he had been hacked, he said he had "no idea" how it reached his personal page.
"I don't even know how to post on Facebook," he said.
Still, other sources submitted to The Buffalo News on Wednesday copies of the same material they received in an email blast – another frequent method of Paladino communication.
Paladino, who announced for the vacancy stemming from Republican Rep. Chris Jacobs' surprise withdrawal from the race on Friday has proven no stranger to online controversy. In December 2016, he referred to first lady Michelle Obama as a man and said he would like her to be "let loose in the outback of Zimbabwe where she lives comfortably in a cave with Maxie, the gorilla" in an Artvoice piece. At a 2015 rally, he decried the presence of "damn Asians" and other "foreigners" at the University at Buffalo and other state colleges.
And in March 2019, he was denounced by officials for distributing an email suggesting riots in Paris resulted from a city filled with nonwhite Muslim immigrants and refugees.
