Following the publication of a dossier from ex-British intelligence containing a number of unverified stories about Russia’s attempt to compromise Donald Trump, a number of sites favorable to the president-elect have falsely suggested the report is based on an elaborate hoax by 4chan, an English-language imageboard website.

The supposed spoof pulled on the intelligence community—which was published by Town Hall and Zero Hedge and picked up by the Drudge Report —points to posts made on the /pol/ (“politically incorrect”) section of the popular imageboard by a user who claimed to have leaked false information to Republican strategist and vocal Trump opponent Rick Wilson. In 4chan’s version of the story, Wilson then gave the memo to BuzzFeed, which published it.

Wilson denied being BuzzFeed’s source for the memos.

The 4chan posts make no specific reference to any details of the false information and there is nothing to suggest the 4chan user made up a story that appeared in the intelligence dossier, not even the outlandish report that Trump hired “a number of prostitutes to perform a ‘golden showers’ (urination) show in front of him.”

Further, the four posts in question from the 4chan user were made in November 2016. The memos published by BuzzFeed were circulated well before the posts were made.

Mother Jones began reporting on the memo as early as Oct. 30, 2016, and the publication’s Washington bureau chief confirmed on Twitter the memo published was the one he received, meaning he had it before the 4chan posts were ever made. Some of the memos were believed to have been circulating as early as the summer of 2016.

Additionally, the author of the memo is a former British intelligence agent with Russian contacts, and the intelligence community considers the author and his sources to be reliable, according to a report from the New York Times.

Despite this information, 4chan is continuing to push the story that one of its users was responsible for pulling the wool over the eyes of the intelligence community.

One user posting on Twitter under the handle @trsprudence claimed to have approached a number or journalists with the “golden showers” story but provided no proof. Likewise, another 4chan poster claimed to be the origin of the memo—again without any information to substantiate the claim.

The memo itself is unverified and may not be true. But 4chan is not responsible for any of it.

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