Fact Check: Did Secret Service visit Mark Hamill after he allegedly threatened to kill Trump?
WASHINGTON, DC: An online post claims that the Secret Service visited Hollywood actor Mark Hamill after he allegedly threatened to kill President Donald Trump. The claim triggered concern and criticism of the actor, with many expressing skepticism over the rumor and calling for a fact-check.
Claim: Mark Hamill floated the idea of killing Donald Trump
The claim gained traction with the spread of a Facebook post, according to which the ‘Star Wars’ actor stated, “Get close enough to Trump to take him out."
The post further stated that, according to public records, Hamill was questioned and informed that continued acts of violent expression towards the president will result in charges for harassment and malicious intent.
The claim has triggered a wave of criticism of the actor from conservative accounts, while a few others dismissed the claim as false and questioned whether the actor really made such a remark.
Fact Check: The claim originated from a parody account
Although the 74-year-old actor once faced backlash for sharing an image that appeared to show Trump lying dead in a grave, there is no evidence of remarks intended to take out Trump.
No publicly available records, statements, or interviews show Hamill making the statement against Trump; neither are there any reports of the Secret Service visiting him.
If Hamill had made such a statement, prominent news and entertainment media outlets would have widely covered it, making headlines, but a search on Google and other search engines for the claim yielded no credible news reports.
Moreover, the post that came with an image of the actor, which includes overlay text in the bottom corner stating, ‘Nothing on this page is real,’ and a further look at the page revealed that it is a parody account called ‘America’s Last Line Of Defense.’
Mark Hamill's post against Donald Trump
Hamill’s post from May this year appeared to show Trump lying dead in a grave.
“He should live long enough to witness his inevitable devastating loss in the midterms, be held accountable for his unprecedented corruption, impeached, convicted & humiliated for his countless crimes,” Hamill wrote as a caption to the post.
“Long enough to realize he'll be disgraced in the history books, forevermore. #don_TheCON,” the caption continued.
“Mark Hamill is one sick individual,” the official White House Rapid Response account wrote in response to the post.
“These Radical Left lunatics just can’t help themselves. This kind of rhetoric is exactly what has inspired three assassination attempts in two years against our president,” it added.
