Is Melania divorcing Donald Trump? Here’s the truth behind controversial whistleblower’s claim

PALM BEACH, FLORIDA: Retired whistleblower Rebekah Jones raised eyebrows on Sunday, September 1, when she claimed that Melania Trump had filed for an "e-divorce" from former president Donald Trump.

Jones announced this on X (formerly known as Twitter). However, the claim was quickly proven to be false.

Rebekah Jones' false claim and subsequent backlash

Rebekah Jones' post featured a screenshot of what appeared to be a Newsweek story supporting her claim. The post quickly gained traction on social media. However, the image she shared was later exposed as a digitally altered screenshot.

Shayan Sardarizadeh of BBC Verify responded promptly to the post. "This is a fake, digitally altered screenshot of a Newsweek tweet. You can see the genuine one from December 2019 on the right," he wrote, highlighting discrepancies between the authentic and altered versions.

"BREAKING: Melania Trump filed for divorce in Palm Beach* county through online e-file system, time-stamped today at 5:12 PM ET," Jones posted.

However, she failed to provide any concrete evidence to support this assertion. A quick review of Newsweek's X timeline revealed no such post regarding Melania Trump's alleged divorce. Jones made the post private shortly after the backlash began.

Many on social media slammed Jones for promoting misinformation.

"After having her account locked for ages, Jones goes public again with fake news and a fake screenshot. You can see the underlining in the word “divorce” in the fake Newsweek screenshot because she typed it lol," one posted on X.

"Why is she so ungodly bad at everything she does?" another wondered.

"Imagine being this bad at faking stuff lolol It's almost like she's doing it on purpose as an alibi," a third user chimed in.

"Again, this is obviously someone with a fetish for getting caught," another quipped.

"The entire arsenal of modern psychiatry will be terribly insufficient here," read a comment.

"She's been a known liar for quite a while now. But in today's media environment, you can never, ever, ever lose credibility. She will continue to be rewarded regardless of the value of her commentary," another offered.

Rebekah Jones' history of spreading misinformation

This is not the first time Rebekah Jones has been involved in spreading falsehoods. After the backlash over the fake Melania Trump divorce post, Jones claimed that the entire episode had been an "experiment" in spreading false information. However, this explanation did little to quell the backlash.

Politifact reported in 2022 how Jones was involved in another controversy when she shared a document on Instagram that misrepresented the findings of an investigation into a whistleblower complaint she had filed in 2020.

Jones had alleged that she was fired from her role as a data scientist for the Florida Department of Health after refusing to manipulate Covid-19 data. She later filed a complaint with the state's Commission on Human Relations, which granted her whistleblower status under state law.

The commission concluded its investigation in September 2022, stating that it did not find "reasonable cause" to believe that the health department had subjected Jones to unlawful whistleblower retaliation. Despite this, Jones shared a photo of the commission’s report on her Instagram account that painted a different picture.

In her version of the report, the commission supposedly said she had "demonstrated" a violation of Florida’s whistleblower law, but this statement did not appear in the official version provided by the commission.

When discrepancies between her post and the official document were pointed out, Jones accused the state of lying and said she was "not surprised the state would lie again".

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