Military pilot Jo Ellis said she had to hire private armed security for her family because of the false claims, which went viral on social media.
A transgender military pilot filed a defamation lawsuit Wednesday against a conservative influencer who falsely claimed on social media that she was flying the helicopter that collided with a commercial jet near Reagan National Airport in January, killing 67 people.
“I want to hold this person accountable for what they did to me,” Jo Ellis, a pilot who has served more than 15 years in the Virginia Army National Guard, said in a statement to NBC News. “It’s become too common that people can say horrible things about someone, profit at their expense, and get away with it.”
On Jan. 30, less than 24 hours after the crash, conservative influencer Matt Wallace, who has 2.2 million followers on the social media platform X, shared a post from another account he operates stating that the helicopter pilot was transgender, according to the lawsuit. Wallace included a photo of Ellis, and the post went viral, the lawsuit states.
I think their tiny-Trumpy-brained syllogism goes:
Premise 1 is false, but other than that you simply can’t fault the logic.
“I identify as-”
Yeah goddamn I bet that made perfect sense in his head.
Damn, I bet this woman must be even more sick of attack helicopter jokes than the rest of us
Yea unfortunately probably not his is but more like his followers’ are. He is aware enough of this to exploit it for his own gain. The thing to do is to have obligatory critical thinking courses each semester every year from age six to twenty two, repeat it so many times it becomes a reflex not a choice.