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By Reuters Fact Check
4 Min Read
A video of New York City’s Trump Tower has been digitally edited to include a banner hanging over the entrance purporting that “top secret nuclear documents” can be found in the building.
“For more top secret nuclear documents raid here,” reads the text on the supposed banner looking like a rainbow-colored flag (here) (here).
Examples can also be found on Facebook (here) (here) (here).
An early iteration was posted by a Twitter user whose bio reads, “changing the world by any MEMES necessary” (here). All the versions reviewed on social media by Reuters include a watermark that reads @PaulLahticks on the bottom right of the video.
Contacted by Reuters, that user – identified as Tom Adelbasch on Facebook – confirmed that he edited the clip to include the banner.
Reuters has previously addressed digitally altered content created by Adelbasch that duped social media users (here), including another altered video of a Trump tower in Las Vegas (here).
While some users call the clip displaying the purported banner “fake” or “photoshopped,” others seem to think the scene is real.
Comments include: “thank you, New York activists,” “New Yorkers are the best! #DonTheCon is terrified of them now. That coward bully will never live in his ugly gold plated #TrumpTower tacky dump again! I [heart emoji] NY!”.
The banner also made its way to articles and blogs (here) (here) (here).
The clip is similar to a video issued by the Associated Press (youtu.be/eJuN0SIuxII?t=78) that dates back to the summer of 2020, when activists joined by New York’s mayor Bill de Blasio painted “Black Lives Matter” in giant yellow letters on the city’s Fifth Avenue in front of Trump Tower (here).
The same angle viewable at the beginning and end of the edited video can be found around timestamp 1:18 (‘Black Lives Matter’ mural painted at Trump Tower), in the Associated Press video, with the same person appearing in an orange safety vest.
This indicates that the footage is not new and the flag was digitally superimposed onto footage from 2020.
The FBI recovered more than 11,000 government documents and photographs during an Aug. 8 search at former U.S. President Donald Trump’s Florida estate, according to unsealed court records (here).
Altered. This banner has been digitally added to the video, and the original footage traces back to a 2020 video that shows no banner.
This article was produced by the Reuters Fact Check team. Read more about our fact-checking work here .
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
All quotes delayed a minimum of 15 minutes. See here for a complete list of exchanges and delays.