Do Rumors Of Trump’s ‘Stinky’ Farting In Court Pass The Smell Test?

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(Jefferson Siegel/The New York Times via AP, Pool)

Among the many gossip and rumor moments in media during the first week of Donald Trump’s criminal “hush money” trial in New York City, an extensive amount of attention went to multiple reports the ex-president was falling asleep in court — and one extremely viral claim that paired flatulence with the somnolence.

In a clip that took off on the left side of X and spawned the hashtag #OdorInTheCourt, MeidasTouch founder Ben Meiselas claimed that “credible sources” informed him Trump was “actually farting in the courtroom and that it’s very stinky around him.”

You know, what I’m hearing from my sources as well is that, you know, and I’m hearing from credible sources who know what’s going on in the courtroom. And what I’m hearing is, is that, take it for what it’s worth, but that Donald Trump is actually farting in the courtroom and that it’s very stinky around him. It’s a putrid odor in the courtroom, and that Trump’s lawyers, are, like, repulsed by the scent and the smell. And I’m not I’m not just saying that to be like, oh, how funny. I’m actually, you know, we have good sources there, and I’m hearing it from actual credible people that as he’s kind of falling asleep, he is actually passing gas and that his lawyers are really struggling with the smell. I think you’ll actually start to hear more of that. But again, from real, credible sources. Now, take it for what it’s worth. They may be going off the record, I mean, on background and telling me that because of, you know, it’s the MeidasTouch and they, you know, they think that we want to hear that. So you could judge it how you want to judge it, but real credible people who are there, saying that it’s putrid, around him.

As official and professional as that report with the word “stinky” in it obviously sounds, it turns out there’s little specific evidence to support the claim.

George Conway, anti-Trump figure and former husband to Kellyanne Conway put some wind behind the sails, saying he’d heard the same from similarly unnamed, unspecified sources. And a third post gave a third hand account of having heard other reporters allegedly sharing the fart info in secret.

But other than the three posts below, every article, meme, and social media comment – and there were many – was based on the claim made by Meislas.

The story blew up as soon as X users caught a whiff, with a cacophony of tweets from a diverse range of X users, including former MSNBC host Keith Olbermann, MSNBC analyst Tim O’Brien, MSNBC podcast host Andrew Weissmann, CNN and MeidasTouch contributor Adam Kinzinger, MeidasTouch editor Ron Filipkowski, MSNBC analyst David Corn and more (see below).

After the clip went viral, Meislas, who talked descriptively several more times about the alleged fart and how bad it smelled, said it was just a data point among many thousands of others and didn’t have any specific ideas about it going viral – perhaps not wanting to toot his own horn.

Still, left-leaning fact-checker website Snopes.com rated the claim “Unproven” in an article headlined “No Evidence Trump Passed Gas in Courtroom During Hush-Money Trial.”

They wrote:

Snopes performed its own investigation into whether this rumor passed the smell test but came up short — everything we found could be traced back to either Meiselas or Conway. Because neither of them shared who their sources were, and no major news outlet had covered the supposed flatulence, we have rated this claim as “Unproven.”

Like Snopes, we found no mentions of the fart on-air on CNN or MSNBC, but we did catch two mentions on other channels. A brief remark on Newsmax, and a short report on Fox 5 DC.

No one offered an explanation for why reporters would need to share the noxiousness anonymously; with Meislas avowing it as innocuous and there not being a general reticence in the media to report embarrassing things about Trump or his cohorts, it doesn’t make a ton of scents but it’s possible there’s a reason.

Trump was previously implicated in a fart controversy over the infamous Brad Raffensperger phone call, and his former attorney Rudy Giuliani over gas during a different type of hearing.

It’s not, however, a charge leveled only at Republicans.

There hasn’t been much blowback from MAGA over the fart claim at the time of this post.

Below are a sampling some of the tweets from the wide variety of individuals from all sides who were tweeting about the alleged emission.

So although social media cut loose with the accusation, it’s at best “unsubstantiated” at this time and leans toward “dubious.” As Snopes put it, at the very least it’s “unproven.”

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