A Parkland shooting survivor had called on Melania Trump via Twitter to follow her anti-bullying mission as First Lady and stop her stepson Donald Trump Jr. from cyberbullying her on the social media website, The Huffington Post reports.
“You say that your mission as first lady is to stop cyber bullying,” tweeted Lauren Hogg, sister of David Hogg. “Don’t you think it would have been smart to have a convo with your stepson @DonaldJTrumpJr before he liked a post about a false conspiracy theory which … put a target on my back?”
“I’ve been getting all these horrible messages from Nazis and white supremacists and I woke up this morning and remembered that Melania Trump’s mission was to fight cyberbullying,” Hogg told HuffPost on Friday. “That’s what’s happening to me: cyberbullying. I thought she could do something about Donald Trump Jr.”
Hey @FLOTUS you say that your mission as First Lady is to stop cyber bullying, well then, don’t you think it would have been smart to have a convo with your step-son @DonaldJTrumpJr before he liked a post about a false conspiracy theory which in turn put a target on my back
— Lauren Hogg (@lauren_hoggs) February 23, 2018
&created a safe space for people all over the world to call me and my family horrific things that constantly re-victimizes us and our community. I’m 14 I should never have had to deal with any of this and even though I thought it couldn’t get worse it has because of your family.
— Lauren Hogg (@lauren_hoggs) February 23, 2018
Just earlier this week, President Donald Trump’s son, Donald Trump Jr., liked two tweets on Twitter that promoted a conspiracy theory involving Hogg’s 17-year-old-brother, David Hogg. The conspiracy theory, according to CNN, claims that David Hogg had been coached by their father, who is a former FBI agent, to speak out against Trump and guns. According to HuffPost, the conspiracy theory also alleges that their father wanted David Hogg to help “cover” for the FBI’s failure to prevent the shooting that took the lives of 17 teachers and students.
David Hogg, according to HuffPost, was also a target of conspiracy video on YouTube that claimed that he was a paid “crisis actor,” not a student. The video surged to the top on the website, but YouTube finally took it down earlier this week.
“The fact that Donald Trump Jr. liked that post is disgusting to me,” David Hogg said on “Anderson Cooper 360” Wednesday.
The siblings’ mother, Rebecca Blodrick, told The Washington Post that these theories have resulted in the family receiving death threats.
“Even though I thought it couldn’t get worse it has because of your family,” Hogg wrote to the First Lady.
Hogg added that conspiracy theories are “re-victimizing” her family. “I’m 14 I should never have had to deal with any of this … I thought it couldn’t get worse [but] it has because of your family,” Hogg said.
Melania Trump has said that she wants to use her platform as First Lady to address and combat cyberbullying. According to CNN, the First Lady said at a United Nations luncheon in September, “We must teach each child the values of empathy, communication — a core of mindfulness, integrity and leadership, which can only be taught by example.”