- President
Donald Trump on Tuesday a shared a baselessconspiracy alleging President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden staged the killing ofOsama bin Laden and killedSEAL Team 6 to cover it up. Robert O'Neill , the former Navy SEAL who says he shot bin Laden, criticized the claims and wrote on Twitter: "I know who I killed."- The tweet has since been deleted and account it came from has been suspended for violating Twitter rules.
Robert O'Neill, the former Navy SEAL who says he shot Osama bin Laden during the 2011 Neptune Spear raid, called out President Donald Trump on Twitter after Trump boosted a baseless conspiracy theory claiming the SEALs actually killed a body double.
On Tuesday, Trump retweeted a post alleging that bin Laden is still alive and that former President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden, in partnership with Iran, staged the killing of the terrorist leader and possibly had SEAL Team 6 killed to cover it all up.
—Christian Vanderbrouk (@UrbanAchievr) October 13, 2020
The conspiracy theorists claimed that Obama and Biden paid Iran $152 billion to kill them.
The tweet Trump retweeted read: "Hiden Biden and Obama may have had Seal Team 6 killed! EXPLOSIVE: CIA Whistleblower Exposes Biden's Alleged Role with the Deaths of Seal Team- Claims to have Documented Proof. RETWEET!!!"
The tweet went viral after the president retweeted it, but it has since been deleted and the QAnon account that tweeted it has been suspended for violating Twitter rules.
The alleged hit on SEAL Team 6 is a reference to the downing of a Chinook transport helicopter by insurgents a few months after the bin Laden raid. The crash killed 38 people, including 15 Navy SEALs. None of the SEALs who were killed in the incident were involved in the raid.
The billions "paid" to Iran is a reference to billions of dollars in frozen Iranian assets unfrozen as part of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, more commonly known as the Iran nuclear deal, which was actually much less than $152 billion.
As for the body-double theory, the Navy SEAL who says he shot bin Laden says it's not true and that he knows who he killed.
"Very brave men said [goodbye] to their kids to go kill Osama bin Laden. We were given the order by President Obama. It was not a body double. Thank you Mr. President," O'Neill tweeted Tuesday.
—Robert J. O'Neill (@mchooyah) October 13, 2020
The former SEAL then jokingly tweeted: "S---. I just found out that I killed Osama bin Johnson. Drinks are on me, I guess..." That tweet was followed by another that simply said: "I know who I killed, homie. Every time."
The White House did not respond to Insider's request for comment on the president's retweet.