Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee Blames Washington Derailment on Trump's Hatred of African-Americans-Fiction!

Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee Blames Washington Derailment on Trump’s Hatred of African-Americans-Fiction!

Summary of eRumor:
U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (R-TX) blamed an Amtrak derailment in Washington State on President Donald Trump’s “racist hatred of African-Americans.”
The Truth:
A website that makes it very easy to generate fake tweets that appear to be from public figures is behind false reports that Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee blamed the Washington derailment on President Trump’s “racist hatred of African Americans.”
The tweet surfaced in late December 2017, shortly after a tragic the Amtrak Cascades derailment in Washington State. After derailing, the train struck cars traveling on a nearby interstate,  killing three people. Early reports indicated that the train had been traveling more than 80 mph in a 30 mph zone before the derailment, but a National Transportation Safety Board investigation was expected to provide more definite information.
With lots of questions and confusion surrounding the derailment, a tweet that appeared to come from the official Twitter handle of Shiela Jackson Lee threw fuel on the fire. In the tweet, Sheila Jackson Lee blames the derailment on Donald Trump’s effort to “genocide” black people.

However, the fake tweet was created at Tweeterino.com. The site allows users to type anything they want and generate a tweet that appears to be from the account of a public figure. Users can then tweet out screen grabs of the fake tweets, which can spread mass confusion:

So, false claims that Sheila Jackson Lee blamed the Washington derailment on Trump’s hatred of African-Americans are based on a fake tweet.