The children of the slain Minnesota state lawmaker Melissa Hortman asked President Trump on Sunday to remove a social media post that gave credence to a conspiracy theory about the shooting that killed their parents and critically injured two others last June.
Ms. Hortman, the former Democratic speaker of the Minnesota House of Representatives, was killed in a politically motivated assassination on June 14, along with her husband, Mark, and their golden retriever, after a gunman came to their home impersonating a police officer, the authorities said. Another Democratic lawmaker, State Senator John Hoffman, and his wife, Yvette, were also shot by the same man and were injured, officials said.
On Saturday, Mr. Trump reposted a video on his social media platform, Truth Social, of someone falsely insinuating that Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota was involved in the assassination because the man now charged with the killings, Vance Boelter, was on a state panel under Mr. Walz’s administration. That man killed Ms. Hortman, according to the false theory, because she had voted against providing health care to undocumented immigrants, opposing Mr. Walz.
In truth, the authorities have said, Mr. Boelter trafficked in conspiracy theories, and before his arrest, he wrote to the F.B.I. claiming that the shootings were part of a conspiracy involving Mr. Walz and the state’s Senate seats. Mr. Boelter has pleaded not guilty.
The video that Mr. Trump reposted also claimed, without offering any evidence, that Ms. Hortman was aware of a Minnesota fraud scheme that did not fully come to light until months after she died. Prosecutors have accused dozens of people, most of whom are members of the Somali diaspora, of robbing taxpayers of hundreds of millions of dollars by taking advantage of government programs under Mr. Walz’s watch.
Mr. Trump and other conservatives have drawn attention to the case amid his crackdown on immigration in the state, and Mr. Walz abandoned his gubernatorial re-election efforts on Monday, saying the widening scandal would not allow him to devote enough time to his campaign.
Ms. Hortman’s children wrote in a statement that the video “fuels the flames of political division” and makes overcoming their grief even more challenging.
“My father and mother, Mark and Melissa Hortman, and their dog Gilbert, were killed by a man who believed conspiracy theories and fake news. Words matter,” Ms. Hortman’s son, Colin Hortman, said in a statement that he also posted on Facebook. “Sharing fake news is dangerous.”
He added, “I am asking President Trump to remove the video that he shared and apologize to me and my family for posting this misinformation and for using my mother’s own words to dishonor her memory.”
As of Monday evening, the post remained on Mr. Trump’s social media account. The White House did not respond to requests for comment.
Mr. Walz, who was close friends with Ms. Hortman and eulogized her at her funeral, called Mr. Trump’s decision to repost the conspiracy theory as “dangerous, depraved behavior.”
Ms. Hortman’s children also said that Mr. Trump and Republicans have taken out of context a video of one of their mother’s final votes in the Legislature, when she broke with her fellow Democrats to decline health care for undocumented immigrants in order to prevent a state government shutdown. Ms. Hortman had agreed to remove that provision as part of a deal with Republicans to pass a big budget bill before the end of the legislative session.
Ms. Hortman’s children said their mother viewed her decision on that vote as so weighty that she cried when they discussed it with her.
“The video shared by President Donald Trump on Truth Social is a painful, false twisting of my mother’s final vote,” Ms. Hortman’s daughter, Sophie Hortman, said in a separate statement. “The vote she made was incredibly difficult for my mother; it was not a vote made lightly or with malice in her heart.”
Christina Morales is a national reporter for The Times.
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