RNC spokesperson deletes tweet defending Trump smear of elderly Buffalo protester

Republican National Committee spokesperson Liz Harrington quickly deleted a tweet on Tuesday where she attempted to bolster Donald Trump's claim that 75-year-old Martin Gugino, a longtime activist in Buffalo, was an "ANTIFA provocateur" with a further accusation that the now-hospitalized Gugino was an "instigator" urging fellow Black Lives Matter protesters to engage in looting.

According to Philip Bump of the Washington Post, Trump's tweet was based on a OANN report that is"... laughable, something not even worth parsing. It's so sloppy and obviously untrue, and any actual media organization should be embarrassed to run it. Normally, we'd ignore it."

Having said that, Bump added, "But OAN has created a loyal viewer in Trump, thanks to its sycophantic coverage of his administration. And that means that Trump saw the report on Gugino, accepted it as believable enough to warrant consideration — and then shared it with 80 million people on Twitter."

One person who took up the mantle of spreading Trump's ugly smear was the RNC's Herrington who posted a link on Twitter -- since deleted but can be seen below -- to ramping up the accusation. 

As Bump pointed out, "Soon after Trump’s tweet about Gugino, the Republican National Committee’s national spokesman Elizabeth Harrington apparently attempted to defend it by quoting from a news article in which Buffalo’s mayor talked about a protester being 'a key major instigator' of vandalism and looting in the city. Harrington has since deleted the tweet."

You can the tweet and few commenters calling her out below: