Tafari Campbell’s death sparks wave of conspiracy theories

The death of Tafari Campbell, a Barack Obama employee whose body was recovered near the former president’s home on Martha’s Vineyard on Monday, has sparked a wave of entirely unverified conspiracy theories online.

A number of prominent right-wing accounts, some with hundreds of thousands of followers, have questioned the official version of events. One described Campbell’s death on the Massachusetts island as “strange” and asked “what do you think really happened?”

Obama was dogged by a range of conspiracy theories during his presidency, most prominently the false ‘birther’ claim that he hadn’t been born in the United States, and so was ineligible for office. Obama released his official birth certificate in April 2011, in response to this theory, whose proponents included future President Donald Trump.

The body of 45-year-old Campbell, a White House chef during the Obama administration, was recovered by police divers from Edgartown Great Pond, on the Martha’s Vineyard island, shortly before 10 a.m. on Monday, according to the Massachusetts State Police (MSP).

Campbell had been paddleboarding on Sunday when he got into trouble, with police officers called at 7:46 p.m. to reports of a person in distress. Campbell’s body was found about 100 feet from the pond’s edge, at a depth of around 8 feet, according to the MSP. Neither Barack nor Michelle Obama was at the property when the accident took place.

After police officers said that the dead person was Campbell, a number of prominent social-media accounts challenged the authorities’ version of events, without providing any conclusive evidence to the contrary.

Ian Miles Cheong is a prominent right-wing social-media activist with nearly 700,000 Twitter followers. He tweeted that it was strange for a trained swimmer to drown in a shallow pond and asked: “What do you think really happened?”

Liz Crokin is a Trump supporter and advocate of the QAnon conspiracy theory that says America is secretly being run by a cabal of satanic child molesters. She asked, “what did he know?” referring to Campbell.

Crokin wrote that the swimmer had been “employed at the White House for Obama’s private party where they flew in $65K worth of hotdogs and pizza and also when Obama’s secret Alice In Wonderland party took place that they managed to keep under wraps for two years.”

This is a reference to a 2009 ‘Alice in Wonderland’ themed event that took place at the White House, featuring Johnny Depp. Some conservatives criticized the event, which they said had been organized in secret. The Obama White House replied that the event was held for military families and wasn’t a secret at all.

The Carrie loves America Twitter account, which has 102,000 followers and a picture of Trump as its headed image, wrote: “Tafari Campbell isn’t the only person who has died inexplicably in Obama’s orbit.

“Did you know that the woman who verified the authenticity of Obama’s birth certificate, Loretta Fuddy, was the only person to die in a plane crash in Hawaii in 2013. Everyone else survived,” the Carrie loves America account added.

Fuddy was responsible for approving the release of Obama’s long-form birth certificate in 2011. In December 2013, the 65-year-old was the only fatality when a light aircraft crashed off the coast of Hawaii, which an investigation attributed to “catastrophic engine failure.”

Newsweek has reached out to Barack Obama for comment via the press contact form on his official website.

In a statement reacting to Campbell’s death, the Obamas said: “Tafari was a beloved part of our family.

“When we first met him, he was a talented sous chef at the White House—creative and passionate about food, and its ability to bring people together. In the years that followed, we got to know him as a warm, fun, extraordinarily kind person who made all of our lives a little brighter.”