Stars & Stripes

Fake editions of The Washington Post claiming that President Donald Trump was leaving office were handed out Wednesday morning at multiple locations in Washington.

The print papers — dated May 1, 2019, and looking strikingly similar to actual copies of The Post — were filled with anti-Trump stories that also appeared on a website that mimicked the official Post site.

The Post’s PR department released a statement on Twitter: “There are fake print editions of The Washington Post being distributed around downtown DC, and we are aware of a website attempting to mimic The Post’s. They are not Post products, and we are looking into this.”

Fake editions of The Washington Post were handed out at multiple locations in D.C. https://t.co/QpjpOreYYw

— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) January 16, 2019

Late Wednesday morning, a group that describes itself as a “trickster activist collective” called the Yes Men said it produced the bogus newspapers and website.

Under the headline “Unpresidented,” the fake newspaper’s lead story said that Trump had left a resignation message on a napkin in the Oval Office and left Washington for Yalta, the Crimean resort that was the site of a meeting of Allied leaders during World War II…

Copies were being handed out at locations around Washington, including outside the White House and Union Station.

The liberal activist group Code Pink posted a video on Facebook of the organization’s founder, Medea Benjamin, passing out copies of the paper at what appears to be a Capitol Hill office building.

In the video, Benjamin tells people, “The crisis is over — Trump has left the White House.” Later, she adds, “You gotta believe in The Washington Post.”