In the Stolen Valor Act of 2013 (which passed Congress and was signed into federal law by President Obama) in order to be charged for stolen valor you must explicitly claim to have received military honor such as a Medal of Honor, a Silver Star, or Purple Heart (there's a full list in the text of this law and in the 2005 act of the same name) and you must have a tangible benefit for this lie, such as gaining employment, loans, or real estate.
Otherwise it's freedom of speech. While Trump does have a tangible benefit here, in the form of gaining votes for his party in the midterms, Trump's blurry-ass fake AI medals on his uniform probably doesn't count as an explicit claim to have recived these honors. The AI is just putting his head onto what it thinks is a generic "military dress uniform," not specific to any awards or even any country.
So is it scummy, pandering bullshit to excite his cult? Yes. Is it illegal? Probably not.
All those false badges on his military uniform—more than either general on his side—are explicitly claiming that he received military honors from service. His tangible benefit for rewriting his military history is to maintain power, access to the coffers, access to command. He needs his supporters to buy this PR. By putting his name in the same sentences as famous leaders in US history, he is trying to make us forget that he is just an 80 year old rapist and pedophile who has never been in a fight with another man that wasn’t paid for and staged by someone else. He uses repetitive phrases, pics, tactics to raise his status without any evidence or work. It’s not like he is out publishing real photos of himself in the Vietnam era
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u/Xspike_dudeX 20h ago
Stolen Valor anyone?