The photo that "Nicole Mincey" used as her Twitter profile picture.
“Nicole Mincey” is a self-described “black conservative” from New Jersey who’s been positioned as an entrepreneur running a Trump store of merchandise devoted to the president and who received a shout-out from the president himself. While some people have claimed the now suspended Twitter account is a “bot,” it does appear to have a real name tied to it, though the person whose name is being used claims she did not run the page, and the site’s profile picture is fake and that of a model (see above).
That’s just the start of what is a convoluted and bizarre sequence of events.
Heavy identified the real name used to create the social media/Trump merchandise entrepreneur persona of Nicole Mincey, and it’s the name of a 21-year-old college student from New Jersey who claimed to Heavy that her identity was stolen to market the Trump products.
Originally, Heavy decided to remove the name of the student from this article due to her identity theft claims, but she has now spoken to The Daily Beast as well, which has used part of her real name, the article says with her permission: Nicole Mincy (without the “e.”) The student has a different first name, but Heavy is not publishing it to preserve some of her anonymity.
To Heavy, Nicole Mincy denied flatly that she was ever Nicole Mincey associated with selling Trump products on Twitter and claimed her Facebook page was hacked to steal her identity to create the Nicole Mincey persona online that Trump interacted with in his tweet. To the Daily Beast, she claimed the ProTrump45 effort involved a group of 10 people, one of whom had recruited her after seeing pro-Trump memes she wrote on Instagram. The Daily Beast article reports that she admitted to that site that she had written blogs for the group’s website store but grew upset when they appropriated and then slightly altered her name to create the “Nicole Mincey” persona on Twitter. However, a Twitter page that has photos that appear to be of the real college student and her last name in the handle interacted with Twitter sites that have now been suspended as far back as 2014.
A July 4, 2017 press release touting the creation of the “ProTrump45” merchandise store, which lists Nicole Mincey as the media contact, provides an address for the store that traces back to the mail room of the real college student’s Jersey City university, Heavy has learned.
A second Twitter page that is set up to appear to be the college student’s real page used the name Nicole Mincey as far back as April and, although it’s now suspended, a cache of the page showed its profile called its owner the owner of the ProTrump45 merchandise page (although, again, the student claims her identity was stolen). The college student has other Twitter and Instagram accounts using a different handle.
The bottom line: The college student’s real name comes up in multiple ways tied to the Nicole Mincey/ProTrump45 persona online, including, in one instance, involving the transfer of money. A now privatized ProTrump45 Instagram page once urged people to also follow its owner’s “personal” page, with the handle being the Twitter page that appears to be positioned as the page of the real college student, Nicole Mincy, photos included.
It’s a very convoluted story because the person using the “Nicole Mincey” name went so far as to give radio and online interviews, and established detailed biographies online, before the Trump retweet (in other words, a back story and actual contact with radio hosts), and the website where the modeling photo originally came from now says it’s identified 10 accounts created by one person it didn’t name using multiple names and identities and reported them to Twitter for suspension. All of this was designed to distribute pro-Trump commentary that positioned him as having a diverse array of supporters and to apparently sell hats and shirts on the ProTrump45 website.
A person using the name “Nicole Mincey” and claiming to be the “ProTrump45” Trump merchandise entrepreneur was touted as appearing on a New York radio show in June and previously gave an interview to a conservative website. Heavy has also unearthed audio of a person using the name “Nicole Mincey” of ProTrump45 speaking on a Trending Today USA radio show in May. You can listen to the audio below. She appears at the beginning of the program and discusses why she supports Trump. Even odder, Nicole Mincy, the real college student, told Daily Beast that another person assumed the identity Nicole Mincey for that show.
The college student whose identity is linked online to the persona first asked Heavy to stop using her “real name” and then claimed her Facebook was hacked and her identity assumed. She also said she plans to take legal action against the person who stole her identity. She said she is “not even interested in politics” and does not sell Trump merchandise or “have anything to do with Trump.” However, she told Daily Beast she had posted pro-Trump memes before and “wanted to write blogs and get the conservative view out.”
The woman told Heavy she will be filing a police report alleging identity theft on Monday. Heavy has calls into police departments in the city where she is from, Newark, and the city where she goes to college, Jersey City, to learn whether such a report was, in fact, filed.
Here’s what you need to know:
1. ‘Nicole Mincey’ Says She Grew Up in Poverty in New Jersey in Online Biographies
https://twitter.com/Protrump45/status/894211719437967361
President Donald Trump gave a shout out to “Mincey” on Twitter on August 5. After the controversy grew, the page featured a new picture of a different model and the name, Alexandria. The Twitter handle was @AlexandriaM0ra. The account has now been suspended.
“Nicole Mincey” originally shared a meme that read “Trump fights for us” and wrote, “Trump working hard for the American people…..thanks❤??.” Trump, pausing from his working vacation in New Jersey, took time to thank “Nicole.”
Thank you Nicole! t.co/KlWN05uFOx
A Google cache-version of another Trump store shows that the real college student’s name, Nicole Mincy (with her first name), appeared on its contact page in March, although the page has now been deleted. The real college student was referred to as “Nicole” last month in two responses to the supposedly personal Twitter page regarding customer service questions. The details of her biography track an interview that purported to quote “Nicole Mincey,” the pro Trump entrepreneur; for example, the real college student attended a Newark, New Jersey charter school as did “Nicole Mincey” and is also African-American.
People on Twitter have insisted that Mincey is not a real person and is actually a bot designed to churn out positive memes about Trump.
Tracing the identity of “Nicole Mincey” does indeed have an Alice in Wonderland rabbit hole feel to it. While “Nicole Mincey” may indeed be an identity created by a shadowy group to market the “ProTrump45” brand that sells merchandise, there is a real person’s name attached to it: Nicole Mincy, a Jersey City college student.
The real name of the New Jersey college student was used to register now-defunct online stores and a GoFundMe page for “Young Black Republicans” that has also been deleted. The GoFundMe page used both the name “Nicole Mincey” and the college student’s real name on the same profile description and raised a small amount of money. The real woman’s Facebook page, which is filled with photos of her life, was used to create the GoFundMe account.
Asked about all of this through her real Facebook page, Nicole Mincy, the real college student, told Heavy in a series of responses, “My Facebook was recently hacked and used to sign up to several websites I already cleared that up with Facebook…. Thanks.” At another point in the conversation, she wrote, “just admit this ‘Nicole’ character is in fact a robot.” And at another point, “I’ve received threats for a store that doesn’t even belong to me.” She also said, “I’m not even interested in politics or have anything to do with Trump.”
“Someone altered my name and used it for their business,” she wrote, threatening legal action. She also insisted, “Please take my real name off of your website.”
The real Nicole Mincy is a student in business administration and management at Saint Peter’s University, a Jesuit university in Jersey City, according to her LinkedIn profile. The Saint Peter’s mailroom is the address given in the ProTrump45 press release by media contact “Nicole Mincey.” (Note that some of the tweets in this article are now deleted “ghost tweets” because the Mincey Twitter account has now been suspended, but Heavy is leaving them up so you can get a flavor of the kind of boosterish comments the page wrote about Trump.)
Nicole Mincy, the student, told Daily Beast that she was recruited by people named Lorraine and William (whose identities are unclear) to write for the ProTrump45 store’s blog (blog posts on the site do indeed bear the name Nicole Mincey.) She told the site that she dropped out of the ProTrump45 group in June and, Daily Beast reports, “she got a call from the dean at her college saying someone in her name was using the college’s mailing address for business purposes.”
“Nicole Mincey” says in multiple social media pages that she is a college student who is supposedly from a conservative family whose life story has already been embraced by conservative sites. Her unabashed and constant praising of Trump on social media and her use of a pseudonym on Twitter has many people online insisting that she is a bot and doesn’t actually exist. One woman even wrote Heavy so angrily insistent that “Nicole Mincey” is a bot that she said she had contacted the police in New Jersey to report the “fraud.”
The bot argument was generated in part by the fact that “Nicole Mincey” uses the photo of another woman, a model, as her Twitter profile picture:
The photo that “Nicole Mincey” used as her Twitter profile picture.
Nicole Mincy says that’s not her.
She is, indeed, a college student, scheduled to graduate in 2018. Her life closely tracks the biographical details put out about the Nicole Mincey persona. One reader sent Heavy a screenshot showing that Nicole Mincey’s page wrote in a post that it was her birthday on the day of the New Jersey college student’s birthday, although Heavy could not independently verify that because the account has now been suspended. Heavy did find posts in which people tweeted at both what was positioned as the real student’s Twitter page and the ProTrump45 page in the same tweet as far back as April.
Below is a screen shot of the social media page in the name of the college student from New Jersey, that ProTrump45 directed people to, calling it her “personal page.” On both Twitter and Instagram that page told followers, including the GOP, to go follow her on the personal page. Heavy has blurred out the account’s handle, again to protect her identity because she claims it was stolen.
Placeit, where the modeling images came from, wrote on Twitter that it considers the use of them identity theft. The site wrote that it had identified a list of 10 accounts – all tracing to one person it didn’t name – and reported them to Twitter for suspension. The pages adopted personas so different that they purported to be people of different races and living in different states. One cached profile of a suspended account, for example, reads, “Coolest White boy you know . South Carolina, USA,” whereas the Mincey identity was a New Jersey woman who is African American as Nicole Mincy actually is in real life.
Those are who are using Placeit models to create bot accounts are committing identify fraud. We will be reporting every single one of them.
Heavy uncovered that her name was used to create another pro-Trump store, which has now been deleted. She denies that the site was created by her. The name was also connected to a now-inactive GoFundMe account.
The college student from New Jersey lists a series of internships on her LinkedIn page, and says she was once a tutor of disabled children in New Jersey.
2. ‘Mincey’ Once Supported Barack Obama, Online Columns Claimed
https://twitter.com/Protrump45/status/894030512695775233
According to the persona put out on social media, “Nicole Mincey” didn’t always consider herself to be a conservative. But “she” wrote in the Daily Caller and Medium posts that Trump changed all of that.
https://twitter.com/Protrump45/status/893260420919599109
“Nicole, despite being raised by a conservative family, grew up liberal and once was a big fan of Democrats and former President Barack Obama. However during the 2016 election she listened to Donald Trump promise lower taxes and more opportunities for Americans before illegal immigrants and refugees. Looking at the mere statistics, Obama did not do a good job for African Americans,” the Medium post said, adding that Mincey began sharing her pro Trump views on social media.
It gets even more complicated.
A person using the same real college student’s name also has created a site in the name “Kendra Manning” that says she’s a “mogul.” “Kendra Manning” has a Twitter page with yet another model’s picture, and the claim that “Kendra Manning” is a “Blogger at Medium, Buzzfeed, OnMogul and Protrump45.” The Buzzfeed page linked by the Manning Twitter page has been deleted. The Kendra Twitter page even tweeted at the “Nicole Mincey” Twitter page.
https://twitter.com/Protrump45/status/893954934546333698
Online records show the college student is 21-years-old and provide a birth date, relatives’ names and addresses.
“Nicole Mincey” has given at least one interview with direct quotes and, although her Twitter page is mostly Trump memes and cheerleading, she also writes comments on the site, although some on Twitter have said there are similarities between comments on her page and those on other pro Trump sites.
According to the Daily Caller post, Mincey “is an African American female from Camden, NJ. She grew up in poverty and during this time her mother taught her the importance of hard work and self-responsibility.” However, the Daily Caller post appears to derive from a Medium article self-posted by “Kendra Manning,” one of the names that the college student’s identity is tied to online. “Kendra” wrote “Nicole” of “ProTrump45”: “Nicole I also write for buzz feed ? I can get you an article on there too.”
The site continues, “Her mother was a strong woman and a hardline conservative. Through hard work Nicole is now a college student and owner of ProTrump45, a pro-Trump empire.”
According to the Daily Caller, the post on its site was a one-time “sponsored post,” that was purchased as an ad by someone connected to ProTrump45. The website did not get any revenue sharing through the post and it was not handled by its editorial department.
3. ‘Mincey’ Defines Herself as an Entrepreneur & ‘Black Conservative’
https://twitter.com/Protrump45/status/894045496171532288
The Mincey Twitter account associated with ProTrump45 frequently wrote about politics. A sampling, “The Dem Party is in free fall. Not only do they have no message, but they are in debt. THANK GOD they aren’t running our country anymore!”
And: “Trump supporters need to start running for office. If you know you have what it takes, consider it. We will mobilize right behind you. #MAGA.”
https://twitter.com/Protrump45/status/893479344181571584
And: “Trump should publicly order an investigation of Hillary, Obama, Comey, Lynch, and Holder. Get the focus off this ridiculous Russia crap!”
ProTrump45 has also posted using the name “BlackGirlPatriot.”
https://www.instagram.com/p/BQKAg6jA4ku/?taken-by=protrump45
“ProTrump45” also has an Instagram page. There is also a ProTrump45 YouTube channel.
The college student in question has now privatized her Instagram page, which contained non-political pictures of her life and schooling.
4. ‘Nicole Mincey’ Linked to a Website Devoted to Selling Trump-related Products
https://twitter.com/Protrump45/status/893902021258072064
What was the Trump store underlying all of this? It purports to sell hats and T-shirts touting the president, although a phone number provided for it was busy when called.
The Mincey account linked to the website ProTrump45.com on Twitter. A blog on the ProTrump45 merchandise site carries posts by the author name “Kendra Manning,” and “Nicole Mincey,” but also other people. The name of the person who registered the ProTrump45 website store’s domain is protected on domain registry search sites.
“This is a perfect store built by a Trump supporter for Trump supporters,” the website says.
The site says that Trump represents “the silent majority of America, the hard working, military serving, God fearing conservative Americans.”
https://twitter.com/Protrump45/status/893970101929693184
“He doesn’t ignore the middle states of America like most presidents but gives a voice. And no Trump supporters are not bigots thats (sic) how fake news painted us,” the site adds.
Some Trump critics had labeled Mincey a “troll” on Twitter for her pro-Trump tweeting. A bio for “Nicole Mincey” on the ProTrump45 store website was posted by “Kurtis Michael,” and reads in part, “Nicole is a heartwarming reminder of how big the minority Republican movement really is. Whether it’s young woman from an urban city or an elderly man from the countryside, the Trump movement is America’s first movement that have support from people of all ages and backgrounds. This black trump supporter goes above and beyond to reveal the hypocrisy of liberals and help trump supporters no matter where in america they are show their Trump pride.”
The press release announcing the creation of ProTrump45 reads in part, “pro-trump clothing company unveils their unique company to offer quality and trendy, hoodies, flags and hats that express patriotism and love for the USA. Moreover they have a top-notch google play app called ‘ProTrump45’ to display their market and online store products. They operate in a distinctive endless catalog updated daily to offer the product that’s cherished.”
5. ‘Nicole Mincey’ Says She Didn’t Like How Democrats Painted People as ‘Victims’ & Has Appeared on the Radio
https://twitter.com/Protrump45/status/894053108208324608
“Nicole Mincey” interacted with reporters, and there’s even audio of the person doing it.
Mincey told WND in an interview that she was from Newark, New Jersey. “I was raised in a bad neighborhood.”
She told the site she became “an ex-Democrat” because the party wouldn’t adopt “self-responsibility.” The WND story included a photo that showed a woman in a “Make America Great Again” hat with her face mostly hidden. WND is a conservative site; the author on the story with the Nicole Mincey interview is Bob Unruh, who identifies himself as a former Associated Press writer. Heavy has reached out to Unruh for comment.
The same photo appears on a page promoting a woman’s June 2017 appearance on a radio show in New Rochelle, New York, although the name is spelled “Niciole Mincey.” The website promoting the radio show contained this blurb: “President Trump is not only a controversial figure, but many of his loyal constituents also. Tune in today to Westchester Eye on the Radio for a lively discussion of Blacks and Latinos who support the President. Program starts at 3 pm on WVOX 1460AM. Guests are political activist Efrain Gonzalez jr., ProTrump45 store owner, Niciole Mincey and the infamous Jimmy McMillan, best known for pioneering the slogan ‘The rent is too damn high.'”
The host in that time period, Peter Moses, was contacted by Heavy and responded, “I have no interest in this story.” Asked if someone by the name of “Nicole Mincey” appeared on his show, he replied, “I do not recall.” The audio from the show does not appear to be online, and Heavy has written the radio station in an attempt to obtain it.
In the Trending USA May 2017 interview, the audio of which is easily available on YouTube and the Trending USA website, “Nicole Mincey” was positioned as a voice for black millennials. “I used to be a liberal and I used to be a Democrat and I used to be an Obama supporter, but things have changed. I realize the facts, and not emotions. I let facts determine decide who I vote for now,” she said on the radio show.
She claimed that people were “brainwashed by the liberal media because most of it is fake anyway and most of it is biased and outright lying sometimes.”
The woman using the name Nicole Mincey – whom Nicole Mincy told Daily Beast wasn’t her – claimed she looked up the “facts” about the Barack Obama administration and she claimed that black income and home ownership did not fare well under Obama. “I realized the Democrats just get out vote and they don’t do anything to keep it,” she said on the radio show.
Of Trump she said, “I am pretty sure he is going to be the kind of president who actually do something to keep out vote.”
She added, “I’m sick of things the way they are… I’m tired of politicians not following on their word.” She called Trump a “successful businessman” and called the other candidates “plain establishment, and they just go along with the flow.” She said she felt eventually they would “sell out.”
She said that Trump could have kept his lifestyle but chose to run for president instead. “He’s anti-establishment,” she said of Trump. “…he’s not just going to do what the media says.” She added, “He’s trying to get lobbyists out.”
A Rockland County, New York newspaper also ran an article about “Nicole Mincey,” although it doesn’t quote her directly.
The WND article quoted “Nicole Mincey” as saying, “Everyone is a victim in their eyes and you can’t succeed unless the government helps you on someone else’s expense. I went to a charter high school where we constantly received threats to [be] shut down by Democratic politicians. We had to always do fundraisers to stay afloat.”
https://twitter.com/Protrump45/status/893256463581405184
The woman identified by WND as Nicole Mincey told the site she wanted to break stereotypes about conservatives, saying, “The media has painted Republican conservatives as old, white people that are racist. I’m a young black … college student that is female. Liberals see me and don’t know what to say because they can’t throw the racist card at me…I saw a financial opportunity and took it. That’s the perks of capitalism.”
Meanwhile, as anti Trump people on Twitter accuse “Mincey” of being a bot who is not a real person, pro Trump people on Twitter are tweeting their upset that Twitter suspended the account of someone Trump retweeted.
https://twitter.com/TEN_GOP/status/894385396548870145
This story is being updated as more information is learned about “Nicole Mincey.”