Help me buy Twitter to kick Trump off, says ex-CIA agent

Former undercover CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson is trying to crowdfund enough money to buy Twitter – so Donald Trump cannot use it.

Ms Wilson launched the fund-raiser last week, tweeting: “If @Twitter executives won’t shut down Trump’s violence and hate, then it’s up to us. #BuyTwitter #BanTrump.”

The GoFundMe page for her bid says US president Mr Trump’s tweets “damage the country and put people in harm’s way”.

But as of Wednesday morning, Ms Wilson had raised less than 6,000 dollars (£4,700) of her billion-dollar (£781m) goal.

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said the low total showed that the American people liked the Republican president’s use of Twitter.

“Her ridiculous attempt to shut down his first amendment is the only clear violation and expression of hate and intolerance in this equation,” she said.

Ms Wilson wrote on the fund-raiser’s GoFundMe page that she hoped to raise enough money to buy a controlling interest of Twitter stock.

If she does not have enough to purchase a majority of shares, she says she will explore options to buy “a significant stake” and champion the proposal at Twitter’s annual shareholder meeting.

If Ms Wilson were to hit her billion-dollar goal, she would still fall far short of gaining a controlling interest in the company.

As of Wednesday, a majority stake would cost about six billion dollars (£4.7bn). But a one-billion stake would make her Twitter’s largest shareholder and give her a very strong position to exert influence on the company.

Twitter declined to comment on Ms Wilson’s tweet about seeking to buy the San Francisco-based company.

Ms Wilson’s identity as a CIA operative was leaked by an official in George W Bush’s administration in 2003, in an effort to discredit her husband Joe Wilson, a former diplomat who criticised Mr Bush’s decision to invade Iraq.

She left the agency in 2005.