Trump campaign sued over Donald Trump Jr.’s Skittles tweet

After being publicly chastised by a candy company for comparing Syrian refugees to poisoned Skittles, Donald Trump Jr. is now being sued by the photographer of the image – a refugee.

Trump Jr. recycled a white-supremacist meme first shared by former Republican congressman Joe Walsh last month when he affixed the official Trump campaign logo onto an image of a bowl of Skittles candy, asking, “If I had a bowl of Skittles and I told you three would kill you, would you take a handful?”

“That’s our Syrian refugee problem.”
David Kittos, the photographer of the Skittles imaged used by Trump Jr., filed a lawsuit Tuesday in an Illinois federal court alleging that the photo used in the tweet is his and was used without his permission. Kittos, an England-based photographer who shares much of his work on Flickr, is suing Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, Donald Trump Jr., the Trump campaign and vice presidential candidate Mike Pence for copyright infringement. Kitto said in his complaint that he included an All Rights Reserved copyright notice that Trump Jr. ignored.

After Kittos filed a complaint under the Digital Millenium Copyright Act in the days following Trump Jr.’s tweet went viral, Twitter removed the image. Mars Inc., the parent company of Wrigley which makes Skittles, was also forced to make a statement rebuking Trump’s fearmongering over refugees using candy.