Internet trolls say CNN is blackmailing the guy who posted a viral Donald Trump meme

CNN is learning the hard way that when you try to be nice to pro-Trump trolls, they do not reciprocate the gratitude.

On Wednesday, CNN tracked down the troll who created the GIF of President Donald Trump tackling an embodiment of “CNN” — in reality the CNN logo superimposed on the body of Vince McMahon during a wrestling match a decade ago. The tweet went viral when Trump retweeted it. CNN discovered that the user, HanAssholeSolo, also posted a slew of racist and anti-Semitic posts. The user was quick to apologize to other users on Reddit.

“First of all, I would like to apologize to the members of the reddit community for getting this site and this sub embroiled in a controversy that should never have happened,” the apology read. “I would also like to apologize for the posts made that were racist, bigoted, and anti-semitic. I am in no way this kind of person, I love and accept people of all walks of life and have done so for my entire life.”

He added, “The meme was created purely as satire, it was not meant to be a call to violence against CNN or any other news affiliation.”

HanAssholeSolo told CNN he was nervous about his identity being revealed, which led CNN to withhold his information because “he is a private citizen who has issued an extensive statement of apology, showed his remorse by saying he has taken down all his offending posts, and because he said he is not going to repeat this ugly behavior on social media again. In addition, he said his statement could serve as an example to others not to do the same.”