The eagle has two heads instead of one - a symbol historically tied to empire and dominance. It closely resembles the bird on the Russian coat of arms and also appears on the flags of Serbia, Albania and Montenegro. Its left talons, rather than clasping 13 arrows, appear to clutch a set of golf clubs. President Donald Trump stands in front of a doctored presidential seal on stage at the Turning Point USA student action summit. Credit:Bloomberg One Washington Post reader noted a website that sells merchandise featuring what appears to be the same fake seal. The man who "designed" the fake seal on the website, Charles Leazott, hadn't thought about it in months. The 46-year-old graphic designer threw it together after the 2016 presidential election - it was one part joke, one part catharsis. He used to be a proud Republican. He voted for George W. Bush twice.

But Donald Trump's GOP was no longer his party. So he created a mock presidential seal to prove his point. He substituted the arrows in the eagle's claw for a set of golf clubs - a nod to the new President's favorite pastime. In the other set of talons, he swapped the olive branch for a wad of cash and replaced the United States' Latin motto with a Spanish insult. Then, his coup de grace: a two-headed imperial bird lifted straight from the Russian coat of arms, an homage to the President's checkered history with the adversarial country. "This is the most petty piece of art I have ever created," the Richmond, Leazott said in an interview. The seal wasn't meant for a wide audience. The doctored seal (left) had a two-headed eagle clutching a set of golf clubs, unlike the proper presidential seal (right). Credit:AP

When Leazott woke up on Thursday, after the seal was shown to be a fake and the internet went crazy over it, he had a torrent of messages. "It's been chaos," he said. "This is not what I expected when I woke up today." The faux seal was on the screen for at least 80 seconds, in plain sight but largely ignored as hundreds in the room trained their attention on Trump. But it was loaded with jabs - subtle and overt. The Russian eagle, an allusion to accusations that he embraced the Kremlin, and the Spanish script, a reference to Trump's controversial border policies and his denigration of Latin American immigrants. Instead of E pluribus unum - "out of many, one" - Leazott wrote "45 es un títere," or "45 is a puppet," a callback to a viral exchange between Trump and Hillary Clinton in a 2016 debate. "I'm a graphic designer, it's just something I tossed together," he said. "This was just a goofy thing for some people I knew. I had no idea it would blow up like this."

A White House spokesman said they did not see the fake seal before it appeared on screen and referred questions about the incident to Turning Point. The White House was unaware of the issue and said they weren't responsible for any organisation of the event. Credit:AP By Thursday morning, the Turning Point spokesman said the group had identified the staffer responsible for turning Leazott's design into a trending topic. He called the incident a last-minute oversight, the result of a quick online search to find a second high-resolution photo of the presidential seal to place behind Trump. He said the mistake was "unacceptable." "We did let the individual go," the spokesman said. "I don't think it was malicious intent, but nevertheless."

Leazott doesn't buy it. He thinks whoever was responsible had to know exactly what they were looking for. He believes the person dug up the image he created and used it intentionally. "That's a load of crap," he said in response. "You have to look for this. There's no way this was an accident is all I'm saying." After the Post published the fake seal story, internet sleuths went looking. They found the image's origin, tracing it back to the website Leazott set up to sell shirts and stickers sporting the seal, along with other jokey "resistance" apparel. In one fell news cycle, Leazott began making money and fielding calls from papers and TV stations from across the country. People wanted to support him. But the trolls came, too.

"The worst has been Facebook," he said, which he hadn't checked "in like a year." "Holy crap at the amount of vile, hateful Facebook messages," he said. "It's apparently a personal affront to some people." The double-headed eagle is in the Russian coat of arms and often appears on Russian flags. Credit:Bloomberg But, Leazott said, it's him who gets the last laugh. A photo of Trump in front of his seal is now his computer background, and the person who used it at the event is "either wildly incompetent or the best troll ever - either way, I love them." As of Thursday afternoon, Leazott's shirts were sold out. He said he had to start working with a fulfillment center just to meet the demand. He also revived the primary website for his brand, OneTermDonnie, which includes a paean to the American Civil Liberties Union, where the site says 10 per cent of all sales will be directed.

"It's cool people are buying this, that's great and all," he said. "But I've got to be honest, I am so tickled in the most petty way possible that the President of the United States, who I despise, stood up and gave a talk in front of this graphic. Whoever put that up is my absolute hero." Loading Richard Painter, who served as the chief White House ethics lawyer for President George W. Bush from 2005 to 2007, said the President's staff should typically have advance knowledge and command over images and video displayed at events where the president appears. He called the incident "careless". "You should have control over what the private group is doing, what they're putting on the screen and anything else," said Painter, now a law professor at the University of Minnesota. "To let someone project something on the screen that isn't controlled by the White House is pretty stupid."