Tag: Trump big lie

Newsmax Retracts Support For Election Conspiracy Theory That Forced A Colorado Man Into Hiding

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The conservative media outlet Newsmax, which amplified former President Trump’s false allegations of election rigging and widespread voter fraud, said on Friday that there is no evidence that Dominion Voting Systems or one of its top employees, Eric Coomer, manipulated election results in 2020. 

“Newsmax subsequently found no evidence that such allegations were true. Many of the states whose results were contested by the Trump campaign after the November 2020 election have conducted extensive recounts and audits, and each of these states certified the results as legal and final,” according to a written statement that is also expected to air on television.

Coomer filed a lawsuit against Newsmax for defamation in Colorado state court on December 22, 2020. He withdrew that suit earlier on Friday, ahead of Newmax’s apology. Coomer’s attorneys say he has reached a financial settlement, but terms of the arrangement were not disclosed.  Continue reading.

Fox News Parts Ways With Anchor Leland Vittert, Off Air Since Just After Covering Capitol Riots

Vittert was notable in 2020 for pushing back against Trump’s false claims of voter fraud

Fox News has “mutually and amicably parted ways” with reporter Leland Vittert, the network told TheWrap Friday. The network confirms what has been the de facto state of affairs for months; Vittert has not appeared on the network or posted from his Twitter account since January.

“We have mutually and amicably parted ways with Leland Vittert,” a Fox News spokesperson told TheWrap.

Vittert had been with Fox News since 2010, and Fox has declined to explain why he has left the network after a decade. But it’s notable that Vittert was one of the few Fox reporters who contested the Trump campaign’s lies about election fraud during the 2020 election, including an interview with Trump’s communications director Erin Perrine that descended into a shouting match. Continue reading.

Reporter catches a Republican who allegedly went to the Capitol riot counting ballots in the shady AZ audit

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This week, Arizona has had a blatantly partisan, Republican-inspired ‘audit’ of Maricopa County’s votes in the 2020 presidential election. And one of the people seen counting ballots, according to reporter Brahm Resnik, was former Arizona State Rep. Anthony Kern — a far-right Republican who was in Washington, D.C. on January 6 for former President Donald Trump’s infamous “Stop the Steal” rally.

The recount in Maricopa County, which includes Phoenix, was ordered by Republicans in the Arizona State Senate and has been conducted by the Florida-based firm Cyber Ninjas — with One America News, a cable channel that prides itself on being to the right of Fox News, handling the livestream. Arizona Democrats have been slamming the recount as a pointless farce, noting that the election results in that state were certified by conservative Republican Gov. Doug Ducey last year and were already verified repeatedly.

In other words, now-President Joe Biden’s victory over Trump in Arizona was thoroughly vetted and settled. Regardless, Republicans in the Arizona State Senate wanted another audit more than five months after Biden won the state. Continue reading.

U.S. prosecutors release video of rioters spraying Officer Brian Sicknick in Jan. 6 Capitol attack

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Video footage released Wednesday of the January attack on the Capitol shows the moments when rioters appeared to spray an unknown substance at Capitol Police Officer Brian D. Sicknick, forcing him to retreat behind police lines.

Sicknick, 42, was among the vastly outnumbered officers attempting to hold back a violent crowd on the west side of the Capitol at around 2:30 p.m. Jan. 6. He died the next day of natural causes, officials said, and has been hailed as a hero.

Trump supporter found guilty of threatening to kill members of Congress after Jan. 6 insurrection

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NEW YORK — Brendan Hunt, a Trump supporter who called for killing members of Congress days after the Jan. 6 insurrection, was found guilty Wednesday of making a death threat against elected officials.

The jury, which took about three hours to reach its verdict, found that comments Hunt made in a disturbing video posted online two days after the U.S. Capitol riot amounted to a genuine threat to murder lawmakers in Washington. He faces up to 10 years in prison.

Hundreds of people have been arrested following the Capitol attack. Although Hunt did not participate in the riot, his case is believed to be the first of those charged in connection with it to go to trial. His prosecution in Brooklyn federal court has been seen as a test of how far violent speech can go before it crosses a line into criminality and comes as such politically charged rhetoric on social media has come under increasing scrutiny. Continue reading.

Last-ditch attempt to undermine the presidential election came from another disturbing QAnon conspiracy

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The 2020 presidential election was over several months ago, but there is still an audit underway in Maricopa County, Ariz. — and it’s contributing to another full-blown conspiracy being perpetrated by QAnon believes.

According to The Daily Beast, audit watchers are now expressing concern about the presence of a man named Ron Watkins, an individual who is believed to have contributed to the birth of the whole QAnon conspiracy theory.

Although this recount should have no impact on the outcome of the presidential election since Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey (R), Arizona Secretary of State and the state’s Supreme Court chief justice have certified the results of the election, it has become a serious focal point for the conspiracy theorists that embraced former President Donald Trump’s claims about the election being stolen. Continue reading.

D.C. officer who suffered heart attack on Jan. 6 calls out Trump for downplaying ‘brutal, savage’ riot

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On Jan. 6, D.C. police officer Michael Fanone was swarmed by a pro-Trump moband dragged down the Capitol steps, suffering a mild heart attack and a concussion as he was shocked with a stun gun and beaten.

In the months since, Fanone said it has been “difficult” to listen to politicians like former president Donald Trump, who last month falsely claimed rioters were actually “hugging and kissing” police, downplay the severity of the insurrection.

“It’s been very difficult seeing elected officials and other individuals kind of whitewash the events of that day or downplay what happened,” Fanone told CNN’s Don Lemon on Tuesday night. “Some of the terminology that was used, like ‘hugs and kisses’ and ‘very fine people,’ is very different from what I experienced and what my co-workers experienced on the 6th.” Continue reading.

Capitol rioter couldn’t fool Feds by restoring iPhone factory settings

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Jeffrey Register was arrested by the FBI Tuesday after discovering that the feds understand technology much better than he does.

Register, 38, of Fernandina Beach FL, surrendered himself to face trespassing and disorderly conduct charges in connection with the January 6 Capitol riot. Register had initially denied he was there when interviewed February 24 by an FBI agent. 

But when confronted with photographic evidence, Register “admitted that he deleted photographs from his phone and claimed to have ‘factory reset’ his cellphone in order to, in his words, delete what might be proof that he entered the building,” according to the FBI complaint. Continue reading.

Judge has doubts on voter privacy in Arizona recount

PHOENIX (AP) — A judge hearing a challenge to voter privacy policies during the Republican-controlled Arizona Senate’s recount of 2.1 million 2020 election ballots in the county that includes metro Phoenix said Tuesday he is not convinced voter secrecy is being upheld. 

The comment from Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Daniel Martin came at the end of a lengthy hearing where he also declined to extend a previous judge’s order that auditors hired by the Senate comply with state voter privacy laws — at least until he hears more at a hearing on Wednesday.

“I will share with you all, I am not yet persuaded that there has been a showing that the rights of the voters in Maricopa County are being protected,” Martin said. “And I think we will touch on this tomorrow when we address the policies and procedures and whether or not they can be withheld from public view.” Continue reading.

Rioter Who Posed in Pelosi’s Office Argues for Release: I Called Her a ‘Biatch,’ Not ‘Bitch’

The self-described white nationalist who stormed Sen. Nancy Pelosi’s (D-CA) office during the Capitol riot has a new argument for why he shouldn’t be jailed pending trial: He isn’t a threat because he only called the House speaker “a biatch.” In a motion last week to modify Richard “Bigo” Barnett’s bail, his lawyer argued that he isn’t a threat to society because the note he left on Pelosi’s office during the riots was not dangerous. The motion claims that while prosecutors insist the note read “Hey Nancy Bigo was here bitch,” the 60-year-old Arkansas man actually wrote “biatd.”

“On information and belief, the ‘d’ was meant to be two letters, ‘c’ and ‘h’ with the ‘c’ connected to an ‘h’ to spell the word ‘biatch’ which is a slang and less offensive word for ‘bitch,’” the motion states, as first reported by Politico. “As such, Richard now asks this Court to look past and ultimately disregard the government’s distorted representations, which do not rise to the level of showing ‘dangerousness’ and grant Richard pretrial release as required by law and recent court decisions,” the motion added. Barnett, who faces several charges, including theft, after posing for an infamous photo in Pelosi’s office and wielding a stun gun during the Jan. 6 insurrection, has a hearing on May 4. Continue reading.