Tucker Carlson on Monday revived a false conspiracy concept about Seth Wealthy, the slain Democratic Nationwide Committee staffer whose killing grew to become a prop that Fox News used to draw consideration away from Russia’s meddling within the 2016 election.
Carlson, who didn’t discuss with Wealthy by identify, was reacting to a Friday court docket submitting by Particular Counsel John Durham, who was tasked with investigating the origins of the intelligence neighborhood’s investigation into Donald Trump’s ties to Russia throughout the 2016 presidential marketing campaign.
Durham accused a lawyer for the Democrats of sharing web knowledge with the CIA that allegedly confirmed Russian-made telephones getting used close to the White Home, thus reflecting poorly on Trump. A number of right-wing media figures and politicians have falsely claimed that the submitting reveals that Trump was spied on and the topic of a smear marketing campaign by Hillary Clinton.
Carlson jumped on that bandwagon on his present Monday evening. The concept that Trump was the sufferer of a Hillary Clinton plot “has been verified,” he mentioned. “That declare is true. It really occurred.”
The Fox News host then performed a 2016 debate clip of Clinton mentioning Russia’s cyber assaults on American methods.
“That’s in all probability true, in reality. However she was talking a few particular quote ‘cyber assault.’ She was speaking in regards to the Russians hacking the servers on the DNC,” Carlson mentioned. “Right here’s the fascinating factor: It was not true. It has by no means been true.”
The U.S. intelligence neighborhood and Particular Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation each discovered that Russians have been, in reality, answerable for the hacking.
However reasonably than Russia, Carlson claimed, “the DNC emails have been very clearly stolen from inside the constructing, more than likely by a Bernie Sanders supporter who wished to point out the world how Bernie Sanders was being shafted by the exact same corrupt forces in Washington that later shafted Donald Trump.”
By implying that Wealthy is that this unnamed supporter of Bernie Sanders, Carlson is sticking his toe again into waters that finally have gotten Fox News in a whole lot of hassle. A 2018 article that ended up being retracted, in addition to feedback from hosts like Sean Hannity, linked Wealthy’s unsolved homicide in 2016 to the hacking of DNC emails as revealed by Wikileaks. In November 2020, Fox News settled a lawsuit with Wealthy’s dad and mom, who had sued the community over emotional misery.
A consultant for Fox News didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.
