The left-leaning Associated Press helped fuel an unsubstantiated narrative on Thursday when it quickly spread a poorly-sourced claim from the left-leaning Anti Defamation League (ADL) which claimed that the Florida gunman was a member of a white supremacist militia group in Florida.
Abandoning all journalistic integrity, the Associated Press took the statement from the leader of the Republic of Florida Militia, Jordan Jereb, that gunman Nikolas Cruz was a part of his organization as a fact.
In a tweet that got approximately 40,000 re-tweets, the Associated Press wrote: “BREAKING: Leader of white nationalist group has confirmed suspect in Florida school shooting was member of his organization.”
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Only a couple of hours later, police confirmed that they had found no information that connected Cruz to this group — and Jereb even admitted that his claim was not true!
Even the far-left Southern Poverty Law Center noted Jereb is a “publicity seeker,” and that he had made desperate attempts for attention to their organization in the past:
In 2014, in fact, he wrote us to complain that we had not already listed ROF as a hate group. In April 2017, Michael Tubbs, the leader of the Florida chapter of the League of the South, a well-known hate group, wrote that Jereb ‘never misses a photo op’ and called him ‘a nut job who should be avoided.’
Make no mistake, the Associated Press has left their false tweet up for hours for one reason — to inflict maximum political damage on President Donald Trump. The media are trying to present every white person who commits an evil act as some sort of white supremacist, which they then try to tie to Trump.
Notice how anytime an Islamic terrorist shouts “Allahu Akbar” the Associated Press will downplay it by falsely claiming the terrorist shouted, “God is great.” The Associated Press also makes up completely fake terms, for example, calling illegal aliens, “undocumented citizens.”