A former medical corespondent for an NBC News affiliate in Los Angeles has been charged with asking a nine-year-old girl with sexually suggestive photos.
Dr. Bruce Hensel, who was charged in Santa Monica on Wednesday, is 71 years old.
&#8220;The Los Angeles Police Department said detectives began a child sexual exploitation investigation involving a nine-year-old child after inappropriate messages and photographs were shared between the child and a man believed to be Hensel,&#8221; <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ex-tv-medical-correspondent-charged-with-asking-9-year-old-girl-for-racy-photos/?ftag=CNM-00-10aab7e&amp;linkId=77027356">CBS News</a> reported Thursday.
The nine-year-old child is the daughter of an acquaintance of Hensel&#8217;s, the report noted. Hensel allegedly requested the racy images from the girl, whose name will not be revealed, via a messaging app on August 4th, according the Los Angeles County District Attorney&#8217;s Office.
The former correspondent faces one felony count of contact with a minor for sexual purposes, according to Deputy D.A. Angela Brunson.
The 71-year-old was being held on $5,000 bail after the Wednesday arrest but was later released, reported CBS.
If convicted, Hensel could serve out 18 months in state prison.
The former NBC employee maintains his innocence.
A lawyer for Hensel said his client &#8220;is completely innocent of the charge.&#8221;
&#8220;We are cooperating with the authorities and look forward to a speedy and complete exoneration,&#8221; the lawyer told reporters.
&#8220;Hensel is well known in the area as the former chief medical correspondent for KNBC-TV. He won 11 Emmys and two Golden Mike awards for his work in Los Angeles media,&#8221; CBS reported, noting that his &#8220;LinkedIn profile says he spent 29 years with NBC — much of that time at KNBC as its medical and science reporter but left the station in May of 2016.&#8221;
NBC has been plagued with controversy since journalist Ronan Farrow claimed his bombshell story exposing Hollywood producer and alleged serial sexual predator Harvey Weinstein was spiked by the network.
In Farrow’s new book, “Catch and Kill,&#8221; the journalist exposed another hit against NBC, a rape accusation against their former star morning host Matt Lauer. According to the accuser, Brooke Nevils, the accusation was known throughout the company before she filed a formal complaint.
Nevils, a former NBC News employee herself, claimed she was anally raped by Lauer in 2014 while covering the Sochi Olympics. 
Nevils told Farrow that she, then-“Today” anchor Meredith Vieira, and Lauer had drinks at the hotel bar where the NBC team was staying during the Olympics. After socializing, Nevils said she went to Lauer’s hotel room to get back her press credentials, which she said were taken by Lauer as a joke. She then returned to his room a second time upon invite, when the alleged rape took place. 
“Once she was in his hotel room, Nevils alleges, Lauer — who was wearing a T-shirt and boxers — pushed her against the door and kissed her. He then pushed her onto the bed, ‘flipping her over, asking if she liked anal sex,’ Farrow writes. ‘She said that she declined several times,’” the <a href="https://variety.com/2019/tv/news/matt-lauer-rape-nbc-ronan-farrow-book-catch-kill-1203364485/">Variety</a> report detailed the alleged encounter per Farrow&#8217;s book.
Nevils claims she “was in the midst of telling him she wasn’t interested again when he ‘just did it,’” Farrow wrote in the book. “Lauer, she said, didn’t use lubricant. The encounter was excruciatingly painful. ‘It hurt so bad. I remember thinking, Is this normal?’ She told me she stopped saying no, but wept silently into a pillow.” 
It was suggested last month by Fox News host Tucker Carlson that former NBC employee Megyn Kelly was canned by the network for publicly asking for an outside investigation into the apparent mishandling of both the Weinstein story and accusations against Lauer. Kelly did not comment on Carlson&#8217;s accusation.

NBC Headquarters in New York City

Former NBC Affiliate Correspondent Charged With Asking 9-Year-Old For Sexual Photos

Sexuality

On Wednesday, NBCUniversal announced that there will not be any additional investigations into sexual misconduct allegations surrounding former “Today” host Matt Lauer. 
&#8220;There is no additional investigation being launched,” NBCUniversal spokesperson Hilary Smith said, according to <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/nbcuniversal-wont-conduct-new-matt-lauer-investigation-1248592">The Hollywood Reporter</a>. &#8220;We are very confident in the report that was conducted.”
&#8220;We fired Matt Lauer within 24 hours of learning what he did, and promptly launched a corporate investigation,” Smith contended. “Based on our investigative findings, we have swiftly taken appropriate actions to address the situation and improve workplace culture. It is also worth noting that this was a corporate investigation that was conducted by an almost entirely female team, none of whom are part of the News division.&#8221;
Megyn Kelly, a former NBC employee who’s been vocal in her support for an outside investigation, blasted the network for their lack on transparency. 
“CBS, FOX, NPR, NFL &#8211; all hired outside investigators,” she posted to Twitter. “NBC again refuses to do so &#8230; as it claims it has ‘nothing to hide.’”
“RELEASE ALL LAUER ACCUSERS FROM THEIR NON-DISCLOSURES,” Kelly added, in all upper case letters.
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CBS, FOX, NPR, NFL &#8211; all hired outside investigators. NBC again refuses to do so &#8230; as it claims it has “nothing to hide.” RELEASE ALL LAUER ACCUSERS FROM THEIR NON-DISCLOSURES. <a href="https://t.co/cMoLMYCcE6">https://t.co/cMoLMYCcE6</a>
&mdash; Megyn Kelly (@megynkelly) <a href="https://twitter.com/megynkelly/status/1184971434856202240?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 17, 2019</a></blockquote>
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While working for NBC, Kelly publicly called for an outside investigation into the network over internal claims of sexual misconduct regarding Lauer and the suspect handling of allegations into Democrat megadonor Harvey Weinstein.
“There is a question about whether or not there should be an outside investigator to take a hard look at this,” Kelly <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/tucker-carlson-floats-real-reason-megyn-kelly-was-canned-from-nbc">said</a> on NBC airwaves on September 2, 2018, referring to the Lauer allegations and apparent stonewalling on Weinstein reporting from then-NBC journalist Ronan Farrow. “To me, as a lawyer, it’s just always better to just send it outside, and then people can have more faith in it, and if there’s nothing to hide, you have no worries about it,” she added.
While Kelly was ostensibly fired from NBC a month later for remarks about darkening one&#8217;s face for Halloween costumes, Fox News host Tucker Carlson suggested Wednesday that Kelly was actually canned for calling for an outside investigation.
Kelly neither confirmed nor denied Carlson&#8217;s theory.
“There needs to be an outside investigation into this company,” she told Carlson. “They investigated themselves, that doesn’t work. Fox News had an outside investigator, CBS News had an outside investigator, NPR, the NFL, this is how it’s done. You get somebody on the outside who can be trusted.” 
As reported by <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/matt-lauer-accused-of-rape-by-former-colleague-lauer-responds">The Daily Wire</a> last week, former NBC news employee Brooke Nevils claims she was raped by Lauer in 2014 while covering the Sochi Olympics, Farrow&#8217;s new book &#8220;Catch and Kill&#8221; reveals.
“Once she was in his hotel room, Nevils alleges, Lauer — who was wearing a T-shirt and boxers — pushed her against the door and kissed her. He then pushed her onto the bed, ‘flipping her over, asking if she liked anal sex,’ Farrow writes. ‘She said that she declined several times,’” a report from Variety said.
Nevils claims she “was in the midst of telling him she wasn’t interested again when he ‘just did it,’” Farrow wrote in the book. “Lauer, she said, didn’t use lubricant. The encounter was excruciatingly painful. ‘It hurt so bad. I remember thinking, Is this normal?’ She told me she stopped saying no, but wept silently into a pillow.”
“It was nonconsensual in the sense that I was too drunk to consent,” the former NBC employee told Farrow. “It was nonconsensual in that I said, multiple times, that I didn’t want to have anal sex.”
Nevils admitted that she had consensual sexual encounters with Lauer following the alleged rape — some of which she initiated.
According to Farrow, Nevils says the alleged incident was an open secret at NBC before a formal complaint was filed and Lauer was canned.
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/tucker-carlson-floats-real-reason-megyn-kelly-was-canned-from-nbc">Tucker Carlson Floats Real Reason Megyn Kelly Was Canned From NBC: Called For Independent Investigation</a>

Megyn Kelly

NBC Won&#8217;t Open New Investigation Into Matt Lauer; Megyn Kelly Responds

Matt Lauer

Rape

Ronan Farrow

On Wednesday night, Fox News&#8217; Tucker Carlson, citing published accounts, suggested the real reason Megyn Kelly was canned from her job at NBC last year was because she called for an outside investigation into the network over internal claims of sexual misconduct and the suspect handling of allegations into Democrat mega-donor Harvey Weinstein. 
&#8220;Last September, early September, you (Kelly) on your show, on the air on NBC, called for an independent investigation into these allegations,&#8221; Carlson said to Kelly, who appeared alongside the host on &#8220;Tucker Carlson Tonight.&#8221;
Carlson ran a clip of Kelly doing just that on September 2, 2018. &#8220;There is a question about whether or not there should be an outside investigator to take a hard look at this,&#8221; Kelly said, referring to allegations of sexual misconduct aimed at former “Today” host Matt Lauer and apparent stonewalling on Weinstein reporting of then-NBC journalist Ronan Farrow. “To me, as a lawyer, it&#8217;s just always better to just send it outside, and then people can have more faith in it and if there&#8217;s nothing to hide, you have no worries about it,” Kelly added. 
&#8220;People&#8217;s jaws hung open when you said that,&#8221; Carlson told Kelly. &#8220;There have been a couple of published accounts that say you were fired from NBC, a little more than a month later, for saying that.&#8221;
Kelly was ostensibly canned from NBC in October for discussing whether it’s “racist” or not for people to darken their faces for Halloween costumes. 
Carlson then pointed out that MSNBC host Chris Hayes similarly questioned NBC&#8217;s handling of such allegations and reporting. 
&#8220;He (Hayes) is saying essentially what you said, which is he doesn&#8217;t trust the management at NBC News,&#8221; Carlson said to Kelly. &#8220;Given your experience, do you think he&#8217;s in jeopardy of being fired?”
&#8220;No comment on that,&#8221; Kelly tellingly responded. “I will say, the question is open as to whether [NBC] put dollars ahead of decency.” 
“There needs to be an outside investigation into this company,” she continued. “They investigated themselves, that doesn&#8217;t work. Fox News had an outside investigator, CBS News had an outside investigator, NPR, the NFL, this is how it’s done. You get somebody on the outside who can be trusted.” 
As outlined by Tiana Lowe earlier this week, it’s become increasingly clear that Kelly was likely fired for questioning NBC management, rather than the “blackface” comments, in light of reporting from Farrow&#8217;s new book &#8220;Catch and Kill.&#8221;
“Ronan Farrow&#8217;s explosive reporting on the lengths NBC went to shut down his investigation into Harvey Weinstein grants further credence to an unpalatable, sexist, and abhorrent rationale for Kelly&#8217;s firing: NBC wanted to silence Kelly&#8217;s coverage of their former anchor, Matt Lauer,” Lowe posted at <a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/nbc-probably-fired-megyn-kelly-for-her-matt-lauer-coverage">The Washington Examiner</a>. 
“In the weeks before the blackface nothingburger, Kelly spent ample amounts of time on her talk show reporting on the numerous sexual assault and harassment allegations plaguing Lauer. Unlike many of her fellow daytime hosts, Kelly had covered the #MeToo beat in scrupulous and, at times, necessarily unsavory detail: conducting explosive interviews with multiple Weinstein victims, and when the Lauer story broke and his termination from NBC came shortly thereafter, Kelly covered it with the same righteous indignation,” she continued. “On live television, Kelly called on her own employers to allow an external team to investigate the network&#8217;s handling of the entire Lauer affair, and she went so far as to interview one of Lauer&#8217;s accuser on air.”
“It&#8217;s a massive gamble to criticize the ethics of your own employer on national television, but Kelly rightly made that bet. And NBC fired her for it,&#8221; Lowe claimed. &#8220;We can be more confident thanks to new reporting by Farrow.&#8221;
WATCH:
<iframe title="Megyn Kelly joins Tucker Carlson in first interview since leaving NBC" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/BSCiT6OeL2A?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Tucker Carlson Floats Real Reason Megyn Kelly Was Canned From NBC: Called For Independent Investigation

Harvey Weinstein

Tucker Carlson

NBC News President Noah Oppenheim is attempting to get ahead of the scandal included in former MSNBC host Ronan Farrow’s new book, “Catch and Kill,” which releases on Tuesday.
On Monday morning, Oppenheim sent a lengthy email to NBC News staffers laying out what he alleges are factual inaccuracies in Farrow’s book. The content of the email was shared on Twitter by journalist Yashar Ali. Oppenheim objects to Farrow’s characterization of NBC as having covered up former “Today” show host Matt Lauer’s sexual misconduct in part through payouts to “silence” his accusers who came forward.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
4. NBC News President Noah Oppenheim just sent this long email to NBC News staffers in advance of <a href="https://twitter.com/RonanFarrow?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@RonanFarrow</a>’s book which comes out tomorrow <a href="https://t.co/i62JjZlDit">pic.twitter.com/i62JjZlDit</a>
— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) <a href="https://twitter.com/yashar/status/1183727516462321670?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 14, 2019</a></blockquote>
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&#8220;Matt Lauer&#8217;s actions were abhorrent, and the anger and sadness he caused continue to this day,&#8221; Oppenheim began the email. &#8220;As we&#8217;ve said since the moment he was fired, his abuses should never have happened.&#8221;
&#8220;Ronan Farrow&#8217;s book takes that undeniable fact and twists it into a lie – alleging we were a &#8216;company with a lot of secrets.&#8217; We have no secrets and nothing to hide,&#8221; he continued.
Oppenheim wrote to employees that NBC employees have read Farrow’s book and determined that “it’s clear &#8212; his smear rests on the allegation that NBC’s management knew about and took steps to hide Matt Lauer’s misconduct before his firing in November of 2017.  Without that, he has no basis on which to rest his second conspiracy theory &#8212; that his Harvey Weinstein reporting was squashed to protect Lauer.&#8221;
Oppenheim claims that “the so-called evidence Farrow uses in his book to support the charge collapses under the slightest scrutiny.” The NBC president then laid out the company’s alleged counter evidence – an analysis from “Kim Harris and the [NBC Universal] Legal Team.”
This analysis claims that the “only three examples we can find that Farrow alleges are Lauer-related before 2017, with even minimal detail, involve employees who by their own admission made no complaint to management, and whose departure agreements were unrelated to Lauer and completely routine.”
The first example involves a named woman in Farrow’s books who, according to Oppenheim, told former NBC host Ann Curry about Lauer’s behavior. Curry, Oppenheim claims, merely told two NBC executives that Lauer “had a problem with women.” One of the executives allegedly denied having heard any such claim. This accuser apparently left the company three years after her allegations and “made no complaint about Lauer.” At the time of her departure, she “was paid 22 weeks of severance based on her years of service, and was asked to sign a separation agreement that was standard for departing employees at the time.”
That contract, according to NBC, was not designed to prevent employees from reporting misconduct.
The second example was an “on-air personality” who also “signed a completely standard separation agreement, including a routine confidentiality provision that was in her original employment contract.” This employee also, according to NBC, did not make any report to management but did show inappropriate messages from Lauer to “colleagues.” The third example involved a “senior member of the Today show team” who received a severance NBC claims, “was commensurate with her salary.” Farrow in his book says the woman received a “seven-figure payout.”
Oppenheim claims the agreements were about protecting “proprietary company information.” It will be hard for regular Americans to understand how much money was given to these three women as “severance” without it looking like a payoff.
Oppenheim also failed to address audio recorded by Ambra Gutierrez showing Harvey Weinstein trying to get her into his hotel room despite her repeated refusals. As Farrow writes in his book, NBC squashed his story about Weinstein’s sexual assault and says that Oppenheim dismissed the audio by saying “Eh … I mean, I don’t know what it proves.”

NBC studios

NBC Staff Memo Claims Ronan Farrow’s New Book Takes A Fact ‘And Twists It Into A Lie’

The current president of MSNBC waved around a zoomed-in photo of the vagina of popular TV personality Maria Menounos at a staff meeting, a new book from journalist Ronan Farrow reveals.
According to sources in Farrow&#8217;s new book, &#8220;<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Catch-Kill-Conspiracy-Protect-Predators/dp/0316486639/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1QLCI8OR8XIPI&amp;keywords=ronan+farrow&amp;qid=1570061809&amp;sprefix=Ronan+Farrow,aps,125&amp;sr=8-1">Catch and Kill</a>,&#8221; MSNBC head Phil Griffin was known for his crass remarks. At a staff meeting, a source detailed that a &#8220;smirking&#8221; Griffin once &#8220;waved around a printed page bearing a zoomed-in image&#8221; of Menounos&#8217; vagina &#8212; the former &#8220;Access Hollywood&#8221; host apparently suffered a wardrobe malfunction while wearing a bikini in public.
&#8220;Would you look at that?&#8221; Griffin reportedly said of the photo, as he &#8220;exhaled hard.&#8221;
&#8220;Not bad, not bad,&#8221; he added.
Journalist <a href="https://pagesix.com/2019/10/13/msnbc-exec-showed-off-revealing-pic-of-maria-menounos-reports-on-book/">Yashar Ali</a> obtained the troubling excerpt from &#8220;Catch and Kill&#8221; and posted it to social media on Saturday.
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1. One particularly disturbing scene in <a href="https://twitter.com/RonanFarrow?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@RonanFarrow</a>’s book&#8230;
Phil Griffin, the current president of MSNBC, waving around a zoomed in photo of Maria Menounos’s vagina in a staff meeting. 
Order Ronan’s book here: <a href="https://t.co/eLcNiasfdB">https://t.co/eLcNiasfdB</a> <a href="https://t.co/rZmD5vZRAh">pic.twitter.com/rZmD5vZRAh</a>
&mdash; Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) <a href="https://twitter.com/yashar/status/1183187544252530688?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 13, 2019</a></blockquote>
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According to <a href="https://pagesix.com/2019/10/13/msnbc-exec-showed-off-revealing-pic-of-maria-menounos-reports-on-book/">Page Six</a>, &#8220;Farrow also claimed that coworkers described Griffin as a crude boss and that while he was still a senior producer at &#8216;Nightly News&#8217; in the 1990s, once pressured female colleagues to go to a peep show in Times Square, New York magazine said.&#8221;
&#8220;Catch and Kill&#8221; details a slew of trouble for NBC Universal News Group outside of Griffin&#8217;s alleged unsavory actions.
According to another excerpt obtained by Ali, NBC News president Noah Oppenheim shrugged off audio captured by model Ambra Gutierrez of Harvey Weinstein admitting to sexual assault and pressuring the model. 
&#8220;Ambra Gutierrez captured Harvey Weinstein on tape admitting to sexual assault. According to [Ronan Farrow]&#8216;s new book, when he played this audio for NBC News president Noah Oppenheim, Noah reacted by saying: &#8216;Eh&#8230;I mean, I don&#8217;t know what it proves,'&#8221; Ali posted. 
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
2. Ambra Gutierrez captured Harvey Weinstein on tape admitting to sexual assault. 
According to <a href="https://twitter.com/RonanFarrow?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@RonanFarrow</a>&#39;s new book, when he played this audio for NBC News president Noah Oppenheim, Noah reacted by saying: &quot;Eh&#8230;I mean, I don&#39;t know what it proves.&quot;<a href="https://t.co/X2jJRCtjS2">https://t.co/X2jJRCtjS2</a> <a href="https://t.co/c0qmzt7fWj">pic.twitter.com/c0qmzt7fWj</a>
&mdash; Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) <a href="https://twitter.com/yashar/status/1183492093601341446?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 13, 2019</a></blockquote>
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Ali added, &#8220;Another thing NBC News president Noah Oppenheim said to [Ronan Farrow] (according to Ronan&#8217;s book) after listening to this audio was: &#8216;He&#8217;s trying to get rid of her. People say a lot of things when they&#8217;re trying to get rid of a girl like that.’”
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3. Another thing NBC News president Noah Oppenheim said to <a href="https://twitter.com/RonanFarrow?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@RonanFarrow</a> (according to Ronan&#39;s book) after listening to this audio was:
&quot;He&#39;s trying to get rid of her. People say a lot of things when they&#39;re trying to get rid of a girl like that.&quot; <a href="https://t.co/X2jJRCtjS2">https://t.co/X2jJRCtjS2</a> <a href="https://t.co/cAZxxNVWgw">pic.twitter.com/cAZxxNVWgw</a>
&mdash; Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) <a href="https://twitter.com/yashar/status/1183492098957422597?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 13, 2019</a></blockquote>
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Moreover, Farrow uncovered a rape allegation against former NBC &#8220;Today&#8221; host Matt Lauer.
Brooke Nevils, a former NBC News employee, said she was anally raped by Lauer in 2014 while covering the Sochi Olympics, as accusation Lauer has fiercely denied.
<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/matt-lauers-rape-accuser-rips-his-defense-as-victim-shaming">The Daily Wire</a> reported:
<blockquote>After socializing at a hotel bar with Lauer and then-“Today” anchor Meredith Vieira, Nevils said she went to Lauer’s room to get back her press credentials, which she said were taken by Lauer as a joke. She then returned to his room a second time upon his invite, when the alleged rape took place.
“Once she was in his hotel room, Nevils alleges, Lauer — who was wearing a T-shirt and boxers — pushed her against the door and kissed her. He then pushed her onto the bed, ‘flipping her over, asking if she liked anal sex,’ Farrow writes. ‘She said that she declined several times,&#8217;” the <a href="https://variety.com/2019/tv/news/matt-lauer-rape-nbc-ronan-farrow-book-catch-kill-1203364485/">Variety</a> report said.
Nevils claims she “was in the midst of telling him she wasn’t interested again when he ‘just did it,&#8217;” Farrow wrote in his book “Catch and Kill.”
“Lauer, she said, didn’t use lubricant. The encounter was excruciatingly painful. ‘It hurt so bad. I remember thinking, Is this normal?’ She told me she stopped saying no, but wept silently into a pillow,” the book claimed.
“It was nonconsensual in the sense that I was too drunk to consent,” the former NBC employee told Farrow. “It was nonconsensual in that I said, multiple times, that I didn’t want to have anal sex.”</blockquote>
Nevils said she had sexual interactions with Lauer after the alleged rape, some of which she initiated.
Farrow is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist best know for his reporting into the alleged rampant sexual misconduct from Democrat megadonor and Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein.

Maria Menounos

MSNBC President Waved Zoomed-In Photo Of Maria Menounos’ Vagina At Staff Meeting: Report

MSNBC

Herring Networks, Inc., which owns One America News Network, a &#8220;conservative alternative&#8221; to the news, filed a $10,000,000 defamation lawsuit in a U.S. District Court in California on Monday against MSNBC host Rachel Maddow, Comcast, NBC Universal Media, and MSNBC Cable for defamation and censorship.
As detailed in a <a href="https://www.oann.com/rachel-maddow-lawsuit/">press release</a> Monday, One America News (OAN) is suing Maddow and her employer for making the false claim on MSNBC&#8217;s &#8220;The Rachel Maddow Show&#8221; that OAN &#8220;really literally is paid Russian propaganda&#8221; — an assertion OAN says was made &#8220;maliciously and recklessly&#8221; and despite the left-leaning host knowing it was false. The defamatory claim, OAN says, was made shortly after OAN President Charles Herring condemned NBC&#8217;s parent company, Comcast, for engaging in &#8220;anti-competitive censorship.&#8221;
&#8220;The Complaint alleges that Comcast refused to carry OAN as part of its cable programming because OAN counters the liberal politics of its own channel, MSNBC,&#8221; OAN announced Monday (full release below). &#8220;The Complaint further alleges that one week after OAN&#8217;s President, Charles Herring, called out and objected to Comcast&#8217;s anti-competitive censorship in an email to Comcast&#8217;s President of Content Acquisition, MSNBC&#8217;s most popular show — The Rachel Maddow Show — opened with the show’s host, Rachel Maddow, telling her audience that OAN &#8216;really literally is paid Russian propaganda.'&#8221;
The defendents, OAN maintains, &#8220;knew this statement was false and that they acted maliciously and recklessly in making it.&#8221; Maddow and MSNBC promoted the false claim, the lawsuit asserts, specifically to damage the reputation and business of OAN because of the network&#8217;s conservative viewpoint and to retaliate against the network for Herring&#8217;s complaint about Comcast&#8217;s alleged censorship.
The lawsuit follows OAN&#8217;s demand for retraction issued to Maddow and The Daily Beast&#8217;s Kevin Poulsen in July after both pushed the Russian claim. As outlined by <a href="https://dailycaller.com/2019/07/29/one-america-maddow-daily-beast/">The Daily Caller </a>at the time, Poulsen wrote that OAN&#8217;s Kristian Rouz is a &#8220;Russian national on the payroll of the Kremlin’s official propaganda outlet, Sputnik.&#8221; Maddow said on her show the same day that OAN &#8220;really, literally is Russian propaganda.&#8221;
Maddow has repeatedly promoted conspiracy theories about Russian influence on her show, particularly alleged &#8220;collusion&#8221; between Russia and Trump and his associates.
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/45418/watch-rachel-maddow-collusion-delusion-video-greg-james-barrett">WATCH: Rachel Maddow &#8216;Collusion Delusion&#8217; Video By Greg Gutfeld Goes Viral</a>
Below is the full <a href="https://www.oann.com/rachel-maddow-lawsuit/">press release</a> from OAN (formatting adjusted):
<blockquote>Los Angeles, CA—September 9, 2019 – Herring Networks, Inc., an independent, family owned national cable television programming company based in San Diego, California, filed a defamation lawsuit today in the United States District Court, Southern District of California, against Defendants Rachel Maddow, Comcast Corporation, NBC Universal Media, LLC, and MSNBC Cable LLC. The Complaint seeks damages in excess of $10,000,000.
Herring Networks owns and operates One America News Network (“OAN”), a prominent and popular independent television news channel providing Americans with a conservative alternative to the major liberal news outlets. The Complaint alleges that Comcast refused to carry OAN as part of its cable programming because OAN counters the liberal politics of its own channel, MSNBC.
The Complaint further alleges that one week after OAN’s President, Charles Herring, called out and objected to Comcast’s anti-competitive censorship in an email to Comcast’s President of Content Acquisition, MSNBC’s most popular show—The Rachel Maddow Show—opened with the show’s host, Rachel Maddow, telling her audience that OAN “really literally is paid Russian propaganda.”
OAN asserts that, in fact, Defendants knew this statement was false and that they acted maliciously and recklessly in making it. The Complaint alleges that the statement was meant to damage OAN’s business and reputation because OAN, unlike MSNBC, presents a conservative viewpoint; and that OAN was targeted in retaliation for calling out Defendants for their anti-competitive censorship in refusing to carry OAN on its cable system.
OAN is represented by Skip Miller, a partner at Miller Barondess, LLP in Los Angeles. Per Miller, “One America is wholly owned, operated and financed by the Herring family in San Diego. They are as American as apple pie. They are not paid by Russia and have nothing to do with the Russian government. This is a false and malicious libel, and they’re going to answer for it in a court of law.”</blockquote>

Rachel Maddow

Conservative Network Sues Rachel Maddow, MSNBC For Defamation

Russia

Despite the fact that the film “The Hunt” reportedly depicts liberal elites hunting “deplorables” for sport, NBC Universal is remaining adamant in the face of recent mass shootings that it is still planning to release the satiric film, which has a release date of September 27. An NBC Universal source <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/nbc-universal-pictures-the-hunt-release-backlash">told Fox News</a>, “There are no plans to not release the movie. No plans to move the release.”
<a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7339149/NBC-Universal-Pictures-plans-release-Hunt-liberal-elites-kidnapping-deplorables.html">The Daily Mail</a> reported, “The violent, gun-toting film revolves around a group people from predominately Republican states being kidnapped and hunted for sport by liberal elites.” <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/ads-pulled-hunt-wake-mass-shootings-1229829">The Hollywood Reporter</a> (THR) echoed that the “violent, R-rated film from producer Jason Blum&#8217;s Blumhouse follows a dozen MAGA types who wake up in a clearing and realize they are being stalked for sport by elite liberals.”
The original title of the film was “Red State Vs. Blue State.”
THR pointed out that the screenplay for the movie features the red-state characters wearing trucker hats and cowboy shirts, one of whom boasts about owning numerous firearms, while the blue-state characters opine that the deplorables were targeted for their anti-choice positions or using the N-word on Twitter. One blue-stater reportedly is supposed to push her stiletto heel into the eye of a red-stater, claiming, “War is war.”
A Universal executive reportedly told Fox News that the film “is meant to show what a stupid, crazy world we live in. It might even be more powerful now.” THR noted that the screenplay, written by “Lost” producer Damon Lindelof along with Nick Cuse, includes this exchange: “Did anyone see what our ratf***er-in-chief just did?” “At least The Hunt&#8217;s coming up. Nothing better than going out to the Manor and slaughtering a dozen deplorables.”
THR reported, “A high-level insider says top executives want to stand by Blum, one of the studio&#8217;s most prolific and successful producers, as well as filmmaker Craig Zobel, and see the project as a satire addressing an issue of great social importance.”
Political satirist Tim Young told <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/the-hunt-movie-deplorables">Fox News</a>, “Why would anyone think it&#8217;s a great idea to have a movie about hunting down someone who doesn&#8217;t agree with them politically? It&#8217;s remarkable to me that the left blames Donald Trump&#8217;s rhetoric for violence, then literally spends millions to normalize the killing of people based on politics.”
Young added, “We&#8217;re told over and over again by the Left, especially in Hollywood, that this country is more divided than ever and we need to come together&#8230; is this what they mean by it? Come together to murder your neighbors that you don&#8217;t agree with? This film is sick and shows just how hateful the left has become.” He concluded, “The executives at Universal and those even willing to promote this or run ads for it should know better than to promote political violence.”
In April 2017, Lindelof <a href="https://mashable.com/2017/04/17/leftovers-co-creator-talks-donald-trump/">said</a> of the election of President Trump in 2016, “With all apocalyptic thinking, if it’s not happening fast enough we are going to bring it about, which I think explains the election in America. If you are unhappy with the way things are going, you may want to elect an agent of destruction.”

Jason Blum

NBC Universal: We’re Not Canceling Release Of Film Where Liberals Hunt ‘Deplorables,’ Report Says

Hollywood

President Trump is going off the rails on this &#8220;crazy train&#8221; that is the emerging cycle of 2020 Democratic Party presidential candidate debates.
After hilariously trolling the debate from the comforts of his Twitter account last night when the moderators had to cut to commercial due to a mic glitch, the president resumed his troll routine on Thursday morning when he tweeted a doctored video of the whole incident with a little Ozzy Osborne thrown in for good measure. Take a look:
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
Thank you <a href="https://twitter.com/MSNBC?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@MSNBC</a>, real professionals! <a href="https://twitter.com/chucktodd?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@chucktodd</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/maddow?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@maddow</a> <a href="https://t.co/7ZCkcUQ4yA">pic.twitter.com/7ZCkcUQ4yA</a>
&#8212; Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1144177713869017089?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 27, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>
People on social media had a good time with it. But as always, the president had his share of hecklers.
&#8220;S**t happens! Just like you! Your administration is lights out too!&#8221; said Canadian talk show host Frank D&#8217;Angelo. &#8220;You are a colossal power failure! You Delusional treasonous pathological liar f***ing moron conman rancid fishlips incompetent corrupt clueless A***OLE!&#8221;
&#8220;I can&#8217;t believe that Donald Trump pays somebody to create these juvenile, pathetic little videos. It&#8217;s the definition of fake news because he wants people to believe that this really happened. The man has absolutely no class or scruples,&#8221; said another Twitter user.
&#8220;You make fun of a technical difficulty? At least they didn&#8217;t lose $130 million drone,&#8221; said another user.
As The Daily Wire&#8217;s Amanda Prestigiacomo <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/48910/mic-breakdown-mid-democratic-primary-debate-trump-amanda-prestigiacomo">reported</a>, the incident began halfway through the debate when moderator Chuck Todd fielded the candidates questions about gun control. Before anyone could answer, they were interrupted by the echoes of chatter reverberating throughout the chamber. After first believing the sounds emanated from the audience, to moderators&#8217; horror, they discovered the source to be backstage where their colleagues had not yet powered their mics off.
&#8220;I think we had a little mic issue in the back,&#8221; Todd said as he looked around the room. &#8220;We have the audience on.&#8221;
Todd persisted in questioning the candidates about gun control but the sounds persisted with him, prompting laughs from Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN)
&#8220;What is happening?&#8221; Maddow puzzlingly asked.
&#8220;We are hearing our colleagues&#8217; audio,&#8221; Todd exclaimed. &#8220;If the control room can turn off the mics &#8230; if the control room can turn off the mics of our previous moderators &#8230;&#8221;
&#8220;You know, we prepared for everything,&#8221; Maddow said. &#8220;We did not prepare for this.&#8221;
&#8220;We&#8217;re going to take a quick break, we&#8217;re gonna get this technical situation fixed,&#8221; Todd declared as the broadcast cut to commercial.
Immediately, President Trump seized the opportunity to trash NBC for allowing the difficulty to happen during a live broadcast as an indication of the network&#8217;s ineptitude.
&#8220;@NBCNews and @MSNBC should be ashamed of themselves for having such a horrible technical breakdown in the middle of the debate,&#8221; Trump tweeted. &#8220;Truly unprofessional and only worthy of a FAKE NEWS Organization, which they are!&#8221;

President Trump Addresses Faith &amp; Freedom Coalition Conference In Washington

‘Crazy Train’: Trump Trolls Democratic Mic Glitch With Doctored Video

Democratic Party

Donald Trump

Halfway through the first Democrat primary debate on Wednesday night, there were noticeable mic issues, which forced moderator Chuck Todd to cut to commercial break. The disruption was quickly pounced on by President Donald Trump, who blasted NBC and MSNBC for their &#8220;unprofessional&#8221; snafu.
The issues started when NBC&#8217;s Todd asked the Democrat candidates about their position and plans regarding gun control. Hearing voices in the background, the candidates remarked about their mics being on, <a href="https://www.cnn.com/politics/live-news/democratic-debate-june-26-2019/index.html">according</a> to CNN.
&#8220;Yeah, everybody&#8217;s mics are on,&#8221; Todd told the candidates, later adding, &#8220;I think we had a little mic issue.&#8221;
The NBC host then went forward with his question, but the technical issues continued. Apparently, according to Todd, his colleagues backstage had not yet turned off their mics, CNN reported. He quickly threw to commercial so the error could be fixed.
Within moments, President Trump took to Twitter to blast the &#8220;fake news&#8221; networks.
&#8220;[NBC News] and [MSNBC] should be ashamed of themselves for having such a horrible technical breakdown in the middle of the debate,&#8221; the president posted. &#8220;Truly unprofessional and only worthy of a FAKE NEWS Organization, which they are!&#8221;
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
.<a href="https://twitter.com/NBCNews?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@NBCNews</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/MSNBC?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@MSNBC</a> should be ashamed of themselves for having such a horrible technical breakdown in the middle of the debate. Truly unprofessional and only worthy of a FAKE NEWS Organization, which they are!
&#8212; Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1144064520152739840?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 27, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>
Last week, Trump said he planned on live-tweeting the first round of 2020 Democratic primary debates, <a href="https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/campaign-wire-election-2020/card/1560859018">according</a> to The Wall Street Journal. As <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/48537/president-trump-plans-live-tweeting-democratic-emily-zanotti">noted</a> by The Daily Wire, the move was considered &#8220;controversial among Trump&#8217;s aides, with some strategists claiming that it would be better for the president if the Democrats, who will debate in two shifts over two nights, were allowed to attack each other without the president as a distraction.&#8221;
Trump has seemingly found some middle ground, blasting the &#8220;fake news&#8221; networks and calling the entire debate &#8220;boring,&#8221; while generally backing off calling out any individual candidates.
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
BORING!
&#8212; Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1144056731653169152?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 27, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>

screen_shot_2019-06-26_at_10.12.33_pm

Mic Breakdown Mid-Democratic Primary Debate; Trump Mocks Them

On Wednesday, attorneys for Nicholas Sandmann, the Covington Catholic High School student who was targeted by the media after his encounter with Native American activist Nathan Phillips at the Lincoln Memorial on January 18, announced they are filing a $275 million lawsuit against NBCUniversal, alleging &#8220;NBCUniversal created a false narrative by portraying the &#8216;confrontation&#8217; as a &#8216;hate crime&#8217; committed by Nicholas.&#8221;
According to <a href="https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2019/may/1/nick-sandmann-covington-catholic-teen-sues-nbc-275/">The Washington Times</a>, the suit states that NBCUniversal was motivated by its &#8220;anti-Trump agenda,&#8221; adding that Sandmann was &#8220;an easy target for NBCUniversal to advance its anti-Trump agenda because he was a 16-year-old white, Catholic student who had attended the Right to Life March that day and was wearing a MAGA cap at the time of the incident which he had purchased earlier in the day as a souvenir.&#8221; The suit also states that NBCUniversal, by means of NBC and MSNBC, &#8220;unleashed its vast corporate wealth, influence, and power against Nicholas to falsely attack him despite the fact that at the time, he was a 16-year-old high school student.&#8221;
The lawsuit asserts, &#8220;Headlines run online by NBCUniversal outlets about the incident included, &#8216;Nathan Phillips, Native American man harassed by high schoolers, tells his story,&#8217; and &#8216;Video of teens taunting man at Indigenous Peoples March sparks outrage.&#8217;&#8221;
Sandmann&#8217;s attorneys have already filed a $250 million suit against the Washington Post and another suit against CNN for $275 million. As <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/43694/breaking-nick-sandmanns-lawyers-file-massive-ryan-saavedra">The Daily Wire reported</a> in mid-February, Sandmann&#8217;s lawyers warned when they sued The Washington Post that more suits would be forthcoming. They said in a <a href="http://www.hemmerlaw.com/blog/for-truth-for-justice-for-nicholas/">statement</a>:
<blockquote>
Today, Lin Wood and Todd McMurtry filed their first lawsuit on behalf of Nicholas Sandmann against The Washington Post. The lawsuit filed is included below. The suit seeks $250 million in both compensatory and punitive damages. Lin and Todd will continue to bring wrongdoers before the court to seek damages in compensation for the harm so many have done to the Sandmann family. This is only the beginning.
</blockquote>
The lawsuit against the Post stated: &#8220;In targeting and bullying Nicholas by falsely accusing him of instigating the January 18 incident, the Post conveyed that Nicholas engaged in acts of racism by &#8220;swarming&#8221; Phillips, &#8220;blocking&#8221; his exit away from the students, and otherwise engaging in racist misconduct. The Post ignored basic journalist standards because it wanted to advance its well-known and easily documented, biased agenda against President Donald J. Trump (&#8216;the President&#8217;) by impugning individuals perceived to be supporters of the President.&#8221;
<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/44586/watch-nick-sandmanns-lawyer-reveals-massive-275-ryan-saavedra">The Daily Wire reported</a> in mid-March that Sandmann&#8217;s attorneys announced they were suing CNN, with one saying, &#8220;Well, what CNN&#8217;s tagline is facts first. And what we believe their reporting was in this circumstance was lies first; cover up second, and facts not yet determined by that organization. So the difference between this lawsuit and the other lawsuit that we have filed is that CNN is a very significant media organization with a much broader reach than say The Washington Post. It has a Twitter followers of 41 million people. It published four videos. Nine online articles that were tweeted out. So that&#8217;s millions and millions and millions of repetitions of the lies and falsehoods that CNN spread.&#8221;

Covington Catholic Student Nick Sandmann Files Major Lawsuit Against NBC and MSNBC

Covington Catholic High School

Warning: Lewd content.
On Friday, <a href="https://variety.com/2019/tv/news/saturday-night-live-accused-plagiarizing-1203163172/">Variety</a> reported accusations of plagiarism against &#8220;Saturday Night Live&#8221; by a comedic group who says the iconic show blatantly stole their ideas &#8212; and they&#8217;ve got evidence.
Two video sketches released by SNL over the last six months are eerily similar to sketches produced and published on YouTube years earlier by comedic group Temple Horses. One sketch aired by SNL last October titled &#8220;The Pumpkin Patch&#8221; features an owner of a pumpkin patch questioning his employees about an accusation that they had intercourse with some of the pumpkins. Another SNL sketch, &#8220;Pound Puppy,&#8221; released in mid-February, is a fake infomercial about a new product that allows couples to have sex without worrying about offending their dogs.
Both of the videos, Temple Horses co-founders Nick Ruggia and Ryan Hoffman said in a letter sent to NBC in February and obtained by Variety, were lifted from sketches their troupe published on YouTube back in 2014 and 2011: &#8220;<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=219&amp;v=DwuDCcOnveA">F*** A Pumpkin</a>&#8221; and &#8220;<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=82&amp;v=UAyVo7u5_0I">Pet Blinders</a>&#8221; (videos linked rather than embedded due to NSFW content).
In the Temple Horses&#8217; pumpkin sketch (uploaded Oct. 2014), an owner of a pumpkin patch is appalled by the lewd acts customers suggest performing on a pumpkin. &#8220;Pet Blinders&#8221; (uploaded Sep. 2011) is an infomercial advertising blinders for dogs so they don&#8217;t have to be traumatized by watching their owners getting intimate. The &#8220;Pound Puppy&#8221;/&#8221;Pet Blinders&#8221; videos are particularly similar. Variety explains:
<blockquote>
In the Temple Horses&#8217; &#8220;Pet Blinders&#8221; and the &#8220;Saturday Night Live&#8221; sketch &#8220;Pound Puppy,&#8221; a fictional product is being sold that prevents pets from watching their owners perform sex acts. In the former, the product is a blind that goes over the pets&#8217; eyes. In the latter it is a large, dog-shaped blinder that the owners climb inside in order to have sex while obscured from their pets&#8217; field of vision. Each sketch, as the letter points out, uses &#8220;[three] separate settings for pet-interruption, introducing the pet owners&#8217; dilemma.&#8221; Each sketch uses a dog&#8217;s-eye-view and reverse shot. In each, a labrador retriever, a mid-size dog, and a custom-breed dog is used.
</blockquote>
&#8220;Imagine, one day you come home and it looks like somebody&#8217;s robbed your house,&#8221; Hoffman told Variety in an exclusive interview. &#8220;What do you want from that situation? We feel like somebody took our stuff, and this isn&#8217;t the kind of thing where you can just get it back or call your insurance company to have it replaced, so at this point we&#8217;re just speaking out about it.&#8221;
Ruggio and Hoffman told Variety that they received a verbal response to their letter from an NBC attorney about a week after they sent it and were told that an internal investigation found that the writers of both sketches &#8220;had independently developed the ideas for those sketches and found no similarities to the Temple Horses sketches that would be protected by copyright law,&#8221; Variety reports.
Variety&#8217;s SNL source confirmed Ruggio and Hoffman&#8217;s claim and said NBC is currently working on a more official response.
Below are the two videos produced by SNL followed by links to the Temple Horses&#8217; previously released sketches.
SNL&#8217;s &#8220;The Pumpkin Patch&#8221;:
<div class="embed video fluid-video"><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen frameborder="0" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/d2jcw6-iKQc" width="635"></iframe></div>
And here&#8217;s the link to Temple Horses&#8217; &#8220;<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=219&amp;v=DwuDCcOnveA">F*** A Pumpkin</a>.&#8221;
SNL&#8217;s &#8220;Pound Puppy&#8221;:
<div class="embed video fluid-video"><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen frameborder="0" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Dn9no3ZzfFo" width="635"></iframe></div>
Here&#8217;s the link to Temple Horses&#8217; &#8220;<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=82&amp;v=UAyVo7u5_0I">Pet Blinders</a>.&#8221;
<a href="https://variety.com/2019/tv/news/saturday-night-live-accused-plagiarizing-1203163172/">Read Variety&#8217;s full report here</a>.
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/43592/alec-baldwin-says-trumps-snl-collusion-tweet-may-james-barrett">Alec Baldwin Says Trump&#8217;s SNL &#8216;Collusion&#8217; Tweet May Be Threat To His Family</a>

WATCH: Here Are The Sketches SNL Is Accused Of Plagiarizing

Saturday Night Live

Special Counsel Robert Mueller hasn&#8217;t found any collusion (yet). The House Intelligence Committee found no collusion. The Senate Intelligence committee found no collusion. No reporter has been able to find collusion (though they&#8217;ve tried and failed many times). But Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), who now chairs the House Intel committee, is convinced that he will find collusion by hiring prosecutor-turned-pundit Daniel Goldman.
Goldman <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2019/03/05/house-intelligence-daniel-goldman-1204140">was described</a> by Politico as &#8220;a seasoned former Southern District of New York federal prosecutor with experience going after Russian organized crime.&#8221; Schiff hired Goldman to lead all of his committee&#8217;s investigations into President Donald Trump (because Schiff is convinced he&#8217;ll find it if he leaves no stone unturned).
Goldman&#8217;s credentials are impressive, having taken down Russian mobsters and some in the Genovese crime family. But he has since become a legal analyst for MSNBC and NBC, and clearly believes in Trump&#8217;s wrongdoing. Asking him to lead a &#8220;professional investigation&#8221; when he clearly already has a particular outcome in mind is anything but professional.
&#8220;Under Chairman Schiff&#8217;s leadership, we intend to run a professional investigation designed to uncover the facts and the truth,&#8221; Goldman said of his hiring.
Schiff and other House Democrats are determined to investigate anything he can involving Trump. Politico notes that Schiff&#8217;s investigations are among other &#8220;probes targeting the president, his administration, his presidential campaign and his business empire.&#8221;
Democrats are still so upset they lost in 2016 they are willing to dig through Trump&#8217;s life to find something they can use against him. Democrats on the House Ways and Means Committee, led by chairman Richard Neal (D-MA) <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/44153/democrats-really-are-going-subpoena-trumps-taxes-ashe-schow">will subpoena Trump&#8217;s personal tax returns</a>, hoping to find quick ammo against him. Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee, led by chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), will investigate <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/44221/house-democrats-will-investigate-trump-obstruction-ashe-schow">whether Trump obstructed justice</a>.
Newsflash: The special counsel&#8217;s investigation is a counter-intelligence investigation that has found some criminal wrongdoing by former Trump officials. It is not actually a criminal investigation. Counter intelligence investigations <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/andrew-c-mccarthy-would-mueller-indict-trump-for-attempting-to-fire-mueller">are done for the president</a> (or, they&#8217;re supposed to be), so by definition he can&#8217;t obstruct them, as National Review&#8217;s Andy McCarthy has repeatedly written.
As The Daily Caller&#8217;s Chuck Ross <a href="https://dailycaller.com/2019/03/05/schiff-hires-msnbc-analyst/">reported</a>, Goldman&#8217;s prosecutorial chops have been diminished by his antipathy for Trump. Last December, Goldman whole-heartedly endorsed a McClatchy story that contained no evidence for its claims outside of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/44319/mcclatchy-still-standing-its-evidence-free-thinly-ashe-schow">&#8220;two sources familiar with the matter</a>.&#8221;
Schiff himself has lost all credibility when it comes to leading a &#8220;professional investigation.&#8221; Schiff, reportedly, routinely leaves closed-door hearings. Minutes after he leaves, <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/44200/nagging-ethics-questions-regarding-democrat-house-ashe-schow">CNN breaks a story using leaks from the testimony</a>. It happened during Benghazi hearings and it happened when Donald Trump, Jr. testified behind closed doors. During former Trump attorney Michael Cohen&#8217;s testimony last week, Schiff left, and lo and behold, CNN had a scoop that Cohen provided documents that showed Trump&#8217;s lawyers changed his testimony, which Cohen gave in 2017 and which was false. CNN later had to <a href="https://dailycaller.com/2019/03/06/cnn-update-michael-cohen-story/">issue a major correction</a> to the report. Last year, one of these leaks led to another major error for CNN, when it claimed Don Jr. received early access to Wikileaks documents. The media outlet reported the email with the links was sent on Sept. 4, 2016, when it was clearly sent on Sep. 14, after the documents had already been released.

Adam Schiff Hires Prosecutor-Turned-Pundit Who Believes Trump Colluded With Russia To Investigate If Trump Colluded With Russia

Adam Schiff

The Daily Caller

When Nick Sandmann, the 16-year-old Covington Catholic High School student, spoke to NBC&#8217;s Savannah Guthrie, she asked: &#8220;Do you feel from this experience that you owe anybody an apology?&#8221; and &#8220;Do you see your own fault in any way?&#8221;
This question came days after video footage showed Sandmann and his fellow students were not acting in the harassing manner they were first accused of over the weekend, and they had not gone up to a Native American protester and harassed him, <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/42563/now-nathan-phillips-wants-meet-covington-teens-he-ashe-schow">as he originally claimed</a>.
No one in the left-wing media has asked Nathan Phillips, the Native American protester, if he owes anybody an apology or sees his own fault in any way, even after he initially lied about the encounter and called the teenagers &#8220;beasts&#8221; and a &#8220;lynch mob.&#8221;
So, I did.
I had received a press release from the Lakota People&#8217;s Law Project for an article earlier today, and decided to ask their press director, Jesse Phelps, if Phillips believed he owed anyone an apology &#8220;for his behavior and statements throughout this entire episode.&#8221;
Phelps responded, saying he loves &#8220;easy questions.&#8221;
<blockquote>
&#8220;Um&#8230;the answer is no. He&#8217;s an elder who was attempting to diffuse what he perceived as a dangerous situation &#8212; an objectively brave move given history both recent and past. He has nothing to apologize for. The kids who performed the tomahawk chop and greeted him with war whoops, on the other hand, most certainly do.&#8221;
</blockquote>
I followed up by asking if Phelps was sure, considering what Phillips had called the students in print over the past few days. Again, Phelps said &#8220;no&#8221;:
<blockquote>
&#8220;From his perspective, they apparently resembled a lynch mob, etc. That is his valid perspective &#8212; Native people are confronted with blatant racism, mostly from the right, every day. Given the sad history of this nation&#8212;built as it on colonialism, racism, slavery and the ongoing repression of people of color&#8212;the behavior of the students, and the gear they chose to wear, it&#8217;s not hard to understand&#8212;is it? Nevertheless, he went in to make peace.&#8221;
</blockquote>
Phelps added that Phillips never defended the Black Israelite&#8217;s offensive statements and that &#8220;no mistake, the things they said to those kids were terrible. Awful.&#8221;
Phillips may very well believe &#8212; now, after his initial claim that he was just trying to get out of what looked a bad situation &#8212; that he was trying to &#8220;diffuse&#8221; the tension between the Covington Catholic teenagers who were singing school spirit songs and the Black Hebrew Israelites who were hurling racial and other slurs. Sandmann seems to believe he was trying to diffuse an awkward situation by remaining &#8220;motionless and calm.&#8221;
Both may be correct in their perceptions, and both appear to be wrong about their perceptions of the incident, at least in regard to each other.
Nathan Phillips now wants to meet the students. Nick Sandmann had already said he would be willing to meet. If Sandmann is asked if he should apologize, it&#8217;s only fair that Phillips is asked as well.

I Asked If Nathan Phillips Believes He Owes Anyone An Apology. Here’s The Response I Received.

Media Bias

Race

Rumors surrounding a possible reboot of the beloved NBC mockumentary &#8220;The Office&#8221; have resurfaced over the last few months. Showrunner, actor, and executive producer Paul Lieberstein <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/paul-lieberstein-is-so-much-more-than-toby-from-the-office?via=twitter_page">floated</a> a &#8220;one-off special&#8221; on Friday and a recent &#8220;Saturday Night Live&#8221; <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PBoaVkaWQy8">cold open</a> featuring lead actor Steve Carell which had &#8220;Office&#8221; fans salivating.
But &#8220;The Office&#8221; as we knew it will never, ever come back. At least not until the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/39864/2019-year-wokescolds-ben-shapiro">Wokescolds</a>, as Daily Wire Editor-in-Chief Ben Shapiro has aptly dubbed them, have been defeated.
&#8220;The Office&#8221; was treasured by so many for a multitude of reasons &#8212; not the least of which was the off-beat, politically incorrect humor. Michael Scott, played by Carell to perfection, routinely spilled anti-PC lines that would have grievance bloggers rifling off screeds about the &#8220;problematic&#8221; show in no time.
Michael&#8217;s reoccurring &#8220;<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dk352i0FUeQ">Ping</a>&#8221; character would get the show canned in the current year. SJWs would lose their minds over the boss&#8217; interactions with <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gay_Witch_Hunt">gay accountant Oscar Martinez</a>. Michael almost killing himself while trying to <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8sBC3YCTn_o">fake kill himself</a> would spark endless blogs about the brutal insensitivity toward mental illness. The entirety of the &#8220;<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PLp8pjqwlsc">Diversity Day</a>&#8221; episode would make heads explode.
These reactions would, of course, completely miss the point of the bits&#8217; importance, but nonetheless, they would exist. And as we all know too well: the squeaky hysterical liberal gets the grease.
There is already evidence of such an outrageous reaction, too. Expressing retroactive outrage, a 2017 <a href="http://affinitymagazine.us/2017/02/03/unpopular-opinion-the-office-is-very-problematic/">blog post</a> from Affinity Magazine lamented the &#8220;problematic&#8221; nature of &#8220;The Office.&#8221; The outrage blog <a href="http://affinitymagazine.us/2017/02/03/unpopular-opinion-the-office-is-very-problematic/">whines</a> in part:
<blockquote>
All of the POC and the one LGBT+ character on the show are constantly harassed and teased about their race/sexuality. The female characters are written passively and blandly, and for most of them, male characters are their main motivation. A serious abusive relationship between two characters, Jan and Michael, is glossed over because Jan is the abusive one, and when men are abused, it&#8217;s comedy, apparently. But the biggest problem with The Office is the main character himself, Michael Scott. &#8230; Michael Scott is racist. He repeatedly makes racist comments towards his coworkers, for which he is rarely reprimanded. He is sexist, and he verbally and sometimes physically harasses his female coworkers. He is incredibly homophobic; in fact, he even outed one of his employees, Oscar Martinez (who is also the only gay character on the show).
</blockquote>
As <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/39874/move-over-friends-millennials-now-find-seinfeld-ashe-schow">highlighted</a> by The Daily Wire&#8217;s Ashe Schow on Wednesday, millennial Wokescolds have already come for beloved sitcoms &#8220;Friends&#8221; and &#8220;Seinfeld&#8221; for their, yes, &#8220;problematic&#8221; nature.
Even Carell himself has admitted that &#8220;The Office&#8221; would never work in today&#8217;s climate.
It &#8220;might be impossible to do that show today and have people accept it the way it was accepted 10 years ago. The climate&#8217;s different,&#8221; Carell <a href="https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/movies/a23695483/steve-carell-beautiful-boy-interview-2018/">told</a> Esquire, adding, &#8220;I mean, the whole idea of that character, Michael Scott, so much of it was predicated on inappropriate behavior. &#8230; A lot of what is depicted on that show is completely wrong-minded. That&#8217;s the point, you know? But I just don&#8217;t know how that would fly now. There&#8217;s a very high awareness of offensive things today&#8212;which is good, for sure. But at the same time, when you take a character like that too literally, it doesn&#8217;t really work.&#8221;
Now, this is not to say that an &#8220;Office&#8221;-style show is not exactly what is needed at the moment. As <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/39899/mcallister-ricky-gervais-right-his-unapologetic-dc-mcallister">noted</a> by Daily Wire columnist DC McAllister, allowing only policed Woke humor does us more harm than good. Politically incorrect humor, on the other hand, helps to heal our wounds and closes our divides:
<blockquote>
Accusations and realities of racism, sexism and bigotry are like pitchforks in our hands. We can&#8217;t laugh anymore when faced with these sacred cows of the PC culture. Hence, the divide widens. The isolation intensifies. The sickness worsens. We need medicine. We need humor, even when it&#8217;s offensive &#8212; especially when it&#8217;s offensive. Let&#8217;s, therefore, try to laugh more in 2019. Then we might be able to love more.
</blockquote>
As a hardcore fan of the show, &#8220;The Office&#8221; coming back is a bad idea because why mess with perfection? But my impeccable opinion aside, the real reason it won&#8217;t get a reboot is because we&#8217;re still in the Age of the Wokescolds.

Rumors Heat Up Over Potential Reboot Of &#8216;The Office.&#8217; Here&#8217;s Why It Won&#8217;t Happen.

Political Correctness

&#8220;We have serious problems to solve, and we need serious people to solve them. And whatever your particular problem is, I promise you, Bob Rumson is not the least bit interested in solving it. He is interested in two things and two things only: Making you afraid of it, and telling you who&#8217;s to blame for it.&#8221; &#8212; President Andrew Shephard, The American President
That quote perfectly sums up the Democrats&#8217; fixation on Russia, and the alleged collusion committed by President Trump&#8217;s campaign during the 2016 presidential campaign. The canard was first floated by two-time loser Hillary Clinton as an excuse for her loss to a TV reality show star. But Democrats have kept the bogus story alive for (now) more than two years &#8212; with nary an ort of evidence.
But the Democrats have spent the last two years trying to make Americans afraid of it, and, of course, blaming Trump himself for it.
And you know who cares? Virtually no one.
As part of the 2018 midterm elections on Tuesday, several news organizations conducted exit polls, asking voters why they voted as they did and what issues they cared about most. Some 41% of voters said health care was their top issue, followed by 23% favoring immigration reform, 21% citing the economy and 11% saying gun policy, <a href="https://www.cnn.com/election/2018/exit-polls">CNN</a> reported.
That&#8217;s 96%. After that, more than a dozen issues pulled 1%. But Russia/collusion wasn&#8217;t even one of those! The amount voters cared about alleged collusion was literally immeasurable.
The CNN poll was able to measure how voters feel about the probe being run by special counsel Robert Mueller. A majority (54%) viewed the Russia investigation as &#8220;politically motivated.&#8221; Just 41% disagreed. And a plurality (46%) disapproved of Mueller&#8217;s handling of it, while 42% approved.
In other recent polls, NBC News found only 42% of voters approve of Mueller&#8217;s handling, while 45% disapprove. What&#8217;s more, only 61 percent of Democrats approve of Mueller. And a CBS News poll found that 53% think the Russia investigation is politically motivated, with only 44% saying it is justified.
With Democrats taking control of the House, the numbers stand as a clear warning. Democrats have vowed to launch numerous investigations into Trump, but the exit poll findings show Americans care little about Russia and the Mueller probe.

EXIT POLLS: Voters Don&#8217;t Care About Russia &#8216;Collusion,&#8217; Mueller Probe

Robert Mueller

The backlash against President Trump&#8217;s anti-illegal immigration ad linking the approaching caravan with a cop killer has become so severe that CNN refused to air it, later prompting both Fox News and NBC to pull it after airing.
The controversial ad contrasts video of <a data-rapid-parsed="slk" data-rapid_p="5" data-v9y="1" data-ylk="subsec:paragraph;cpos:4;elm:context_link;itc:0" href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2018/11/02/trumps-new-immigration-ad-was-panned-racist-turns-out-it-was-also-based-falsehood/?utm_term=.0c95093b621e">Luis Bracamontes</a>, an illegal immigrant who gunned down two police officers in 2014, with the approaching migrant caravan from Honduras and quotes from someone within that caravan saying they have prior felonies.
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
It is outrageous what the Democrats are doing to our Country. Vote Republican now! <a href="https://t.co/0pWiwCHGbh">https://t.co/0pWiwCHGbh</a> <a href="https://t.co/2crea9HF7G">pic.twitter.com/2crea9HF7G</a>
&#8212; Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1057728445386539008?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 31, 2018</a></blockquote>
</div>
As noted by <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/37861/trump-releases-controversial-ad-connecting-killer-ben-shapiro">Ben Shapiro</a>, the ad makes a broad point about not properly vetting people who enter the country illegally, a message that critics are overlooking:
<blockquote>
Trump&#8217;s broader argument in the ad is obvious: we don&#8217;t know who is coming into our country. Democrats don&#8217;t want to bother to find out; they want to retain catch-and-release policies that allow people to approach our border and then stay in the country illegally. We don&#8217;t know who is in the caravan, and that&#8217;s the point &#8211; there could be criminals in that caravan. Yet some Democrats seem intent on allowing nearly everyone from the caravan in without serious vetting.
</blockquote>
President Trump is also not the only person to cite Bracamontes as a cautionary tale about illegal immigration. Here&#8217;s what <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/29/us/mexican-held-in-shootings-was-deported-after-arrests.html?action=click&amp;contentCollection=U.S.&amp;module=RelatedCoverage&amp;region=EndOfArticle&amp;pgtype=article">The New York Times</a> said of the story back in 2014:
<blockquote>
The case could create a new problem for the Obama administration, as officials weigh steps the president could take after the Nov. 4 elections to expand protections from deportation for immigrants here illegally. Emerging details of the suspect&#8217;s history &#8212; he gave his second last name in court in Sacramento on Tuesday as Bracamontes, not Bracamonte &#8212; show that he crossed the southwest border at least twice in a wave of illegal immigration more than a decade ago, then used several aliases and stayed out of trouble just enough to elude detection as the Obama administration ramped up deportations in recent years and expanded systems to identify foreigners who committed crimes.
</blockquote>
The context of the video has been overlooked and has instead been denounced as racist. While CNN refused to give the ad air time, both Fox News and NBC allowed it before eventually pulling it.
According to <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/trump-racist-ad-airs-nbc_us_5bdfd222e4b09d43e3204de5">HuffPo</a>, &#8220;NBC on Sunday aired a controversial political ad paid for by President <a data-rapid-parsed="slk" data-rapid_p="1" data-v9y="1" data-ylk="subsec:paragraph;cpos:1;elm:context_link;itc:0" href="https://www.huffingtonpost.com/topic/donald-trump">Donald Trump&#8217;s</a> campaign during the prime-time commercial breaks for Sunday Night Football.&#8221;
&#8220;The company was widely lambasted for airing it,&#8221; HuffPo continued. &#8220;On Monday morning, an NBC Universal spokesperson said the company recognizes &#8216;the insensitive nature of the ad and have decided to cease airing it across our properties as soon as possible.'&#8221;
Fox News quickly followed in NBC&#8217;s footsteps.
&#8220;Upon further review, Fox News pulled the ad yesterday and it will not appear on either Fox News Channel or Fox Business Network,&#8221; Marianne Gambelli, Fox News&#8217; president of advertisement sales, told CNN in a statement.
The ad was not submitted to either ABC or CBS, according to sources close with CNN.
On Saturday, Donald Trump Jr. blasted CNN for refusing to run the ad, which prompted the network to respond on Twitter, saying it was &#8220;abundantly clear&#8221; the ad was racist.
&#8220;CNN has made it abundantly clear in its editorial coverage that this ad is racist,&#8221; the network said. &#8220;When presented with an opportunity to be paid to take a version of this ad, we declined. Those are the facts.&#8221;

CNN Refuses To Air Trump Anti-Immigration Ad. NBC, Fox News Pull It After Airing.

Fox News

Illegal Immigration

Members of the media have taken their coverage of her breakup with NBC too far, Megyn Kelly said in a series of tweets Wednesday.
&#8220;For a week paparazzi has been lurking outside my home day &amp; nite. Finally today I took my kids to school. I went out alone 1st, offered them donuts &amp;begged them to just take their pic of me &amp; to leave my kids alone when they emerged. All were nice. Except the Dailymail,&#8221; she wrote. &#8220;The DailyMail 1st published photos of my husb IN OUR HOME &amp; then *did* photog my kids, trailed us to my daughter&#8217;s school, &amp; secretly videotaped my 7-yr-old child (her classmates too) &amp; posted it. THIS IS NOT RIGHT.&#8221;
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
1 of 2: For a week paparazzi has been lurking outside my home day &amp; nite. Finally today I took my kids to school. I went out alone 1st, offered them donuts &amp;begged them to just take their pic of me &amp; to leave my kids alone when they emerged. All were nice. Except the Dailymail&#8230;
&#8212; Megyn Kelly (@megynkelly) <a href="https://twitter.com/megynkelly/status/1057665039082110976?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 31, 2018</a></blockquote>
</div>
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
2 of 2: The DailyMail 1st published photos of my husb IN OUR HOME &amp; then *did* photog my kids, trailed us to my daughter&#8217;s school, &amp; secretly videotaped my 7-yr-old child (her classmates too) &amp; posted it. THIS IS NOT RIGHT.
&#8212; Megyn Kelly (@megynkelly) <a href="https://twitter.com/megynkelly/status/1057665322608664576?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 31, 2018</a></blockquote>
</div>
Kelly&#8217;s tweets come amid a public feud between her lawyer Bryan Freedman and NBC executives. In response to reports by the Daily Mail and others that his client was allegedly asking for more money, Freedman called on NBC to refute such false and disparaging allegations.
&#8220;Despite my efforts to handle this process confidentially, NBC News is allowing the media to run with completely false and irresponsible reports that disparage Megyn by erroneously claiming she has ever asked for more money than her contract requires,&#8221; said Freedman Wednesday, <a href="https://deadline.com/2018/10/megyn-kelly-exit-negotiations-lawyer-criticism-andy-lack-steve-burke-1202493047/">Deadline</a> reports.
&#8220;If NBC News is not the source then they have a responsibility as a news division to correct these false claims,&#8221; he said. &#8220;Or are they somehow attempting to use these fabrications for some fictitious advantage in the discussions we&#8217;re having? If Andy Lack has lost control, my hope would be that Steve Burke can step in and not permit blatant lies about our discussions to remain uncorrected.&#8221;
A spokesperson for NBC dismissed Freedman&#8217;s suggestions about any wrongdoing. &#8220;Unlike Mr. Freedman, who has repeatedly commented to the media throughout the negotiations, we respect the confidentiality of the process, and will have no comment until it reaches its conclusion,&#8221; the spokesperson said in a statement to Deadline.
NBC has moved to fire Kelly after she pushed back on the notion that changing one&#8217;s skin tone to portray a famous figure of a different race for Halloween was necessarily racist. Critics portrayed the comments as a defense of the racist practice of &#8220;blackface.&#8221; Kelly offered an emotional apology the next day, but Lack publicly rebuked her and reports quickly began to circulate that she was out.
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/37635/nbc-sources-suggest-real-reasons-network-wants-james-barrett">NBC Sources Suggest Real Reasons Network Wants Megyn Kelly Fired</a>

Megyn Kelly Breaks Silence, Slams Out Of Control Media: &#8216;Videotaped My 7-Yr-Old Child&#8217;

NBC was aghast that Megyn Kelly said it was once OK to color your skin during Halloween when she was a kid.
&#8221;But what is racist?&#8221; she said on her NBC morning show last week. &#8220;Because you do get in trouble if you are a white person who puts on blackface on Halloween, or a black person who puts on whiteface for Halloween. Back when I was a kid that was OK, as long as you were dressing up as, like, a character.&#8221;
Kelly was quickly drummed out of NBC and accused of being a racist.
Now, before we go on, we want to point out that Kelly didn&#8217;t actually appear in blackface, dressed up like, say, Aunt Jemima. She just said those words.
But now it turns out several NBC stars have dressed up in blackface, and in whiteface &#8212; including one who fiercely criticized Kelly.
NBC News anchor Lester Holt once dressed as British pop singer and YouTube sensation Susan Boyle for Halloween, complete with wig and a dress, but also wearing whiteface, <a href="https://www.mediaite.com/online/lester-holt-dressed-up-as-a-woman-in-whiteface-fallon-in-blackface-what-exactly-is-nbcs-policy/">Mediaite reported</a>. Ironically, Holt did so for an appearance on the Today Show &#8212; the very same show from which Kelly was fired.
See a <a href="https://pagesix.com/2017/10/03/the-today-shows-most-unsettling-halloween-costumes/slide-6/">picture here</a>, posted on Page Six of the New York Post.
Fox News&#8217; Tucker Carlson discussed Holt on his show Tuesday.
&#8220;He has changed his appearance in a way that is now very controversial. He wore that costume for a Halloween episode of the &#8216;Today&#8217; show, Megyn Kelly of course was just fired for suggesting that it wasn&#8217;t always bad to dress up as a member of an opposite race,&#8221; Carlson said.
At the 2016 Golden Globes, Jimmy Fallon, another NBC star, wore blackface during an impersonation of comedian Chris Rock. He also did the same during a &#8220;Saturday Night Live&#8221; sketch in 2000.
<div class="embed video fluid-video"><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen frameborder="0" height="720" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/E37BSMRA7-o" width="1280"></iframe></div>
And ABC late night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel also donned blackface for a skit back in 2000, when he appeared in blackface to pretend he was NBA Hall of Famer Karl Malone on Comedy Central&#8217;s &#8220;The Man Show.&#8221;
<div class="embed video fluid-video"><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen frameborder="0" height="722" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/-wse5lgIDxM" width="963"></iframe></div>
And who can forget the time &#8220;30 Rock,&#8221; another NBC show, featured Tracy Morgan as a white woman and Jane Krakowski in blackface.
But &#8203;Carlson rightly said the whole thing is silly, and noted that whiteface is not exactly blackface, which has a long history.
&#8220;Look, I just want to be clear, I don&#8217;t think there&#8217;s an equivalence between the two. There is a long history of one and not of the other. But I also wonder, I don&#8217;t think, there are like five people in America who would be deeply offended by what Lester Holt did. I&#8217;m not offended by it. Maybe though if you dress like that you should be slightly less self-righteous in the face of other people&#8217;s transgressions.&#8221;

Lester Holt Once Dressed As Woman In &#8216;Whiteface,&#8217; Jimmy Fallon In Blackface

Jimmy Fallon

Jimmy Kimmel

Lester Holt

Racism

An NBC reporter who interviewed one of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh&#8217;s accusers, and who admitted to sitting on evidence that two of his accusers were not credible, is now trying to defend herself and her network.
It&#8217;s not working.
Kate Snow interviewed Julie Swetnick on Oct. 1. Swetnick claimed in a sworn statement to her attorney, Michael Avenatti, that she saw Kavanaugh act aggressively toward women, spike punch with drugs to get women drunk, and line up outside of rooms to gang-rape women. On NBC, Swetnick <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/36562/watch-kavanaugh-accuser-swetnick-walks-back-some-ryan-saavedra">walked back her most important claims</a>: She didn&#8217;t see Kavanaugh spike any punch and she never saw men lined up to gang-rape women (they were just &#8220;huddled by doors).&#8221;
Kavanaugh said he doesn&#8217;t even know Swetnick. One of the people Swetnick named to corroborate her story also didn&#8217;t remember anyone with that name.
Snow opened her interview by acknowledging the network couldn&#8217;t verify any of Swetnick&#8217;s claims. Yet the network still chose to give her a 13-minute primetime interview.
Last Thursday, NBC acknowledged that a second accuser represented by attorney Avenatti, whose name is still unknown, said her words were &#8220;twisted&#8221; in her sworn statement and that she never saw Kavanaugh spike punch or act inappropriately toward women. NBC had this information days before Kavanaugh&#8217;s confirmation vote, <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/37637/nbc-sat-information-undermined-brett-kavanaugh-ashe-schow">but didn&#8217;t report it until now</a>.
On Saturday, Snow took to Twitter to defend herself and her network for sitting on information that could have helped Kavanaugh gain some of his reputation back after the salacious allegations.
&#8220;Important context to my and <a href="https://twitter.com/annaschecter">@annaschecter</a>&#8217;s story regarding a second woman Michael Avenatti put forward to corroborate Julie Swetnick&#8217;s claims about Brett Kavanaugh,&#8221; Snow began her eight-tweet thread.
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
My interview with Ms. Swetnick aired on October 1. She was making serious claims, so we took care to provide viewers the full context around her allegations and our reporting with a 13+ min piece 2/8
&#8212; Kate Snow (@tvkatesnow) <a href="https://twitter.com/tvkatesnow/status/1056225120098942981?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 27, 2018</a></blockquote>
</div>
So, because she made &#8220;serious claims,&#8221; she was given a primetime interview, even though her claims couldn&#8217;t be verified.
&#8220;We also made clear &#8211; in the interest of full transparency &#8211; that NBC News had not been able to independently verify her claims,&#8221; Snow continued, as if that makes it okay to give uncorroborated, horrific allegations air time when a man&#8217;s reputation is at stake.
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
We also made clear &#8211; in the interest of full transparency &#8211; that NBC News had not been able to independently verify her claims. 3/8
&#8212; Kate Snow (@tvkatesnow) <a href="https://twitter.com/tvkatesnow/status/1056225122141511681?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 27, 2018</a></blockquote>
</div>
Snow then explained the story NBC wrote on Thursday.
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
By the time we were able to find the woman independently from Mr. Avenatti, who declined to give us her full legal name and phone number, and fully report and vet her story, the Kavanaugh confirmation process was over and the news value was limited. 5/8
&#8212; Kate Snow (@tvkatesnow) <a href="https://twitter.com/tvkatesnow/status/1056225125664808961?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 27, 2018</a></blockquote>
</div>
This isn&#8217;t true. NBC knew at the time Avenatti released the second woman&#8217;s statement that she wasn&#8217;t credible, on Oct. 3. Kavanaugh was confirmed on Oct. 6. NBC &#8212; according to Snow&#8217;s own reporting &#8212; contacted this woman on Oct. 3 after Avenatti released her statement. The woman said she only &#8220;skimmed&#8221; the declaration. On Oct. 4, she texted NBC to say she didn&#8217;t see what she was alleged to have seen in the affidavit.
Snow also reported that Avenatti confirmed the woman they talked to and his second client were one and the same, and had some more back and forth messages with her and Avenatti, ,separately. The last text from this woman &#8212; again, according to NBC&#8217;s own reporting &#8212; came on Oct. 5, the day before Kavanaugh was confirmed.
Even if it were true that NBC couldn&#8217;t &#8220;fully report and vet her story&#8221; before the Kavanaugh confirmation, the &#8220;news value&#8221; would not be &#8220;limited.&#8221; The man is sitting on the Supreme Court and a large chunk of the American people think he is a gang-rapist. Providing evidence that he is not would certainly be newsworthy, go a long way to repairing Americans&#8217; trust in the media, and repair Kavanaugh&#8217;s reputation.
Further, Snow admits her and her network&#8217;s left-wing bias by claiming they couldn&#8217;t post the story on Avenatti&#8217;s second client because they couldn&#8217;t &#8220;fully report and vet her story,&#8221; when they put Swetnick on air with a disclaimer they couldn&#8217;t verify her story. The woman accusing Kavanaugh of gang-rape was given an interview without verification, the story about how Avenatti&#8217;s clients disagreed with their sworn statements was not posted without verification.
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
To be clear &#8211; we did NOT have enough reporting to publish the second woman&#8217;s account until after Justice Kavanaugh secured enough votes for confirmation. 6/8
&#8212; Kate Snow (@tvkatesnow) <a href="https://twitter.com/tvkatesnow/status/1056225127422148609?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 27, 2018</a></blockquote>
</div>
But they did have enough reporting to present suspicions about her account before the Kavanaugh hearing. And, as I mentioned before, they went forward with outlandish, salacious accusations against Kavanaugh without vetting those.
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
We always want to be clear and fully transparent around our reporting, and that&#8217;s what we&#8217;re doing here. 8/8
&#8212; Kate Snow (@tvkatesnow) <a href="https://twitter.com/tvkatesnow/status/1056225131901665282?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 27, 2018</a></blockquote>
</div>
Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-IA) did not make the story newsworthy again. It was always newsworthy. NBC proved that it only cared about sexual assault accusations against Kavanaugh to stop his confirmation. Once he was confirmed, NBC didn&#8217;t care whether the accusations were true or not, because he was already on the court.
Snow&#8217;s attempt to defend herself and her network just dug them a deeper hole.

NBC Tries, Fails To Defend Itself After Sitting On Information That Undermined Kavanaugh Accusers

Brett Kavanaugh

Julie Swetnick

Michael Avenatti

Celebrity attorney Michael Avenatti has been referred for possible additional violations regarding his representation of clients who accused Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault.
The <a href="https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/2018-10-26%20CEG%20to%20DOJ%20FBI%20(Second%20Avenatti%20Referral)%20-%20with%20enclosures_Redacted.pdf">additional complaint</a>, from Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-IA), includes information about a second client Avenatti represented, whose name is unknown. This woman backed up Julie Swetnick&#8217;s claims that Kavanaugh spiked punch at parties to get women drunk so they could rape them.
On Thursday, Grassley referred Avenatti and his client, Swetnick, <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/37601/breaking-avenatti-swetnick-referred-criminal-ryan-saavedra">to the Justice Department for criminal investigation</a>, alleging they provided false statements, obstructed a congressional investigation, and conspired to violate federal law with their allegations against Kavanaugh. On Friday, Grassley provided additional information supporting the charges against Avenatti, based on <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/37637/nbc-sat-information-undermined-brett-kavanaugh-ashe-schow">a report from NBC</a> that his second client &#8212; the unnamed woman &#8212; told the news outlet that the celebrity attorney &#8220;<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/37630/witness-avenatti-twisted-my-words-about-kavanaugh-james-barrett">twisted</a>&#8221; her words.
&#8220;In light of this new information, I am now referring Mr. Avenatti for investigation of additional potential violations of those same laws, stemming from a second declaration he submitted to the Committee that also appears to contain materially false statements,&#8221; Grassley wrote to Attorney General Jeff Sessions and FBI Director Christopher Wray.
Shortly after Grassley sent his first referral, NBC reported that Avenatti&#8217;s second client told them on multiple occasions that what was written in her sworn statement was not accurate, and that she never saw Kavanaugh spike the punch and that she didn&#8217;t know Swetnick until well after high school. She also said she never saw Kavanaugh act inappropriately toward women.
Avenatti told NBC, according to NBC, that he had recordings of the woman making the claims included in the sworn statement. Shortly after this conversation, the woman texted NBC to affirm what the affidavit said.
NBC called the woman yet again, and she again disputed what was said in the sworn statement.
&#8220;Simply put, the sworn statement Mr. Avenatti provided the Committee on October 2 appears to be an outright fraud,&#8221; Grassley wrote. &#8220;According to NBC News, the purported declarant denied &#8212; both before and after the sworn statement was released &#8212; the key allegations Mr. Avenatti attributed to her. She stated she was clear and consistent &#8216;from day one&#8217; with Mr. Avenatti that those claims were not true.&#8221;
Grassley added that when Avenatti was questioned about the discrepancies between the sworn statement and what the woman told NBC, &#8220;Mr. Avenatti attempted to deceive them in an apparent effort to thwart the truth coming out.&#8221;
&#8220;Accordingly, in light of the seriousness of these facts, and the threat these types of actions pose to the Committee&#8217;s ability to perform its constitutional duties, I hope you will give this referral, as well as my prior one related to Mr. Avenatti, the utmost consideration,&#8221; Grassley concluded. &#8220;Thank you for your prompt attention to this matter.&#8221;
Neither the Justice Department nor the FBI have responded to Grassley&#8217;s letter.
In a tweet sent Friday evening after Grassley&#8217;s letter became public, Avenatti responded, asking: &#8220;How ignorant is Grassley?&#8221;
&#8220;He keeps publicly demanding an investigation knowing full well that it will likely never happen &#8211; it is all for show,&#8221; Avenatti wrote. &#8220;And if it does, he has placed Kavanaugh at risk of being removed from the SCOTUS.&#8221;
&#8220;This is what happens when you never attend law school,&#8221; he added.

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