Tag: proTrump

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Capitol cop who shot pro-Trump rioter Ashli Babbitt comes ahead

Capitol cop who shot pro-Trump rioter Ashli Babbitt comes forward

Minnesota’s Melody Black gets emotional as she visits a memorial near the U.S. Capitol for Ashli ​​Babbitt, who was killed in the building after a pro-Trump mob broke into Washington, DC on January 6, 2021 was.

Joe Raedle | Getty Images

Lt. Michael Byrd, the officer who fatally shot Ashli ​​Babbitt during the January 6 invasion of the US Capitol, said in his initial comments after publicly disclosing his identity that the unarmed rioter “posed a threat” to him Congress represent.

“I was screaming and shouting as loud as I was, ‘Please stop, come back, come back,'” Byrd told NBC Nightly News’ Lester Holt in an interview that aired Thursday night.

“You ultimately hope your orders will be obeyed, and unfortunately they weren’t,” he said.

The official’s remarks came three days after the US Capitol Police Department said it would not discipline him following an internal investigation into the January 6 shooting. The Justice Department said in April it would not bring criminal charges against the officer.

Neither of these agencies identified the officer when they shared their findings. The USCP stated in a press release on Monday: “This officer and the officer’s family have been the subject of numerous credible and specific threats.”

Byrd shot and killed Babbitt, a 35-year-old Air Force veteran, in the Capitol on January 6 when she tried to climb through an opening in a barricaded door that had broken a pane of glass, the Justice Department investigation found.

Babbitt was part of a group of pro-Trump rioters who had gathered in a hallway outside the speaker’s lobby that leads to the Chamber of Representatives. A joint session of Congress was forced to evacuate the Houses of Representatives and Senate when a mob of hundreds of people entered the building, temporarily undoing efforts to confirm President Joe Biden’s electoral college victory.

Byrd, who was in the lobby when Babbitt tried to crawl through the door, drew his service pistol and shot her once in the left shoulder, causing her to fall backwards to the floor, the DOJ noted. She was transported to the Washington Hospital Center, where, according to the agency, she died.

“She posed a threat to the United States House of Representatives,” Byrd told NBC.

When asked what he could see when he fired his gun, Byrd said, “You learn to aim at the mean mass [Babbitt] was sideways and I couldn’t see her full movement of her hands or anything. “

“Their movement made the discharge fall off where it was,” he said.

A lawyer for Babbitt’s family, Terrell Roberts, has alleged that Byrd “ambushed” Babbitt and shot her “without warning”. Roberts did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request to comment on Byrd’s interview.

Babbitt has become a martyr of the far right, and many are demanding that the name of the officer who shot her be revealed. Babbitt’s family, who have vowed to file a multi-million dollar lawsuit against the police and Byrd, have raised thousands of donations online.

Former President Donald Trump claimed that Babbitt was “murdered by someone who should never have pulled the trigger.”

Byrd, who is Black, said he had lived in hiding for months since Jan. 6 but was still the target of threats from those who speculated he was Babbitt’s shooter.

“You talked about killing me and cutting my head off,” Byrd said. “There were also some racist attacks.”

“It’s all disheartening because I know I’ve done my job,” he said.

Byrd said he had “naturally” concerns about coming forward and called the move “terrifying”. But “I think I showed the greatest courage on January 6th and it is now time to do so,” he said.

Byrd also mentioned an earlier incident that made his name headline news in the interview when he left his Glock 22 in a bathroom at the Capitol in 2019.

It was “a terrible mistake,” he told NBC Holt. “I confessed … I was punished for it and moved on.”

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Giuliani, Bannon, Flynn, Lindell pushed pro-Trump election lies at Guo Wengui social gathering

Giuliani, Bannon, Flynn, Lindell pushed pro-Trump election lies at Guo Wengui party

Former White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon (R) greets fugitive Chinese billionaire Guo Wengui before introducing him at a news conference on November 20, 2018 in New York, on the death of of tycoon Wang Jian in France on July 3, 2018.

Don Emmert | AFP | Getty Images

It was supposed to be a celebration for a movement that opposes the Chinese Communist Party.

Instead, the swanky private party, held in June at the top of One World Trade Center, served as a platform for several of former President Donald Trump’s allies, including former advisor Steve Bannon and personal attorney Rudy Giuliani, to spew anti-government rhetoric and conspiracy theories about the 2020 election.

The invitation-only event was hosted by a couple of shadowy nonprofits, the Rule of Law Foundation and the Rule of Law Society. They are linked to Guo Wengui, a wealthy exiled businessman from China who is an ardent opponent of that nation’s ruling Communist Party.

CNBC obtained a copy of the invitation, which lists Guo, Bannon and the two new chairs of the nonprofit organizations as speakers for the event. You can view the invitation here.

MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell and former Trump national security advisor Mike Flynn, both known for pushing the false theory that claims the election was stolen from Trump, also spoke at the June 3 gathering.

“It’s like on the battlefield because this is warfare,” Flynn said at the event, which included lunch, dinner and afternoon tea. “This is warfare that we are in.”

It was streamed on YouTube, which has 30,000 views so far. Neither the YouTube video nor the invitation to the event have been reported on.

Read some of the remarks made at the event:

A person familiar with the event said there could have been up to 200 people in attendance at Aspire, a catering hall located on the 102nd floor of One World Trade Center.

A sales manager at Aspire would not confirm details of the Guo-supported event, although the manager said a 12-hour, 200-guest event with lunch and dinner stations could cost nearly $185,000.

The Rule of Law Society and the Rule of Law Foundation describe themselves as a resource for whistleblowers who want to safely speak out against the Chinese government. Guo fled China in 2014 in anticipation of corruption charges. After he blasted China’s leadership, warrants were reportedly issued for his arrest on charges that included corruption and bribery.

Press representatives for the Guo-linked foundations, Bannon, Flynn and Giuliani did not respond to requests for comment.

A misinformation offensive

The conspiracy theories and speakers heard at the event fit a pattern for the Guo-backed organizations. The nonprofits are cited in a report by Graphika, which describes a “network [that] acts as a prolific producer and amplifier of mis- and disinformation, including claims of voter fraud in the U.S., false information about Covid-19, and QAnon narratives.”

Bannon left his role as chair of the Rule of Law Society last summer. His departure from the board came around the time he was arrested on Guo’s yacht for allegedly defrauding donors through his “We Build the Wall” fundraising campaign. Bannon pleaded not guilty at the time and was later pardoned by Trump.

The invitation to the June event lists Dinggang Wang, a Guo associate and anti-Chinese government YouTube star, as a new chair of the Rule of Law Society. Wang, according to a report by NBC News, appears to have previously helped spread Covid misinformation and conspiracy theories about President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, during the election.

The invitation lists among its topics the “Chinese Communist Party Virus” and “CCP’s existential threat to the US and the world.” But there is no clear indication that people would discuss the 2020 election. Biden defeated Trump, who has continued to lie about how it was stolen from him.

The event was described as a commemoration of a Guo-linked movement known as the New Federal State of China.

“It is with great pleasure and joy that we invite you to join us in New York City for the first anniversary of The New Federal State of China (NFSC),” the invitation read.

At the event, Bannon and Lindell contended that China interfered in the election.

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A government report, declassified in March by the director of national intelligence, said there were “no indications that any foreign actor attempted to alter any technical aspect of the voting process in the 2020 U.S. elections, including voter registration, casting ballots, vote tabulation or reporting results.”

The report also noted that intelligence agencies found that China “did not deploy interference efforts and considered but did not deploy influence efforts intended to change the outcome of the U.S. presidential election.” The report does note that intelligence analysts also assessed that “China did take some steps to try to undermine former President Trump’s reelection.”

Flynn at the Guo-backed party falsely claimed that Trump won the election over Biden. Giuliani took aim at Hunter Biden and the Biden family as a whole, among other conspiracies.

The election claims made by Trump, Bannon, Lindell, Flynn, Giuliani and other allies of the former president have been debunked across the board, including by Republicans and one-time members of the Trump administration.

Then-Attorney General Bill Barr told The Associated Press shortly after Biden was projected to be the winner of the 2020 election that the FBI found no signs of widespread voter fraud.

Trump’s campaign still went on to spend millions to fight a losing battle against the election results. As Congress was signing off on the election results Jan. 6, Trump encouraged his supporters to march on Capitol Hill. The ensuing riot and invasion of Congress led to several deaths and hundreds of federal prosecutions.

Here are some of the notable things said by the leading pro-Trump voices at the One World Trade Center event.

Steve Bannon

Steve Bannon speaks at one year anniversary celebration of the New Federal State of China.

Source: Rule of Law Society | YouTube

“The quality of people that you have brought here today. You are going to have Gen. Mike Flynn. You are going to have Mike Lindell,” Bannon said. “He’s [Lindell] suing Dominion because of the Chinese Communist Party. He’s going to show in court that the Chinese Communist Party actually did cyberattacks on our Nov. 3 election,” Bannon noted.

Moments before Lindell spoke at the event, Bannon said that Lindell’s lawsuits against voting machine companies Dominion and Smartmatic will prove that China interfered in the 2020 election to defeat Trump. Dominion is also suing Lindell.

“Here’s what’s important. He has a lawsuit that he’s going to take to the Supreme Court that’s going to show the Chinese Communist Party interfered in the 2020 election to defeat Donald J. Trump,” Bannon said of Lindell.

Lindell’s claims have been debunked.

Mike Flynn

Source: Rule of Law Society | YouTube

Before Lindell took the stage, Flynn, whom Trump forced out barely a month into his administration, gave his take on the election and suggested that people are planning further fights against the federal government.

“I’m fed up with our government. I’m fed up with the corruption that we’ve experienced and that has been exposed,” Flynn told the crowd. “We have hundreds of millions of people in this country that they see it for what it is. They see the authenticity of a Donald Trump. They know President Trump won this last election. There’s no doubt about it.”

He added: “Where are we as America today? Where are we? And I will tell you. There are hundreds of millions of people around this country that are not about to give this country up. There are patriots everywhere. And I mean 10’s, 20 million people.”

Trump pardoned Flynn in November, two years after the retired lieutenant general pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI.

Mike Lindell

Steve Bannon and Mike Lindell speak at one year anniversary celebration of the New Federal State of China.

Steve Bannon and Mike Lindell speak at an event celebrating the first anniversary of the Inauguration of New Federal State of China.

Lindell, the pillow kingpin who became a leading voice on the extreme right, showed a clip from his new film titled “Absolutely 9-0.” In the film clip, Lindell speaks to an anonymous cybersecurity expert who claims to have proof that China interfered in the election.

The conservative-leaning outlet The Dispatch spoke to experts who questioned the legitimacy of many of Lindell’s claims in the film. This month, Lindell hosted what he called a “Cyber Symposium,” where he said he would make public the evidence he had showing that China hacked the 2020 election. Reporters who attended the event said Lindell did not show any evidence proving his claims.

The private anti-China event in June proved to be another moment for Lindell to push his election claims. Lindell claimed in his speech that he found evidence showing China’s attempts to interfere in the election.

“When this does get to the Supreme Court the biggest win here is that they look at it. They have to look at it and they’re going to be heroes because we are going to show them that the CCP used the Democrat Party to attack our country through these machines,” Lindell said.

Lindell explained in a phone interview Wednesday with CNBC that he was invited to the event by Bannon himself and he did not know Guo.

Lindell stood by his belief that China interfered in the election. However, he would not commit to a specific date to release his purported evidence to the public. He also said he had not seen the report by the U.S. intelligence community that explains China did not interfere in the presidential election.

“This happened. It’s real,” Lindell told CNBC. “It’s one of the biggest cover-ups of the biggest crime in history.”

Rudy Giuliani

Source: Rule of Law Society | YouTube

Giuliani, a former federal prosecutor and mayor of New York, was among the last speakers at the event. Giuliani’s license to practice law was suspended both in New York and Washington, D.C., due to the false election claims he is spreading.

At the Guo-backed event, Giuliani took aim at Covid restrictions that were put in place by Democratic governors.

“You could see what I call the dictatorial instincts of socialists in Gov. Newsom, in Gov. Whitmer, in Gov. Cuomo. Just give them a little opportunity to exercise authority and they are going to slam down on you,” Giuliani said, slamming his hand onto the podium.

“Arresting people in handcuffs for not wearing a mask?” Giuliani asked the crowd. “Looks a little like Berlin in the 1930s, huh?” he later added, referring to Nazi Germany.

Giuliani then revisited the Hunter Biden conspiracy. Giuliani’s New York City apartment was raided almost two months before the Guo event. It was reportedly part of a probe into the former New York mayor’s dealings in Ukraine. Giuliani had been trying to dig up dirt on Biden’s son’s business dealings in Ukraine during the election.

“You can’t go through three days without a crime being committed by one of the Bidens,” Giuliani said while describing the evidence he has reviewed against the Biden family, including a hard drive, a copy of which was purportedly provided to the New York Post.

“They are basically a crime family. They started 30 years ago selling his office, for little money. Then big money. Then when he became vice president, there’s a pattern to it.”

Video of the event:

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Home approves choose committee to analyze pro-Trump Capitol rebel

House approves select committee to investigate pro-Trump Capitol insurrection

A supporter of U.S. President Donald Trump sprays smoke during a “Stop the Steal” protest outside of the Capitol building in Washington D.C. January 6, 2021.

Stephanie Keith | Reuters

The House passed legislation Wednesday that will form a select committee to investigate the violent Jan. 6 riot in which Donald Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol. 

The measure passed in a 222-190 party-line vote. Only two Republicans, Reps. Adam Kinzinger, R-I.L., and Liz Cheney, R-W.Y., voted in favor of it.

 “We have the duty, to the Constitution and the Country, to find the truth of the January 6th Insurrection and to ensure that such an assault on our Democracy cannot happen again,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi wrote in a letter to House members Wednesday morning. 

Pelosi announced the legislation after Senate Republicans blocked a bill in May that would have created an independent and bipartisan commission, modeled after the 9/11 commission, to probe the attack. GOP leaders asserted that it would only duplicate existing investigation efforts by the Justice Department and congressional committees. 

Under the newly approved legislation, the select committee will be led by Democrats and consist of 13 members. Pelosi will appoint one chairperson and all members to the committee, 5 of whom will be appointed in consultation with Republican House minority leader Kevin McCarthy, according to the legislation.  

The committee will investigate and report the facts and causes of the event, such as activities of intelligence and law enforcement agencies and technological factors that may have motivated the attack, the legislation says. It will also develop recommendations to prevent similar events from occurring in the future. 

All findings, conclusions and recommendations made by the committee will be issued in a final report to the House, according to the legislation. 

“Will we investigate how our democracy was attacked or will we send a green light to allow it to be attacked again? Will we stand with the cops or roll with the cop killers? Do we want the truth, or will we allow history to be erased? And are we for the constitution or are we for chaos?,” Representative Eric Swalwell said on the House floor.  

“January 6 was a crime against our democracy and the heroes of this Capitol. Now we must investigate it. Failing that, we are lawless. And lost.”

Rep. Michelle Fischbach, R-M.N., urged Republicans not to vote for the legislation, stating that it is “rife with partisan politics at its worst.”

A mob of Trump supporters stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6 in an effort to thwart Congress’ confirmation of President Joe Biden’s electoral victory. The attack left five people dead, including Capitol police officer Brian Sicknick. 

Pelosi invited Capitol Police Officer Harry Dunn and Metropolitan Police Officers Michael Fanone and Daniel Hodges to sit in during the House debate and vote. Gladys Sicknick, the mother of the police officer who died, was expected to attend as well. 

Police officers who responded at the Capitol and Gladys Sicknick have all lobbied for the independent select committee, the Associated Press reported Friday. 

Fanone and Dunn met with McCarthy last Friday, asking him to publicly condemn statements made by GOP members who have downplayed the attack and voted against honoring police for defending the Capitol, according to the Associated Press. 

Dunn, who had fought the rioters in hand-to-hand combat and was subject to racial slurs, told the Associated Press after the meeting that the goal is “accountability, justice for everybody that was involved.”

Fanone, who had described being shocked with a stun gun and beaten by rioters, added that he asked McCarthy not to put “the wrong people” on the select committee.

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Fox Information Intensifies Its Professional-Trump Politics as Dissenters Depart

Fox News Intensifies Its Pro-Trump Politics as Dissenters Depart

Fox News once devoted its 7 p.m. and 11 p.m. time slots to relatively straightforward newscasts. Now those hours are filled by opinion shows led by hosts who denounce Democrats and defend the worldview of former President Donald J. Trump.

For seven years, Juan Williams was the lone liberal voice on “The Five,” the network’s popular afternoon chat show. On Wednesday, he announced that he was leaving the program, after months of harsh on-air blowback from his conservative co-hosts. Many Fox News viewers cheered his exit on social media.

Donna Brazile, the former Democratic Party chairwoman, was hired by Fox News with great fanfare in 2019 as a dissenting voice for its political coverage. She criticized Mr. Trump and spoke passionately about the Black Lives Matter movement, which other hosts on the network often demonized. Ms. Brazile has now left Fox News; last week, she quietly started a new job at ABC.

Onscreen and off, in ways subtle and overt, Fox News has adapted to the post-Trump era by moving in a single direction: Trumpward.

The network has rewarded pro-Trump pundits like Greg Gutfeld and Dan Bongino with prize time slots. Some opinion hosts who ventured on-air criticism of the former president have been replaced. And within the Fox News reporting ranks, journalists have privately expressed concern that the network is less committed to straight-ahead news coverage than it was in the past.

The shifts at Fox News, which is controlled by the father-and-son moguls Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch, have come in the wake of what amounted to an existential moment for a cable channel that is home to Trump cheerleaders like Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham: the 2020 election.

Fox News’s ratings fell sharply after the network made an early call on election night that Joseph R. Biden Jr., the Democratic presidential nominee, would carry Arizona and later declared him the winner, even as Mr. Trump advanced lies about fraud. With viewers in revolt, the network moved out dissenting voices and put a new emphasis on right-wing commentary.

In January, the network fired its veteran politics editor, Chris Stirewalt, who had been an onscreen face of the early call in Arizona for Mr. Biden. This month, it brought on a new editor in the Washington bureau: Kerri Kupec, a former spokeswoman for Mr. Trump’s attorney general William P. Barr. She had no journalistic experience.

Financially, the Murdochs’ formula has produced results: After a rare loss to archrivals CNN and MSNBC in January, Fox News’s ratings strength has recovered; the channel is again the Nielsen leader in cable news. In May, Fox News is on track to more than double CNN’s prime-time viewership.

Its new opinion shows at 7 and 11 — with segments that lament “cancel culture” and attack Mr. Biden — are attracting bigger audiences than the newscasts they replaced. And the niche right-wing network Newsmax has failed to sustain its postelection audience gains.

Partisanship plays well on cable news, an insight not lost on programmers at other networks who are chasing fatigued viewers. Liberal-leaning MSNBC has expanded the show hosted by the anti-Trump commentator Nicolle Wallace; it also replaced the moderate Chris Matthews at 7 p.m. with the partisan commentator Joy Reid. Last week, CNN dropped one of its chief conservative commentators, Rick Santorum, after he was criticized for remarks about Native Americans.

“Conservatives have a long-held suspicion of the mainstream media being in the tank for Democrats and for the left,” said Ryan Williams, a Republican strategist and longtime aide to Mitt Romney who has occasionally appeared on the network as a guest. “Fox News for many years was viewed as the only outlet that wasn’t shilling for the other side. Liberals may doubt the power of Fox News, but it still draws a considerable audience for a reason.”

Fox News says its news coverage remains robust. And in some ways, the Murdochs are making a rational business decision by following the conservatives who have made up the heart of the Fox News audience; recent surveys show that more than three-quarters of Republicans want Mr. Trump to run in 2024.

But under Roger Ailes, the network’s founder, who shaped its look and feel, Fox News elevated liberal foils like Alan Colmes, a Democrat who shared equal billing in prime time with Mr. Hannity until the end of 2008, and moderates like Mr. Williams.

Credit…Andrew Toth/FilmMagic

“Roger’s view was you had to have some unpredictability and you had to challenge the audience; you couldn’t just be reading Republican talking points every night,” said Susan R. Estrich, a Democratic lawyer and former commentator on Fox News who negotiated Mr. Ailes’s exit from the network amid his sexual misconduct scandal.

Ms. Estrich recalled that Mr. Ailes had defended Megyn Kelly, the former Fox News host, when Mr. Trump, then a presidential candidate, attacked her in misogynist terms. Now, she said, “instead of trying to broaden their audience, Fox News is narrowing it and digging in.”

Today in Business

Updated 

May 28, 2021, 12:54 p.m. ET

Ms. Brazile said she had left Fox News of her own accord.

“Fox never censored my views in any way,” she wrote in an email. “Everyone treated me courteously as a colleague.” Ms. Brazile added: “I believe it’s important for all media to expose their audiences to both progressive and conservative viewpoints. With the election and President Biden’s first 100 days behind us, I’ve accomplished what I wanted at Fox News.”

Mr. Williams will remain at Fox News as a senior political analyst; the network said in a statement that he had requested to be closer to his family in Washington rather than commute to New York, where “The Five” is taped. Fox News said another liberal host would replace him. Among those in contention is a newly hired contributor to the Fox stable, the former Democratic congressman Harold Ford Jr.

Mr. Williams departed after a harder edge had crept into his exchanges with colleagues like Mr. Gutfeld and Jesse Watters. “The Five” had long been a venue for heated, if friendly debate, but Mr. Williams was repeatedly mocked and shouted down when he accused Mr. Trump of lying about the election and fueling the riot at the Capitol on Jan. 6.

Mr. Williams also noted, on-air, a Fox News report about Mr. Biden that falsely claimed he wanted to restrict Americans’ consumption of hamburgers. (Fox News later issued a correction.)

Credit…Fox News

His prime antagonist, Mr. Gutfeld, started an 11 p.m. show last month that is meant to compete with late-night fare like “The Daily Show.” “Gutfeld!” has attracted a bigger viewership than the previous 11 p.m. offering, a newscast anchored by Shannon Bream that was shifted to midnight.

Fox News is still determining a permanent host for its new 7 p.m. opinion hour, which is now a reliable venue for pro-Trump commentary. It was where Tucker Carlson, the network’s 8 p.m. host, made his remarks about white replacement theory that prompted an outcry from the Anti-Defamation League.

A pro-Trump drift at Fox News is not new: George Will, a traditional conservative who opposed Mr. Trump’s candidacy, lost his contributor contract in 2017. Shepard Smith, a news anchor who was tough on Mr. Trump, left in 2019.

Some Fox News journalists, though, say privately that they are increasingly concerned with the network’s direction. Kristin Fisher, one of the network’s rising stars in Washington and a White House correspondent, left Fox News earlier this month despite the network’s effort to keep her. She had faced criticism from viewers in November after a segment in which she aggressively debunked lies about election fraud advanced by Mr. Trump’s lawyers.

The longtime Washington bureau chief, Bill Sammon, resigned in January after internal criticism over his handling of election coverage, around the time that Mr. Stirewalt was fired. (Mr. Stirewalt was let go along with roughly 20 digital journalists at Fox News, which the network attributed to a realignment of “business and reporting structure to meet the demands of this new era.”)

Mr. Sammon has effectively been replaced by Doug Rohrbeck, a producer with extensive news experience on Bret Baier’s newscast and Chris Wallace’s Sunday show. Still, some Fox journalists were surprised when the network hired Ms. Kupec, the former Barr spokeswoman, to work under Mr. Rohrbeck.

A Fox News spokesperson said the network was proud of the journalism from its reporting ranks, listing examples including the foreign correspondent Trey Yingst’s coverage of Israel, Jennifer Griffin’s coverage of the Pentagon, and reporting on the crisis at the Mexican border by Bill Melugin and Aishah Hasnie.

Mr. Baier, the network’s chief political anchor, announced in May that he had extended his contract through 2025. Along with Mr. Wallace of “Fox News Sunday,” he regularly lands newsy interviews; a recent conversation with Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming grew testy when she faulted Fox News for perpetuating Mr. Trump’s lies about the election and Mr. Baier responded that he had made clear to viewers that Mr. Biden was the legitimate victor.

Fox News has a smaller international footprint than rivals like CNN, but it maintains several foreign bureaus and has had reporters in Israel covering the recent violence there. On Wednesday, the network announced an expansion of Fox News International, a streaming service available in 37 countries in Asia and Europe.

Despite continuing criticism from liberals, Fox News remains a financial juggernaut for the Murdoch empire; it is expected to earn record advertising revenues this year, the network said.

Even as its programming decisions seem aimed at attracting Trump supporters, Fox News does face one roadblock: Mr. Trump. The former president has maintained his stinging criticism of Fox News, which, he has claimed, betrayed him by calling the election for Mr. Biden.

On Friday, Mr. Trump renewed his criticism in a statement that he issued in response to a critical speech by the former House speaker Paul D. Ryan, a member of the Fox Corporation board since 2019.

“Fox totally lost its way and became a much different place” after Mr. Ryan joined the board, the former president wrote. Mr. Trump added: “Fox will never be the same!”

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Fox Information Intensifies Its Professional-Trump Politics as Dissenters Depart

Fox News Intensifies Its Pro-Trump Politics as Dissenters Depart

Fox News once devoted its 7 p.m. and 11 p.m. time slots to relatively straightforward newscasts. Now those hours are filled by opinion shows led by hosts who denounce Democrats and defend the worldview of former President Donald J. Trump.

For seven years, Juan Williams was the lone liberal voice on “The Five,” the network’s popular afternoon chat show. On Wednesday, he announced he was leaving the program, after months of harsh on-air blowback from his conservative co-hosts. Many Fox News viewers cheered his exit on social media.

Donna Brazile, the former Democratic Party chairwoman, was hired by Fox News with great fanfare in 2019 as a dissenting voice for its political coverage. She criticized Mr. Trump and spoke passionately about the Black Lives Matter movement, which other hosts on the network often demonized. Ms. Brazile has now left Fox News; last week, she quietly started a new job at ABC.

Onscreen and off, in ways subtle and overt, Fox News has adapted to the post-Trump era by moving in a single direction: Trumpward.

The network has rewarded pro-Trump pundits like Greg Gutfeld and Dan Bongino with prize time slots. Some opinion hosts who ventured on-air criticism of the former president have been replaced. And within the Fox News reporting ranks, journalists have privately expressed concern that the network is less committed to straight-ahead news coverage than it was in the past.

The shifts at Fox News, which is controlled by father-and-son moguls Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch, have come in the wake of what amounted to an existential moment for a cable channel that is home to Trump cheerleaders like Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham: the 2020 election.

Fox News’s ratings fell sharply after the network made an early call on election night that Mr. Biden would carry Arizona and later declared him the winner, even as Mr. Trump advanced lies about fraud. With viewers in revolt, the network moved out dissenting voices and put a new emphasis on hard-line right-wing commentary.

In January, the network fired its veteran politics editor, Chris Stirewalt, who had been an onscreen face of the early call in Arizona for Mr. Biden. Earlier this month, it brought on a new editor in the Washington bureau: Kerri Kupec, a former spokeswoman for Mr. Trump’s former attorney general, William P. Barr. She had no prior journalistic experience.

Financially, the Murdochs’ formula has produced results: after a rare loss to archrivals CNN and MSNBC in January, Fox News’s ratings strength has recovered; the channel is now once again the Nielsen leader in cable news. In May, Fox News is on track to more than double CNN’s prime-time viewership.

Its new 7 p.m. and 11 p.m. opinion shows — with segments that lament “cancel culture” and attack Mr. Biden — are attracting bigger audiences than the newscasts they replaced. And the niche right-wing network Newsmax has failed to sustain its postelection audience gains.

In some ways, the Murdochs are making a rational business decision by following the conservatives who have made up the heart of the Fox News audience; recent surveys show that more than three-quarters of Republicans want Mr. Trump to run in 2024.

But under Roger Ailes, the network’s founder who shaped its look and feel, Fox News elevated liberal foils like Alan Colmes, a Democrat who shared equal billing in prime-time with Mr. Hannity until the end of 2008, and moderates like Mr. Williams.

Credit…Andrew Toth/FilmMagic

“Roger’s view was you had to have some unpredictability and you had to challenge the audience; you couldn’t just be reading Republican talking points every night,” said Susan R. Estrich, a Democratic lawyer and former commentator on Fox News who negotiated Mr. Ailes’s exit from the network amid his sexual misconduct scandal.

Today in Business

Updated 

May 28, 2021, 12:54 p.m. ET

Ms. Estrich recalled that Mr. Ailes had defended Megyn Kelly, the former Fox News host, when Mr. Trump, then a presidential candidate, attacked her in misogynist terms. Now, she said, “instead of trying to broaden their audience, Fox News is narrowing it and digging in.”

Partisanship plays well on cable news, an insight not lost on programmers at other networks who are chasing fatigued viewers. Liberal-leaning MSNBC expanded the show hosted by the anti-Trump commentator Nicolle Wallace; it also replaced the moderate Chris Matthews at 7 p.m. with the partisan commentator Joy Reid. Last week, CNN dropped one of its chief conservative commentators, Rick Santorum, after he was criticized for remarks about Native Americans.

Ms. Brazile said she had left Fox News of her own accord.

“Fox never censored my views in any way,” she wrote in an email. “Everyone treated me courteously as a colleague.” Ms. Brazile added: “I believe it’s important for all media to expose their audiences to both progressive and conservative viewpoints. With the election and President Biden’s first 100 days behind us, I’ve accomplished what I wanted at Fox News.”

Mr. Williams will remain at Fox News as a senior political analyst; the network said in a statement that he had requested to be closer to his family in Washington rather than commute to New York, where “The Five” is taped. Fox News said he will be replaced by another liberal host; among those in contention is a newly hired contributor to the Fox stable, the former Democratic congressman Harold Ford Jr.

Mr. Williams’s departure came after a harder edge had crept into his exchanges with colleagues like Mr. Gutfeld and Jesse Watters. “The Five” had long been a venue for heated, if friendly debate, but Mr. Williams was repeatedly mocked and shouted down when he accused Mr. Trump of lying about the election and fueling the riot at the Capitol on Jan. 6.

Mr. Williams also noted, on-air, an erroneous Fox News report about Mr. Biden that falsely claimed he wanted to restrict Americans’ consumption of hamburgers. (Fox News later issued a correction.)

Credit…Fox News

His prime antagonist, Mr. Gutfeld, started an 11 p.m. show last month that is meant to compete with late-night fare like “The Daily Show.” “Gutfeld!” has attracted a bigger viewership than the previous 11 p.m. offering, a newscast anchored by Shannon Bream that was shifted to midnight.

Fox News is still determining a permanent host for its new 7 p.m. opinion hour, which is now a reliable venue for pro-Trump commentary. It was where Tucker Carlson, the network’s 8 p.m. host, made his remarks about white replacement theory that prompted an outcry from the Anti-Defamation League.

A pro-Trump drift at Fox News is not new: George Will, a traditional conservative who opposed Mr. Trump’s candidacy, lost his contributor contract in 2017. Shepard Smith, a news anchor who was tough on Mr. Trump, left in 2019.

Some Fox News journalists, though, say privately they are increasingly concerned with the network’s direction. Kristin Fisher, one of the network’s rising stars in Washington and a White House correspondent, left Fox News last month despite the network’s effort to keep her. She had faced criticism from viewers in November after a segment in which she aggressively debunked lies about election fraud advanced by Mr. Trump’s lawyers.

The longtime Washington bureau chief, Bill Sammon, resigned in January after internal criticism over his handling of election coverage, around the time that Mr. Stirewalt was fired. (Mr. Stirewalt was let go along with roughly 20 digital journalists at Fox News, which the network attributed to a realignment of “business and reporting structure to meet the demands of this new era.”)

Mr. Sammon has effectively been replaced by Doug Rohrbeck, a producer with extensive news experience on Bret Baier’s newscast and Chris Wallace’s Sunday show. Still, some Fox journalists were surprised when the network hired Ms. Kupec, the former Barr spokeswoman, to work under Mr. Rohrbeck. (In 2019, CNN hired Sarah Isgur, the spokeswoman for former Attorney General Jeff Sessions, as a political editor. After protests from staff, she was shifted to an on-air role and later left the network.)

Fox News says its news coverage remains robust. Mr. Baier, its chief political anchor, announced in May that he had extended his contract through 2025. He regularly lands newsy interviews; a recent conversation with Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming grew testy when she faulted Fox News for perpetuating Mr. Trump’s lies about the election and Mr. Baier responded that he had made clear to viewers that Mr. Biden was the legitimate victor.

Fox News has a smaller international footprint than rivals like CNN, but it maintains several foreign bureaus and has had multiple reporters on the ground in Israel covering the recent violence there. On Wednesday, the network announced an expansion of Fox News International, a streaming service available in 37 countries in Asia and Europe.

Despite ongoing criticism from liberals, Fox News remains a financial juggernaut for the Murdoch empire; it is expected to earn record advertising revenues this year, the network said.

Even as its programming decisions seem aimed at attracting Trump supporters, Fox News does face one roadblock: Mr. Trump. The former president has maintained his stinging criticism of Fox News, which, he has claimed, betrayed him by calling the election for Mr. Biden.

On Friday, after criticism from the former House Speaker Paul Ryan, Mr. Trump wrote that “Fox totally lost its way and became a much different place” after the Murdochs appointed Mr. Ryan to the Fox Corporation board.

“Fox will never be the same!” Mr. Trump wrote.

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How Professional-Trump Forces Pushed a Lie About Antifa on the Capitol Riot

How Pro-Trump Forces Pushed a Lie About Antifa at the Capitol Riot

Ms. Ingraham, who told Fox News viewers about the “anti-fascist” uprising, later shared on Twitter that the Washington Times article she quoted had been exposed. It did not issue an on-air correction. Mr Herman, the Limbaugh innkeeper who speculated on Antifa, wrote in an email Saturday, “It was clear that a large group of Trump supporters entered the Capitol and attacked people.” But he continued to falsely claim that antifa activists planned to pose as Trump supporters.

Of the 290 people charged with the attack, at least 27 are links to far-right groups such as the Oath Keepers or the Proud Boys. Others have ties to neo-confederate and white supremacist units or are clear supporters of the QAnon conspiracy movement. The vast majority expressed an ardent belief that Mr Trump was the rightful election winner.

On January 8, the FBI announced that there was no evidence that supporters of Antifa known to aggressively counter-protest demonstrations against white supremacists participated in the Capitol mob. And on January 13, Representative Kevin McCarthy, the leader of the minority in the Republican House, spoke at the impeachment trial of Mr. Trump, saying, “Some say the riot was caused by Antifa. There is absolutely no evidence of this, and conservatives should be the first to say so. “

But the next day, the arrest of a protester named John Sullivan sparked another surge in right-wing media over Antifa and the uprising.

Mr Sullivan called himself a Utah “activist” and CNN mistakenly featured him as a “leftist activist” when he appeared on the network on Jan. 6. (He had sold footage to CNN and other news outlets showing the shooting of Ashli ​​Babbitt, a rioter who died in the Capitol.) Conspiracy agency Gateway Pundit and Mr. Trump’s attorney Rudolph W. Giuliani arrested Mr. Sullivan, to re-accuse Antifa of posts that garnered tens of thousands of likes and shares on Facebook and Twitter.

In reality, Mr. Sullivan was an attention seeker whose policies were fungible and seemingly altered based on the protest he was attending at the time, according to activists from Seattle, Salt Lake City and Portland, Oregon who had warned him for months about the Uprising in the Capitol.

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Dominion sues MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell over pro-Trump election conspiracies

Dominion sues MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell over pro-Trump election conspiracies

Mike Lindell, CEO of MyPillow, waits outside the west wing of the White House before entering Washington, DC on January 15, 2021.

Drew Angerer | Getty Images

Dominion Voting Systems sued Mike Lindell, CEO of MyPillow, Monday, accusing former President Donald Trump’s staunch ally of making false conspiracies about the 2020 election “because the lie is selling pillows”.

The $ 1.3 billion defamation lawsuit states that Lindell knew his repeated claims that the election had been “stolen” were not backed by evidence, but were held to help Trump’s supporters of the MyPillow purchase -To stimulate products.

The 115-page complaint, filed in federal court in Washington, DC, cites numerous statements Lindell made in television interviews and social media posts, as well as in a two-hour documentary that aired on conservative media in February.

“MyPillow’s defamatory marketing campaign – featuring promo codes like” FightforTrump “,” 45 “,” Proof “and” QAnon “- has increased MyPillow sales by 30-40% and has continued to mislead people to lie their choices in pillow purchases divert, “says Dominion’s lawsuit.

In a phone interview with CNBC, Lindell said, “I’m very happy that you finally filed the lawsuit.”

“My message to Dominion is that you finally did it because it’s going to be in the spotlight again,” said Lindell.

Lindell also denied Dominion’s claims that his company benefited from his efforts.

“They also say that I benefited from it, or that I used this for MyPillow to advertise and that’s not true. I lost 22 retailers,” Lindell said. “The culture for MyPillow has been canceled.”

The lawsuit against Lindell is just the latest effort by Dominion to seek redress for the “enormous damage” caused by the “viral disinformation campaign” against the electoral society whose systems were deployed in some areas of the US during the presidential election.

Last month, Dominion sued Trump’s personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, accusing him of spreading similar conspiracies about the company to “get rich financially”.

Giuliani had called the lawsuit, which also claimed more than $ 1.3 billion in punitive and compensatory damages, as “intimidating the hateful left wing to obliterate and censor the exercise of freedom of speech and the ability of lawyers.” To vigorously defend customers. “

Smartmatic, another optional equipment company targeted after President Joe Biden’s victory in a series of conspiracies, filed its own billions of dollars in defamation lawsuit against the owner of Fox News in early February.

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Senate Democrats plan to focus on IRS in probe of pro-Trump teams

Senate Democrats plan to target IRS in probe of pro-Trump groups

Supporters of the fight of US President Donald Trump against the police at the west entrance of the Capitol during a “Stop the Steal” protest in front of the Capitol in Washington DC on January 6, 2021.

Stephanie Keith | Reuters

Senate Democrats plan to focus on the Internal Revenue Service as part of a larger investigation into tax-exempt groups that helped organize the pro-Trump rally before the deadly January 6 riot in the U.S. Capitol.

Democrats, partially led by lawmakers on the Senate Finance Committee, have begun asking the IRS to review the tax-exempt status of the dark money groups that helped plan the rally. At the event, then-President Donald Trump encouraged his supporters to march on the Capitol.

The eventual uprising left five dead, including a police officer.

Several nonprofit groups helped plan and organize the rally, including Women for America First, a 501 (c) (4) organization chaired by a senior tea party attorney. It had previously been funded by America First Policies, a 501 (c) (4) organization chaired by former wrestling executive and former Trump cabinet member Linda McMahon.

Such groups are known as dark money organizations because they do not publicly disclose their donors.

Senator Ron Wyden, D-Ore., The senior member and expected chairman of the committee, recently sent a letter to IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig asking him to investigate and investigate any group involved in planning the rally to see if she can revoke her tax exemption status.

“I urge the IRS, in coordination with other law enforcement agencies, to investigate the extent to which tax-exempt organizations were involved in any part of the uprising or actions of the Capitol in the lead up to this event and, to the greatest extent possible, to revoke the law of exemption from those organizations that do Role played in inciting or committing violence and other illegal acts, “said Wyden Rettig in the letter.

With control of the White House, House and Senate, Democrats may have the best opportunity yet to tighten regulations on these groups and the agencies that are supposed to oversee them.

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, DR.I., another member of the Senate Finance Committee, goes a step further and examines how the IRS certifies these groups. Whitehouse has passed laws for years that would force dark money groups to disclose their donors.

In an interview with CNBC late Thursday, Whitehouse said he was particularly focused on the groups that organized the rally, during which Trump and some of his allies made inaccurate claims that the election was stolen in favor of current President Joe Biden.

“The most immediate [objective] is to look into the dark money groups involved in the Capitol raid, “Whitehouse said.

Part of the focus, he said, will be on the IRS itself and how to deal with these groups.

“The question would be whether the IRS, beaten by the armed forces of the Right, interpreted and enforced the law and whether its enforcement is actually compliant with the law,” Whitehouse said.

The IRS has the power to revoke the tax exemption status of these groups if they exceed what the agency deems to be promoting “social welfare”. Although it is a broad mandate, 501 (c) (4) are typically allowed to exercise limited political activity. You can focus on promoting specific guidelines that can be oriented towards candidates for a federal office.

Democrats say these groups should lose the right to remain a 501 (c) (4) if they incite the insurrection.

Whitehouse told Treasury Secretary-designate Janet Yellen during her Senate confirmation hearing that he would ask her to “conduct a review of IRS 501 (c) guidelines” once it is confirmed. “I believe that the IRS guidelines have long been very inaccurate with the legal instruction that Congress has given the IRS through these agencies,” he added.

Yellen said she would initiate a review.

Beyond Whitehouse and Wyden, Democrats in general are making a legislative push against dark money organizations.

The summary of Senate Democrats’ first business mandates includes the DISCLOSE Act that Whitehouse introduced in 2019.

The bill, according to the Senate Democratic Legislature Summary, would require “super PACs, 501 (c) 4 groups, and other organizations spending money on elections and judicial nominations to reveal donors contributing more than $ 10,000.” “.

One of the Senate Democrats’ priorities is a focus on the IRS.

The separate bill would “lift an existing ban on the IRS from enacting rules to provide clarity on the rules governing political activity under 501 (c),” the executive reads.

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‘They Have Not Legitimately Gained’: Professional-Trump Media Retains the Disinformation Flowing

‘They Have Not Legitimately Won’: Pro-Trump Media Keeps the Disinformation Flowing

Right-wing media organizations spreading former President Donald J. Trump’s distortions over the 2020 elections waived calls for healing or reflection and continued their conspiracy theories on large-scale fraud on Wednesday. Some predicted further political conflicts in the coming months.

The coverage took on an inconsistent tone, with pro-Trump media and President Biden in a harrowing split screen: the new president delivered an inaugural address of unity and hope while his political opponents used their powerful media platforms to oppose him to collect based on falsehoods and inventions.

For some branches like One America News, it was like Mr. Biden wasn’t a president at all. The network, which is a Mr. Trump favorite for its sycophantic reporting, did not show viewers either Mr. Biden’s swearing-in or his inaugural address.

Rush Limbaugh aired his weekday radio show a few miles from the Palm Beach Retreat, where Mr. Trump spends the first days of his post-presidency, and advised his millions of listeners on Wednesday that the inauguration of Mr. Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris did not to the rightful election winners.

“You haven’t legitimately won,” Limbaugh said, noting that he would be on “thin ice” to make such a claim. Then he gave his audience a wrong and inflated number of votes for Mr. Trump and predicted that the Democratic victories would be “fleeting”.

“I think they know that with 74 million, maybe 80 million people who didn’t vote for Joe Biden, there is no way they can honestly say they represent the power base in the country,” Limbaugh said.

On One America News, instead of the inauguration, viewers saw a long documentary segment called “Trump: Legacy of a Patriot”. One of the network’s commentators, Pearson Sharp, provided the voice-over and uttered only flattering words about the former president while making false claims about election fraud.

Mr Sharp reiterated many of the discredited excuses that have formed the alternate version of events Mr Trump and his supporters use to explain his loss. For example, the host claimed that Mr. Trump couldn’t be defeated because he won Bellwether State of Ohio and carried so many more counties than Mr. Biden. “Yet we are expected to see Joe Biden win more votes than any other president in history,” said Sharp.

Then he gave Trump supporters a collective call. “Now it is up to Americans to continue President Trump’s struggle or any progress we have made as a nation will quickly dissolve,” Pearson said.

OAN personalities also offered viewers an optimistic vision of a Republican Party that would live on in Mr. Trump’s image. The network’s White House correspondent Chanel Rion described Mr Trump’s farewell speeches from Joint Base Andrews on Wednesday morning as a “passing farewell”.

“The fight has only just begun,” she said.

An OAN anchor discussed the possibility that Mr. Trump could start his own political party and call it the Patriot Party, an idea that other Trump allies have circulated. The network talked about Ivanka Trump, the daughter of the former president, who challenged Senator Marco Rubio, a Republican from Florida, when he stood for re-election in 2022.

At Newsmax TV, another pro-Trump channel, commentators and guests seemed less likely to be in denial than their competitors at OAN. But they rejected the new president no less. One questioned Mr Biden’s appointment of a transgender woman to his cabinet, describing the strong presence of troops in Washington to prevent another uprising by Trump supporters as an attempt to “further suppress the voice of the American people”.

A Newsmax host mocked the presence of Mr Biden’s son Hunter, whose personal problems and business interests distracted his father’s campaign after conservative media published unconfirmed stories about his work in China. “That won’t go away,” said the anchor.

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Professional-Trump rioters supposed to kill Pence and members of Congress

Pro-Trump rioters intended to kill Pence and members of Congress

Pro-Trump supporters storm the U.S. Capitol following a rally with President Donald Trump on January 6, 2021 in Washington, DC.

Samuel Corum | Getty Images

Federal prosecutors said in a new trial there was “strong evidence” that the pro-Trump rioters who invaded the US Capitol last week intended to “trap and murder elected officials in the United States government “including Vice President Mike Pence.

Prosecutors also noted on the file that “news reports suggest that the siege of the US Capitol may just be the beginning of potentially violent actions by the president [Donald] Trump’s supporters. “

The filing by the office of U.S. Arizona Attorney Michael Bailey called on a judge Friday to arrest Jacob Chansley, one of the most notorious rioters, on Jan. 6 without bail. He plans to return to Washington next week for the inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden.

“Chansley is a self-appointed leader of the QAnon,” a group of conspiracy theorists who believe that many US lawmakers are part of a ring of child molesters and satan worshipers.

Bailey’s office said Chansley, wearing a complexion and a hat with horns, ran to a Senate podium “where Vice President Pence had presided only minutes earlier and started posing” to be photographed by other rioters.

Pence chaired a joint congressional session that day to officially confirm the election of Biden as president.

A protester yells in the Senate Chamber in Washington, DC on January 6, 2021.

Win McNamee | Getty Images News | Getty Images

“Strong evidence, including Chansley’s own words and actions at the Capitol, supports that the Capitol rioters’ intent was to capture and murder elected officials in the United States government,” prosecutors wrote on their file.

“Chansley left a note on the podium of the Senate Chamber where Vice President Mike Pence had presided over the meeting minutes earlier warning, ‘It is only a matter of time, justice will come.’ “”

Prosecutors said that when the FBI questioned Chansley about the meaning of his words, he “did a long disgrace in which he described current and former United States leaders as infiltrators, particularly Vice President Mike Pence”.

“He said he was able to get into the United States Senate in DC ‘by the grace of God’.” Chansley said he was glad he was in the Vice President’s chair because Vice President Pence is a traitor to child trafficking, “the file said.

While Chansley alleged that he did not mean the note as a threat, “the government disagrees,” the file reads.

A protester holds a mannequin with a noose “traitor” written on it during a protest at the Washington Monument in Washington, DC, the United States, on Wednesday, January 6, 2021.

Victor J. Blue | Bloomberg | Getty Images

The prosecutor noted, “Chansley has also expressed an interest in returning to Washington DC for the inauguration and later told the FBI, ‘I’ll still go, you’d better believe it.’ “”

“‘Sure I’d want to be there, as a protester, as a protester, f–‘ a ‘,” he said, according to the file.

In a video interview outside the Capitol when he and other rioters were leaving the complex, Chansley said he had left the Senate and “the cops just walked out with me.”

He also said the mob would leave because Trump posted a message asking them to do so and that the rioters “won” the day.

“We won by sending a message to the Senators and Congressmen. We won by sending a message to Pence: If you don’t … do what your oath is, if you do they don’t keep it. ” Constitution, we’ll remove you then, but one way or another, “Chansley said.

Trump was charged Tuesday by the House of Representatives for instigating the mob that stormed the Capitol complex following a rally on the Ellipse calling on supporters to help him reverse Biden’s election.

Also on Friday, the New York Times reported that the FBI is investigating 37 people in an investigation into the riot murder of Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick.

The Times cited an FBI memo sent to the private sector and others.

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