WND's Gateway To Capitol Riot MisinformationWorldNetDaily is so desperate to whitewash the crimes of participants in the Capitol riot that it's republishing highly biased and omission-laden articles from the discredited Gateway Pundit.By Terry Krepel WorldNetDaily has long attempted to whitewash the crimes of the participants in the Capitol riot, and now it's adding a new wrinkle to that campaign: republishing ridiculously biased and omission-laden stories from the notoriously unreliable Gateway Pundit. That's doesn't exactly enhance WND's already shaky journalistic reputation. WND republished an pathos-laden July 16 Gateway Pundit article written by onetime WND reporter Alicia Powe: J6 defendants Casey Cusick, his elderly father James Cusick, and David Lesperance, a family friend who is also elderly, are facing up to three years in prison for walking into the Capitol building on January 6 for nine minutes to use the bathroom. That two of the defendants are “elderly” is irrelevant to the case, and it’s something Powe apparently added to up the perceived victimhood quotient. While the Cusecs and Lesperance appear to have not to have committed any violence, there is much evidence that they were inside the Capitol when they weren’t supposed to be. Powe also neglected to mention that, as a real journalism organization did, that the Cusicks’ church “presented a blend of Christian theology and patriotism to its audience,” but appears to be currently inactive. Powe also complained that “The Justice Department’s U.S. Attorney’s offices have secured a 99.8% conviction rate on at least one charge in each case, including half through guilty pleas,” but didn’t mention that this is in no small part due the fact that many of the defendants documented their behavior and posted it on social media, and there was plenty of other video available to document what people did. Indeed, the charging document for the Cusicks and Lesperance point out that CCTV inside the Capitol and Capitol Police body cameras captured them, and geolocation data from Lesperance’s phone placed him inside the Capitol; photos taken by Lesperance show the Cusicks (which Lesperance tried to delete but were recovered from his iCloud account). Powe went on to state that “When Casey, James and John left Washington, DC, they had no inclination that they had committed any crime on January 6” never mind the fact that it should have been obvious that entering a restricted public building as part of a mob was a crime. Powe also hyped claims of innocence by the trio’s lawyer, John Pierce: Despite the tainted jury pool and corrupt judges, Pierce is confident the Cusicks and Lesperance will be acquitted. In fact, by the time WND published this story, the Cusicks and Lesperance had been found guilty on all charges WND didn’t see fit to report this development to its readers, and it was also silent when they were sentenced a couple months later to 10 days in jail. WND -- which has long been apologists for the violent thugs in the Proud Boys-- republished an Aug. 3 Gateway Pundit article by Powe under the wildly dishonest headline “J6 political prisoner faces 10 to 12 years in prison for walking into Capitol for a few minutes”: Zachary Rehl, a J6 political prisoner and former Proud Boys leader who was found guilty of seditious conspiracy, vows to fight for his innocence until he is “fully exonerated and so no one has to live in fear of persecution for exercising their 1st Amendment rights again.” Powe is lying. Rehl didn’t merely walk around the Capitol “for a few minutes” he assaulted law enforcement by spraying a chemical irritant at them, lied about doing that during his trial, broke into a senator’s office where he smoked and posed for pictures, then expressed pride for the Proud Boys assault he helped lead afterwards in a message to his mother: “”Seems like our raid of the capital set off a chain reaction of events throughout the country.” But rather then tell her readers the truth, Powe continued to dishonestly portray Rehl as a victim and the Proud Boys as nothing but a “drinking fraternity”: Rehl has been incarcerated for two and half years, most of which has been in isolation in a six by eight-foot cell at the Alexandria Detention Center. In June, he and his co-defendants were finally released from solitary confinement and are currently housed in the “patriot pod” of the DC Gulag. Powe also included a self-serving letter by Rehl to the Gateway Pundit in which he “describes how he cultivated courage and resilience through the tragic loss of his father when he was just 12, the nationwide “brotherhood” he found as leader of the Proud Boys after his service in the Marine Corps and how emerging victorious in the fight for his freedom will prevent every American from being persecuted for exercising their God-given, inalienable rights.” When Rehl was sentenced, WND went once again to Powe and the Gateway Pundit, reprinting another wildly dishonest article on Sept. 1 rehashing per previous false claims and insisting that he was sentenced merely “for being in the wrong place at the wrong time walking through the Capitol building for approximately 20 minutes during the Capitol riot on Jan. 6.” She went on to rage: These evil men in Washington D.C. condemned Zachary Rehl, a young father and Marine veteran, to prison for attending a rally and walking in the open doors at the U.S. Capitol. Why shouldn’t a violent criminal face accountability for his crimes? Powe was not interested in answering that question. She also didn’t consider the likelihood that Rehl’s tears were self-pity for having to face that accountability. WND again dipped into the Gateway Pundit well with a republished Aug. 17 article written by Jim Hoft: January 6 political prisoner Ryan Samsel has been held in prison without trial now since January 2021.Missing from Hoft’s manufactured pity piece is any substantiation of the claims he makes about Samsel, as well as any mention of what Samsel did. The latter was summarized by the Department of Justice when he was indicted: According to court documents, Samsel was captured in publicly available video taken of a crowd pushing and pulling on barricades on the west side of the Capitol. In the process of pushing the barricades to the ground, Samsel and others knocked over a U.S. Capitol Police officer, causing a head injury as the officer’s head hit the ground. In another confrontation, according to court documents, Samsel attempted to pull a riot shield from a uniformed U.S. Capitol Police officer. We thought right-wingers didn’t like it when police officers were assaulted. But that’s not all; he had quite the criminal record even before the Capitol riot. As a more fact-based news outlet reported, Samsel has been accused of attacking other people, usually women, at least six times, and he had at least four prior convictions for crimes that sometimes left his victims fearing for their lives. At the time of the riot, he had an open warrant regarding accusations that he broke into a woman’s house to attack her and was on parole for brutally assaulting his pregnant girlfriend. On top of all that, Samsel reportedly wrote a letter last year talking about getting rid of politicians with a woodchipper, and he has previously made several statements about stabbing or punching FBI agents. Samsel claims to have been beaten by jail guards after an argument over toilet paper escalated. But it does appear that he’s getting back what he did to other people. There’s a reason Hoft censored that information he wants to falsely portray Samsel as a martyr when he’s really nothing more than a thug who apparently can’t take what he’s been dishing out for years. And WND is more than happy to help perpetuate that false narrative. Indeed, a republished Aug. 23 Gateway Pundit article by Hoft continued ranting on Samsel's behalf: Last week The Gateway Pundit published exclusive images of January 6 prisoner Ryan Samsel held in a prison cell at the FDC in Philadelphia the size of a closet with a light on all of the time. The cell had a thin blue mattress, no sheets or blankets, no clothing, and he was kept here for five months straight. Hoft offered no evidence that Samsel is being treated no worse than anyone else awaiting trial for criminal actions, and he offered no evidence he was ever concerned about such conditions before. And, again, Hoft also censored what Samsel is accused of and his previous lengthy criminal record. WND published yet another Gateway Pundit article by Powe defending Samsel on Dec. 31: The U.S. Bureau of Prisons acts as the coercion arm of the politically weaponized Department of Justice, torturing J6 political hostages to coerce them into flipping on Trump in exchange for their freedom. As her boss Hoft did, Powe refused to explain to readers what, exactly, Samsel is accused of doing during the riot specifically, knocking over a Capitol Police officer while trying to destroy barricades around the Capitol, causing her to suffer a concussion. And Powe definitely won’t tell readers about Samsel’s history of criminality and violence, including the fact that at the time of the riot, he had an open warrant regarding accusations that he broke into a woman’s house to attack her and was on parole for brutally assaulting his pregnant girlfriend. Samsel also reportedly wrote a letter talking about getting rid of politicians with a woodchipper, and he has previously made several statements about stabbing or punching FBI agents. But at the Gateway Pundit, just as with WND, narrative is more important than facts, so Powe went on to uncritically repeat unsubstantiated claims about Samsel’s purported mistreatment in prison. Powe also complained that the fact that nothing Samsel said has been proven was called out: State-run fact-checker Snopes immediately tried to delegitimize Samsel’s story about being tortured, citing a public affairs official at the Federal Bureau of Prisons who claimed the photos where he is locked in the hard cell “do not depict a cell at FDC Philadelphia.” Jail personnel including BOP public affairs officials have a history of demonstrably lying to this publication.Still, Powe offered nothing to substantiate Samsel’s claims or to prove the 1776 Returns article incorrect. Interestingly, when Samsel was convicted in February on riot-related charges along with four others, WND was completely silent not even bothering to regurgitate Gateway Pundit propaganda about it. Other riotersWND touted a republished Sept. 2 Gateway Pundit article by Hoft: 22-year-old Nejourde Meacham died on August 28, 2021, two weeks after the Biden regime charged him with four misdemeanor crimes for walking inside the open doors on the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.
While Meacham’s suicide is tragic, most people don’t commit suicide over misdemeanor charges, suggesting that there may have been other mental health issues involved that haven’t been disclosed. Hoft and WND, meanwhile, are perfectly happy to exploit Meacham’s death to further the lie of election fraud in 2020 and falsely portray criminals as “political prisoners” which may be the greater, and more avoidable, tragedy. Hoft served up more dishonesty in a republished Sept. 6 article: Infowars host Owen Shroyer pleaded guilty in June to a single Class A Misdemeanor of Entering and Remaining in a Restricted Building or Grounds on January 6, 2021. Hoft, unsurprisingly, is lying. As an honest and credible media outlet reported, Shroyer was facing prison time despite not entering the Capitol because he violated a 2019 agreement with authorities made after he interrupted a congressional hearing that deferred prosecution because he agreed “loud, threatening, or abusive language, or to engage in any disorderly or disruptive conduct, at any place upon the United States Capitol Grounds.” When Shroyer was sentenced to 60 days in jail half of what was sought by prosecutors WND reprinted another screed on Sept. 12, this time by Powe: Infowars reporter and War Room host Owen Shroyer was sentenced to 60 DAYS IN PRISON Owen stood outside the Capitol and warned Trump supporters not to go inside the U.S. Capitol. Like Hoft, Powe is lying by censoring the fact that Shroyer is getting jail because he violated a previous deferred-prosecution agreement. She also didn’t mention that, as another credible news outlet reported, Shroyer was very much riling up the crowd not trying to turn them away and that the judge told him, “I do not believe that you were trying to distract the crowd or turn the crowd away from the Capitol.” It has since been reported that Infowars won’t pay Shroyer’s salary while he’s rotting in jail, which is arguably hilarious for everyone not named Owen Shroyer, Gateway Pundit or WND. Hoft was brought in by WND again in a reprinted Sept. 9 article to defend another Proud Boy rioter who was sentenced to prison for his leading role in the riot: On Thursday The Gateway Pundit’s Cara Castronuovo reported that Biden officials asked him to lie about President Trump in order to indict him! But prosecutors offer deals to defendants all the time to gain a guilty plea on lesser charges in exchange for testimony against other defendants. Tarrio (and Hoft) framing this as prosecutors trying to get Tarrio to lie is dishonest and shows a willful misunderstanding of how the justice system works. WND had Hoft whine again about supposed mistreatment of Capitol rioters in a Sept. 15 article: The devastating reality of 23 hours per day solitary confinement is back for the January 6 political prisoners. Or you know, Lang and the others could simply take the stupid COVID test. Neither Hoft nor Lang offered any evidence to prove that taking the simple test is an onerous violation of anyone’s rights or why taking it was not a possibility. As ConWebWatch reported (but Hoft won’t), Lang faces multiple felony charges in part because he attacked law enforcement with a baseball bat. One more point: If WND is republishing wildly dishonest articles like these from a far-right website that is currently being sued for defaming election workers by falsely accusing them of adding election ballots from a suitcase what does it say about WND’s commitment to journalism? Nothing good. It merely shows that WND still hasn’t learned the lesson that its longtime embrace of fake news and conspiracy theories caused its current and ongoing precarious financial situation. It certainly raises even more questions about WND’s desire to remain in business that it considers Hoft and the Gateway Pundit to be a reliable news source worth republishing without question. |
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