Since supporters of Donald Trump engaged in a violent insurrection on Jan. 6, conservatives have sought to distance themselves from culpability for the assault on democracy.
They falsely claimed it was actually Antifa, they lied about it being peaceful and some Republicans have even denied that there was an insurrection. And then on Tuesday, Fox News personality Tucker Carlson unleashed a ridiculous conspiracy theory that the FBI was behind the insurrection.
On Wednesday, Carlson's conspiracy theory received a brutal fact-check in The Washington Post.
"The first thing to emphasize is that Carlson's theory is based on a report in Revolver News. The site is run by Darren Beattie, who appeared on Carlson's show shortly after the above monologue. If that name sounds familiar, it's because Beattie is a former Trump White House speechwriter who was fired in 2018 over a past appearance on a panel with a white nationalist, Peter Brimelow, at a conference attended by well-known white nationalists," the newspaper noted. "The second and perhaps most important point is that the basis of Carlson's theory — that the unindicted co-conspirators are either likely or must be government agents — is extremely shaky. Legal experts say the government literally cannot name an undercover agent as an unindicted co-conspirator."
Lisa Kern Griffin of Duke University Law School explained why Carlson's theory was literally impossible.
"Undercover officers and informants can't be 'co-conspirators' for the purposes of establishing an agreement to violate the law, because they are only pretending to agree to do so . . . An unindicted co-conspirator has committed the crime of conspiracy, and investigative agents doing their jobs undercover are not committing crimes," she explained.
But Carlson returned to the topic on Friday and while lashing out at all the journalists fact-checking his delusions.
You can watch the video below via YouTube:
