Report: OANN Staffers Detract From Conspiratorial Report About ‘Antifa Provocateur’ Cited By Trump

TOPLINE

Staffers at the pro-Trump One America News Network distanced themselves from a conspiratorial report claiming a 75-year-old Buffalo protester whose skull was cracked by police was an ‘antifa provoacateur,’ which was shared by President Trump, according to a report from the Washington Examiner.

KEY FACTS

Martin Gugino was attending a Buffalo protest last week and walked up to a group of police officers who pushed him down, cracking his skull, and ignored him as he lay bleeding on the ground.

Trump accused Gugino of being an “ANTIFA provocateur” who “fell harder than was pushed” and “was aiming scanner” at police, citing a conspiratorial report from a Kremlin-backed journalist at far-right cable news network One America News.

OANN founder Robert Herring doubled down on the report following Trump’s tweet, tweeting, “Follow-up reporting coming later today on OANN! We have information to challenge those who are questioning the facts.”

But not all OANN employees stand behind the reporting, with one OANN employee telling Examiner reporter Mike Brest “several people in the newsroom spoke out about the story,” and another calling it “freaking awful.”

Staffers were reportedly concerned that the network is frequently defined by its conspiratorial reporting, with one telling Brest, “when conspiracy theories get on air like this, all of that is disregarded, and everyone only focuses on those conspiracy pieces.”

“This is damaging to our careers moving forward, and I think we’re all in agreement with that,” they added.

Key Background

OANN has a history of conspiratorial, pro-Trump reporting. White House correspondent Chanel Rion has promoted the Seth Rich conspiracy, and raised eyebrows when she reported that coronavirus originated in a lab in North Carolina. More recently, OANN media personality Jack Posobiec erroneously claimed that “2 crates filled with pipe bombs,” were discovered near the Korean War Memorial in Washington D.C., prompting a Park Police spokesman to tell the Daily Beast that no such crates were found.

Chief Critic

“Martin has always been a peaceful protester because he cares about today’s society. He is also a typical Western New Yorker who loves his family,” Gugino’s attorney, Kelly Zarcone, said in a statement. “No one from law enforcement has even suggested anything otherwise so we are at a loss to understand why the President of the United States would make such dark, dangerous, and untrue accusations against him.”

Big Number

63%. Nearly two thirds of Americans, 63%, believe Trump tweets too frequently, while just 3% want him to tweet more, a YouGov poll found. 55% approved of Twitter placing a warning on Trump’s tweet declaring “when the looting starts, the shooting starts” in response to violent protests in Minneapolis.

Surprising Fact

The question of whether Gugino’s fall was a “setup” came up during a congressional debate in New York’s 27th district, which is adjacent to Buffalo. The moderator asked Republican Chris Jacobs and Democrat Nate McMurray “was the altercation a setup?” Jacobs replied, “we need to get to the bottom of this situation,” but decried the fact that the officers were charged with felonies because, “those officers were doing their job.” McMurray accused Jacobs of dodging the question to avoid contradicting Trump, asking, “you’re not willing to say that crazy traitor is wrong!?”


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