Joy Reid, MSBNC host, faces questions about 9/11 conspiracy on old website

MSNBC host Joy Reid faces new criticism with the emergence of more blog entries discovered in an online archive of her old, now-defunct website in which she raised questions about whether the September 11, 2001 terror attack was the result of a U.S. government conspiracy.

This marks the second recent wave of controversial posts uncovered from the weekend news host’s old blog, The Reid Report, which has been stored on digital archive site the Wayback Machine. A month ago, Reid apologized on her weekend morning show AM Joy after some homophobic entries from her old blog were resurfaced from the digital archive and posted on Twitter.

In a pair of blog posts from March 2006, which were found on the archive site and published Wednesday by Buzzfeed News, which were shared with the news outlet by an unnamed source, Reid raised questions about a terror attack conspiracy. On the old blog, she posted a link to Loose Change, a documentary about the potential for a government conspiracy behind the terror attacks funded in part by Alex Jones, founder of conspiracy site InfoWars.

“The fundamental question is: do you believe the official story of 9/11? If you do, great,” the post reads. “If you don’t, then everything that happened after that is called into serious question. Even if you’re agnostic, or you tend to believe that al-Qaida attacked the World Trade Center and Pentagon and that the government had no warning such a thing could happen, it’s worth taking a second look.”

In another post, published by Buzzfeed, Reid suggests that the government found the architects of the terror attack very quickly afterwards, raising suspicions of a conspiracy.

Neither MSNBC nor Reid’s attorney John Reichman responded to request for comment on the reports.

Reid’s previously unearthed comments — and MSNBC’s backing of her — have raised the ire of conservatives, particularly after Disney-owned ABC’s firing of Roseanne Barr for a racist tweet.

Some conservatives, and the Trump Administration, have complained about a double standard among the networks for failing to censure Reid and other hosts — such as ESPN, also owned by Disney, signing a new deal with Keith Olbermann after he called Trump a Nazi and targeted him with swears, and ESPN continuing to employ Jemele Hill after she called Trump a white supremacist — while Barr’s show was axed. 

“Roseanne made some racist comments, apologized for it and her show was taken off the air. Joy Behar, Joy Reid and Jimmy Kimmel make racist comments, constantly attack this administration for their beliefs in god and yet they still have a platform with no recourse. LIBERAL BIAS!” Students for Trump Chairman Ryan Fournier posted on Twitter.

On Wednesday’s Tucker Carlson Tonight show, the Fox News host discussed other Reid posts unearthed on the archive site from 2005 and 2006 in which she criticized illegal immigration and the Democratic party, and heralded Fox Business Network host Lou Dobbs.

The comments make her look, Carlson said, “in retrospect, like a prophet calling for ‘America First’ policies at least a decade before Donald Trump entered politics.”

Reid, who in the past has criticized Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders, wouldn’t make those comments now or “MSNBC would fire her right away,” Carlson said.

Posts from Reid’s old blog that emerged last month — written during her time as a Florida talk show host — mentioned opposition to gay marriage and cringing “at the sight of two men kissing.”

At first, Reid said she was not responsible for those posts, and her lawyer said the FBI had opened an investigation into alleged hacking of Reid’s online accounts. Later, she 
said on her show no proof had been found of hacking and apologized about the controversy. “I genuinely do not believe I wrote those hateful things because they are completely alien to me,” she said.

It was not the first time she had come under fire for homophobic posts. In December 2017, she apologized after posts speculating about the sexuality of then-Florida Gov. Charlie Crist.

After those posts surfaced, The Daily Beast suspended Reid’s column and the LGBT advocacy group PFLAG National rescinded an award.

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More:Joy Reid: ‘I genuinely do not believe I wrote those hateful things’

Follow USA TODAY reporter Mike Snider on Twitter: @MikeSnider.