OAN forced to walk back baseless claims of Georgia election fraud
One America News, the right-wing, conspiratorial news outlet, has found itself in all sorts of legal trouble since helping spread baseless allegations of widespread fraud in the 2020 election.
The network walked back some of their most outlandish claims weeks after the election, including false reports of fraudulent voting machines. But it looks like OAN isn’t done repenting for its misinformation campaign. The network ran a 30-second segment on Monday admitting there was “no widespread voter fraud” by poll workers in Georgia during the 2020 election, The Daily Beast reported.
The airing of the segment followed a settlement between the outlet and two Black election workers — Ruby Freeman and Wandrea Moss — who were targeted by right-wingers with baseless allegations of cheating to help President Joe Biden win Georgia in 2020.
According to The Daily Beast, the segment acknowledged that an investigation conducted by Georgia officials found no evidence of widespread voter fraud.
“The results of this investigation indicate that Ruby Freeman and Wandrea ‘Shaye’ Moss did not engage in ballot fraud or criminal misconduct,” a narrator reportedly stated in the segment, adding: “A legal matter with this network and the two election workers has been resolved to the mutual satisfaction of the parties through a fair and reasonable settlement.”
Freeman and Moss filed a defamation lawsuit against OAN last year, claiming the network’s false reports suggesting the two were involved in an election-stealing scheme made them “the objects of vitriol, threats, and harassment.” The two women filed a similar lawsuit against far-right website The Gateway Pundit.
In December 2020, then-President Donald Trump tweeted an OAN segment that discussed The Gateway Pundit’s baseless fraud claims implicating the two women, which undeniably helped make them targets among the broader conservative movement.
In one especially bizarre and frightening encounter, a publicist for rapper Kanye West — a fervent Trump supporter — pressed Freeman to confess to election fraud or face jail time.
Freeman and Moss had their names dragged through the mud, thanks to OAN and other pro-Trump media outlets. But backed by the judicial system, the two women are forcing some of their most crazed aggressors to recant their claims.
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