How Trump’s Access Hollywood scandal and Chelsea Clinton’s wedding spawned a new MAGA conspiracy theory

A false claim made by former Access Hollywood host Billy Bush to Tucker Carlson earlier this month has morphed into a full-blown MAGA conspiracy theory involving Chelsea Clinton’s wedding that was eventually amplified by the soon-to-be vice president.

During an appearance on Carlson’s right-wing podcast on January 6, Bush discussed the fallout over the infamous Access Hollywood tape that featured Donald Trump saying he could grab women “by the p***y.” The 2005 clip, which captured Bush and Trump speaking on a hot mic, surfaced just a month before the 2016 election and resulted in NBC firing Bush from the Today show just two months after hiring him.

Bush, who now anchors the Hollywood gossip show Extra!, went on to tell Carlson how the tape made its way from NBC’s vaults to the pages of TheWashington Post, where it was first reported by journalist David Fahrenthold, who now writes for The New York Times. According to the tabloid host, this all ties back to the Clintons.

After saying NBC and The Washington Post “colluded” on the Access Hollywood story and “set him up” to be fired from Today, Bush pointed out that then-NBC chief Noah Oppenheim and Fahrenthold were classmates at Harvard University and worked together at the school’s newspaper.

“If you want to begin the internal investigation, Noah Oppenheim is the president of NBC. He’s the general manager of the Today show,” Bush said. “His co-editor of the Harvard Crimson newspaper back when he was a Harvard man is a writer named David Fahrenthold from The Washington Post.”

“They ran the Crimson together. They were both groomsmen in Chelsea Clinton’s wedding,” he continued, prompting a startled Carlson to ask: “Actually?! No way!”

After Bush reiterated they were both at Clinton’s nuptials, he added that they were “buddies” with Clinton’s husband Marc Mezvinsky. “So they were groomsmen in the wedding together, and that guy’s the one who released [the tape]. The paper trail is terrible,” Bush exclaimed.

The Extra! host — who previously said the fallout over the tape made him a “much nicer person” — also claimed that Fahrenthold was later given a “sweet gig” as an MSNBC contributor to “pay him back for the hustle,” adding that this is where he’d “start the investigation” on how the tape was leaked.

Bush’s claims about Fahrenthold during the lengthy Carlson interview initially didn’t gain much traction until The Federalist Editor-in-Chief Mollie Hemingway tweeted about them a week later. Pointing out that Fox News reported in 2016 on the collegial relationship between Oppenheim and Fahrenthold, Hemingway shared a clip of the Bush interview on January 13 while stating that the two men were both part of Clinton’s 2010 wedding.

“So apparently @briansflood reported this years ago but I missed it. The ‘Access Hollywood’ tape was leaked by NBC in 2016 to the Washington Post, as we all know. (Billy Bush was collateral damage in the leak operation.) Anyway, he notes the head of NBC was this guy named Noah Oppenheim,” she wrote. “Oppenheim’s coeditor at the Harvard Crimson was none other than @Fahrenthold, the recipient of the leak. And they were both actual groomsmen in Chelsea Clinton’s wedding!? Shortly after running the information operation against Trump, Fahrenthold was given a contributing gig at MSNBC.”

However, the Fox story that Hemingway linked to did not place Fahrenthold at Clinton’s wedding, instead noting that Oppenheim and Mezvinsky were at each other’s side at their respective ceremonies.

“Furthermore, Oppenheim’s role in the ‘Access Hollywood’ debacle has been the object of negative attention within Comcast, sources tell Fox News, as he is close friends with Fahrenthold from prestigious Harvard University,” Fox News media reporter Brian Flood reported at the time. “NBC has denied that Oppenheim leaked the tape to Fahrenthold — who with Oppenheim is also tied from Harvard to investor Marc Mezvinsky, the son-in-law of Hillary Clinton. Oppenheim and Mezvinsky were groomsmen in each others’ weddings and continue to revolve in the same privileged social circles.”

With Hemingway trumpeting Bush’s false claim while getting key elements of Fox News’ story incorrect, it wasn’t long before Vice President-elect JD Vance — who has said it’s okay “to create stories so that the American media actually pays attention” —  jumped into the fray.

“This is wild,” Vance tweeted, sharing Hemingway’s post that has since collected over 7,000 retweets and 1.5 million views.

Yet, as Wake Up Politics author Gabe Fleischer first noted on Monday, the entire theory that had made its way up to the incoming administration hinged on a falsehood, labeling it an “Anatomy of a Lie.”

“The only problem? The claim isn’t true,” Fleischer noted. “No evidence exists online that places Fahrenthold at Clinton’s wedding to Marc Mezvinsky. A New York Times spox confirmed to me that Fahrenthold ‘has never met Chelsea Clinton and was not at her wedding.’” The paper also told The Independent that Fahrentold has never met former President Bill Clinton’s daughter and did not attend her wedding.

The Independent has reached out to representatives for Vance and Bush for comment.

Suggesting that Bush may have “garbled his words” and misstated the Fox News report, Fleischer pointed out that the ex-Access Hollywood star “made it sound like *Fahrenthold* was a groomsman at the Clinton wedding,” which was then picked up by Hemingway with “zero fact-checking.”

Two days after Fleischer first pointed out that Fahrenthold had no relationship with the Clintons and didn’t attend the 2010 ceremony, Hemingway quietly added one of Fleischer’s tweets to her original thread alongside the caption: “Update.”

As of publication, her original tweets are still up, as is Vance’s post.