Kyle Rittenhouse will soon counterattack the leftist journalists, celebrities, and others who call him a murderer and white supremacist.
Though a jury acquitted him in November of wrongdoing for killing two hardened criminals and shooting a third during Kenosha, Wisconsin’s, riots in 2020, the hate-Rittenhouse crowd is still at it. The lies and smears continue.
That will end if Rittenhouse can prevail in what he told Fox talker Tucker Carlson will be defamation lawsuits against the prominent individuals who have smeared him.
Media Accountability Project
Rittenhouse was 17 years old when he went to Kenosha to help clean up the city, defend businesses, and provide first aid to people wounded in the madness and mayhem of Kenosha’s riots on August 25, 2020.
They began after a cop shot black sex-assault fugitive Jacob Blake. Police were called to the scene of a domestic disturbance in which Blake was involved. When he resisted arrest, pulled a knife, and tried to flee, an officer shot him seven times. A communist mob burned and pillaged the city.
Four criminals forced Rittenhouse, who carried an AR-15, to defend himself that night: boy rapist Joseph Rosenbaum, convicted strangler Anthony Huber, longtime criminal Gaige Grosskreutz, and a professional convict later identified as “Jump Kick Man.”
Rittenhouse killed Rosenbaum and Huber and wounded Grosskreutz. He fired at Jump Kick Man and missed. A jury found that Rittenhouse shot the men in self defense.
But the hurricane of hate that began after the shooting and continued through the trial has not abated. Leftists, including celebrities such as Whoopi Goldberg and Cenk Uygur of the Young Turks, still say Rittenhouse is a murderer.
Speaking to Carlson last night, Rittenhouse said he has formed the Media Accountability Project to attack all those who have called him, and continue to call him, a murderer and white supremacist.
“I don’t want to see anybody else have to deal with what I went through,” Rittenhouse said. “So I want to hold them accountable for what they did to me.”
“We are looking at quite a few politicians, celebrities, athletes, Whoopi Goldberg is on the list,” Rittenhouse told Carlson:
She called me a murderer after I was acquitted by a jury of my peers. She went on to still say that, and there’s others.
Another target will be the perpetually angry Uygur, who “continues to call me a ‘murderer,’” Rittenhouse said.
Nor will those who called him a white supremacist, another lie, escape legal action.
“We’re going to hold everybody who lied about me accountable, such as everybody who lied and called me a ‘white supremacist,’” Rittenhouse said:
They’re all going to be held accountable. And we’re going to handle them in a courtroom.
Today, Twitter is aflame with the lie that “Rittenhouse is a murderer.”
NYT vs. Sullivan
Rittenhouse might sue, but winning won’t be easy. Assuming that a lawsuit went to trial, Rittenhouse would have to prove that those who called him “murderer” and “white supremacist” were stating facts and not opinions.
As well, a court would likely find that Rittenhouse is a vortex public figure who must prove malice and reckless disregard of the truth to prevail in court.
As Newsweek reported in November about Rittenhouse’s suing President Joe Biden for a campaign advertisement that suggested Rittenhouse is a white supremacist, proving his case will be a monumental task.
“It is very unlikely that the person who created the ad or tweeted it was Biden himself,” said Barbara McQuade, a University of Michigan law professor and former U.S. attorney in Detroit. “Any lawsuit would need to be filed against the person or people who published it”:
Second, a defamation case is unlikely to succeed here against any defendant. By inserting himself into the civil unrest in Kenosha, Rittenhouse voluntarily became a limited purpose public figure, which subjects defamation claims against him to the actual malice standard.
McQuade said … [Rittenhouse] would have to prove that the person who included the image of Rittenhouse in Biden’s video either knew that it was false or “acted with reckless disregard as to its truth.”
The U.S. Supreme Court established those standards in New York Times vs. Sullivan.
Whether Rittenhouse can win in a case against Goldberg and Uygur is another matter. They could credibly claim that using “murderer” to describe him is protected speech because it is an opinion, his acquittal regardless.
And again, he might also be declared a vortex public figure not only because he went to Kenosha, but also because of the shooting, criminal charges, and ensuing trial.
H/T: Daily Mail
