Covington Catholic MAGA Teens EXONERATED By Investigation
Covington MAGA Teens EXONERATED By Investigation. An independent investigation has concluded that the "MAGA Teens" in the Covington scandal did not engage in hateful conduct, they did not confront Nathan Phillips, and ultimately did nothing wrong.We also learned that one of the offensive statements heard on video was made by a young man who did NOT attend Covington Catholic.Many media outlets are far left publications however have not corrected or retracted their fake news about these kids. On Twitter leftist and social justice activists tweets remain up and even completely false claims by major news outlets have not been deleted or retracted.Why are mainstream and traditional news outlets not taking down all of this fake news?
Support the show (http://timcast.com/donate)
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Just about a month ago, a video went viral showing a bunch of kids standing near Native American men, and immediately, the media ran the story that these kids were racist, were taunting, were hate-filled, were mocking these Native Americans, and this became known as the Covington Scandal.
The story is far from over.
There's been announcements of lawsuits against personalities and media companies, but now we have a major update.
An independent investigation has exonerated the kids of all wrongdoing.
Now, I think many of us, we didn't need an independent investigation because we knew, but for some reason these organizations ran with these fake stories.
Strangely, the fake stories are still up.
The fake tweets, they're all still up.
And with a lawsuit looming, I have to wonder why none of these news organizations have retracted or taken down their tweets and their stories.
Today, let's take a look at the latest news on what happened with this independent investigation, and then I'm going to show you all of these different examples of how the fake news persists, and these companies aren't doing anything about it.
But before we get started, follow us over at Minds.com slash Subverse.
Subverse is the new channel and brand that I'm launching.
We've got a really great mini-doc about the Yellow Vests protests, and we're setting up a distributed newsroom where you can get involved and just talk about news.
And if you want to support these videos that you're watching now, simply share it to help spread the message.
From BuzzFeed News, Covington Catholic students won't be punished after investigators found no evidence of racist or offensive statements.
The diocese, which initially condemned the students, said they've been exonerated and can move forward with their lives.
I want to point out really quickly, I'm using BuzzFeed News as a source on purpose, because they were one of the outlets that pushed the fake news in the first place.
They say, weeks after videos went viral of a group of MAGA hat-wearing teenage boys from a Kentucky Catholic school confronting a Native American elder, a third-party investigation on behalf of the school and diocese has found no evidence of offensive or racist statements by the students.
I do have to make a quick point though.
The students were not confronting anybody.
They were just standing there and doing their thing chanting when Nathan Phillips approached them.
They did not confront anyone.
The Diocese of Covington, which initially denounced the students' behavior and said they could face expulsion, celebrated the news and said the teenagers had been exonerated and can move forward with their lives.
The investigative report, which was prepared by a private company called Greater Cincinnati Investigation, included interviews with 43 students, 16 chaperones, and reviewing about 50 hours of internet activity.
The company declined to speak to BuzzFeed News, saying it does not make any comments on the investigation.
But the report makes clear that investigators did not interview the Native American elder Nathan Phillips, as they were repeatedly unable to reach him.
They were also not permitted to interview Nick Sandman, the teen who stood face-to-face with Phillips, but did include his previous written statement in which he denied any wrongdoing.
According to the report, investigators did not find any evidence that the teens had made offensive or racist statements to Phillips or a group of black Hebrew Israelites present during the confrontation, and were unable to verify that they had chanted Build the Wall.
However, one of the students did perform a tomahawk chop in Philip's presence, the report states.
The Buzzfeed story makes reference to a statement made by a student about rape, which I'm not going to read, but you can see on the screen.
According to the report, the student who made the offensive comment does not attend Covington Catholic, as many people speculated when the video first emerged.
The Diocese apologized in a January letter for its initial condemnation of the students' behavior, saying it was bullied and pressured into making a statement prematurely.
We are sorry that the situation has caused such disruption in the lives of so many.
We apologize to anyone who has been offended in any way by either of our statements, which were made in goodwill based on the information we had.
And a quick reminder for those that may have missed this portion of the story, from about a week and a half ago, Covington High School student lawyers prepare for possible libel fight release video of, quote, the truth.
More than 50 media organizations, celebrities, and politicians were sent letters from lawyers representing the Covington Catholic High School student seen in the controversial viral video, the first step in a possible libel and defamation lawsuit.
And the teen's legal team also released a 15-minute video that they say shows the truth about his interactions at last month's March for Life.
Elizabeth Warren, Alyssa Milano, Jim Carrey, media organizations, CNN, the New York Times and the Washington Post, and the Diocese of Covington were among the dozens recently sent preservation letters, the text of which advised the parties not to destroy any documents in connection with the case.
The Cincinnati Enquirer first reported on Friday the initial list of organizations and attorney Todd McMurtry confirmed to Fox News on Monday that more organizations or individuals could also receive letters.
The latest update on the lawsuit comes from Covington Catholic's lawyer.
In this story from the Washington Times, Covington Catholic teen's lawyer accuses Jeff Bezos of double standard over coverage.
Famed media attorney L. Lynn Wood said Mr. Bezos, who owns the Washington Post, has battled with the Enquirer over coverage of his divorce while ignoring the Post's reporting on the Northern Kentucky teen at the center of last month's viral encounter at the Lincoln Memorial.
Jeff Bezos, the richest man in the world, has used media to express his outrage over reporting about him, tweeted Mr. Wood, who represents the Sandman family.
Yet Mr. Bezos has not publicly uttered one word about the rush by the Washington Post to falsely accuse and defame Nick Sandman, a 16-year-old.
The double standard must end.
Mr. Wood also singled out HBO host Bill Maher, who called the teens smirk-faced and a little prick, on his January 25th show, and Senator Elizabeth Warren, a Massachusetts Democrat, for her tweet saying that Omaha Nation elder Nathan Phillips endured hateful taunts.
The Covenant story hits many different aspects of the culture war.
Social media bias.
Tons of high-profile individuals have still not been banned or suspended over saying things that clearly violate the rules.
We have many people posting their hatred for these young white men and claiming that the hats represent the KKK or a new symbol of the KKK.
And then we have the fake news media, the rush to judgment, and the lack of journalism, the lack of fact-checking, how these companies just publish complete and total nonsense.
Before I get into all the examples of the fake news that still exists, I want to mention one story from BuzzFeed which is pretty scary but also pretty fascinating.
An opinion piece published by Tom Gara says, It's not fake video we should be worried about, it's real
video.
From the steps of the Lincoln Memorial to the Syrian Civil War,
we've learned that a real video can be just as misleading as a fake one.
I'll mention too, for some reason they post a photo which has me in it,
I have no idea why, but let's move on.
The story says that, If the last few years have taught us anything,
it's that fake video isn't going to destroy our ability to see the truth.
It's the real video we need to worry about, and our true problem is that we can all see the very same thing and disagree on what it was.
I think this is a really important point, because it's not just Covington.
We also had the incident with Jim Acosta and the White House aide, where people claimed that Jim Acosta was judo chopping her arm, and other people claimed she was yanking the microphone away from him.
I've made my position perfectly clear that I believe that Jim Acosta was trying to push her arm down to push it away, and it pulled her off balance.
Yet some high-profile individuals completely disagree with me.
And there's nothing we can do about it.
People see completely different things.
And there's no other context in that video.
Now, when we look at Covington, the answer is actually really simple.
People rushed to judgment.
They didn't care what was true.
In fact, some articles flat out said, don't believe what other people are saying and ignore any new video because we can all see what happened.
And that was wrong.
Because as we just learned, an independent investigation has revealed these kids didn't do anything.
They were just standing there, Nathan Phillips walked up to them, and got in this kid's face.
But even BuzzFeed still says the kids confronted Nathan Phillips.
It's just not true.
But while I was looking into the story to prepare this video, I came across a disturbing bit of information.
That many of these stories are still live, have not been corrected or retracted.
We have this story from Splinter.
White students in MAGA hats taunt, harass Native American elder and Vietnam vet.
They've updated it, but this story should be removed, and the page should say, retraction or correction.
It should be redirecting people.
USA Today still has this tweet live, where it says that these kids were chanting, build the wall.
They weren't.
We know they weren't.
How has USA Today not taken the story down?
The story links to a narrative pushed forward basically by Nathan Phillips, who we know now lied.
He's lied in statements claiming to be a Vietnam veteran.
He's not.
He lied about what happened numerous times.
Why is USA Today running this story with his narrative when we know it's not true?
USA Today has another tweet where they claim the kid was mocking a Native American elder.
Vox still has a story.
White students in MAGA gear taunt Native American elders.
Common Dreams, which is more of an activist site, says teens shouting build that wall at Native American vet.
Absolutely fake news.
Slate still has a story that claims a MAGA teenager harassed a Native American veteran.
In a story from Esquire, they still claim that Nathan Phillips is a veteran of the Vietnam War.
He's not.
The story from Bustle claims, The Guardian has a story that claims Kentucky students are mocking a Native American veteran.
intimidated a man who Indian country today has identified as Omaha elder and Vietnam
veteran Nathan Phillips.
Completely fake news.
The Guardian has a story that claims Kentucky students are mocking a Native American veteran.
They weren't.
It even says the teenagers were chanting, build that wall.
Why do these stories still exist?
Why were they not taken down?
I'll give some criticism to the Washington Post and the New York Times.
Their stories aren't nearly as bad because they do use qualifiers such as appear to or allegedly, but the stories still push the false narrative from Nathan Phillips.
The New York Times has a video that says teenagers taunt Native American elder in Washington.
It's just not true.
You would think one of the first things to be done, especially in the face of this massive lawsuit, is to take the stories down, replace them with a page saying, we have corrected and retracted the story as it has been deemed false.
It has been nearly one month.
All of these stories still exist.
The tweets still exist.
What I'm showing you here, there's a lot.
There's a lot of sources here.
I'm not showing you most of the tweets I've found from high-profile and verified accounts who are still publishing fake news, and probably in violation of Twitter's rules, because it would just be endless.
I would probably have a half an hour to 45 minutes of footage just showing all the people who have not retracted, corrected, apologized, or otherwise.
I have to assume the lawsuit from these Covington kids is going to be a major slam dunk.
You can argue that these kids might not win.
You can believe they were wrong.
It doesn't matter.
The stories that are up are fake.
Now, the lawyers did send preservation letters, but my understanding is that they can still correct the stories.
They can still take them down and retract them while keeping the data they have on those stories.
So I have to wonder why so many outlets have not taken these stories down, even before the preservation letters, even before the lawsuit.
Why didn't they unpublish these stories, retract them within hours, within days of finding out it was all fake news?
I have to imagine they don't care.
They really don't.
They publish fake news every day.
And it's only in circumstances like this we actually get to see it.
We actually get to see the proof.
Imagine now how many stories are still live that are fake and we just don't know.
But I'm gonna leave it there for now.
Comment below.
Let me know what you think.
We'll keep the conversation going.
You can follow me on Mines at TimCast.
I'll have new videos on this channel every day at 4 p.m.
and more videos coming up on my second channel, YouTube.com slash TimCastNews at 6 p.m.
And for those of you who have made it this far, check out YouTube.com slash SubverseVideos because we are launching a new brand channel that's going to have more than just my voice on it.
So we're gonna get new journalists, we're gonna start producing mini-docs and doing interviews, so check it out!
