Fox Hides Extremism Of Terror-Inspiring Source Of Holder Attack

Fox News reported Thursday that “two pro-gun advocates who reported extensively on the Fast and Furious scandal” have filed a complaint against Attorney General Eric Holder with the District of Columbia's Office of Bar Counsel. Somehow the network never got around to mentioning that one of those “advocates” is Mike Vanderboegh, the ex-militia blogger infamous for urging his readers to commit vandalism against Democrats and for inspiring an alleged terrorist plot to kill federal employees.

Last year, Fox News featured Vanderboegh in two separate reports on Fast and Furious, identifying him as an “online journalist” and an “authority on the Fast and Furious investigation.” The network did not disclose Vanderboegh's past ties to the militia and Minuteman movements, history of conspiratorial rantings, or the fact that he made headlines in 2010 for telling his readers to respond to the passage of health care reform by breaking the windows of Democratic offices, then took credit after that occurred.

Fox ceased to cite Vanderboegh on-air after prosecutors in Georgia said that one of four alleged members of a militia group in that state had repeatedly cited Vanderboegh's novel Absolved as the source of their alleged plot to kill numerous government officials. In Vanderboegh's novel, which was self-published online, underground militia fighters declare war on the federal government over gun control laws and same-sex marriage, leading to a second American revolution.

In June, Vanderboegh predicted that if health care reform were found to be constitutional, it would trigger a violent insurrection against “government tyranny,” stating, “You may call tyranny a mandate or you may call it a tax, but it still is tyranny and invites the same response.”

But Fox correspondent William La Jeunesse included none of this context in passing on Vanderboegh's allegations on Happening Now: