Report: “Fox News Will Address False Report Trump Protester Was Engaged In Voter Fraud”
Written by Thomas Bishop
Published
Fox News will address an erroneous report claiming a Trump protestor engaged in voter fraud by using his grandmother’s address, who they claimed had been dead since 2002, after The Guardian debunked their report by talking to the grandmother who is still very much alive.
Politico reports that Fox News “will address an erroneous report” on the Wednesday edition of Fox & Friends after co-host Brian Kilmeade claimed a protester at a Trump rally had engaged in voter fraud. During the November 7 edition of the show, Kilmeade said that Austyn Crites’ “grandmother has been using his address to vote absentee for years. But she’s been dead since 2002”:
On Wednesday Fox News will address an erroneous report aired on the show “Fox & Friends” earlier this week.
Anchor Brian Kilmeade reported Monday that a man who disrupted a Donald Trump rally on Saturday had been engaged in voter fraud.
“Democrats would love for you to believe that voter fraud does not exist, better chance for you to get hit by lightning, they say,” Kilmeade said. “This morning, yet another reminder from the guy who interrupted Donald Trump’s rally on Saturday, who many people thought had a gun.”
“His grandmother has been using his address to vote absentee for years. But she’s been dead since 2002,” Kilmeade said before bringing a former Department of Justice attorney to talk about voter fraud and how he doubted this case would be prosecuted.
But The Guardian met Crites’ grandmother, Wilda Austin, in Reno, Nevada the same day as the flawed report and found her “alive and well”:
Austyn Crites, a Republican protester who was assaulted at a Trump rally in Nevada, was stunned to see a TV report on Monday associating him with fraudulent voting connected to a grandmother Fox News claimed died in 2002.
However, the Guardian met Wilda Austin, 90, in her living room in suburban Reno late on Monday. She was alive and well, although somewhat baffled that she was having to prove her identity to correct a TV broadcast that reported that she died 14 years ago.
“Please correct the record,” she said, arms crossed.
She declined to appear on camera, in part because the family has been subjected to a torrent of abuse and threats since Crites, 33, an inventor, was ejected from the Trump rally for holding a sign that read “Republicans against Trump.”
Fox News has hyped voter fraud accusations for years despite studies finding voter fraud nearly nonexistent, even according to their own reports.