Fox “straight news” anchor says that debunked conspiracy theories of Trump campaign lawyer “sounded convincing”
Bill Hemmer: “I saw that interview with Sidney Powell and Maria on Sunday, she sounded convincing”
Published
Citation From the November 16, 2020, edition of Fox News' Bill Hemmer Reports
BILL HEMMER (ANCHOR): Did you hear this interview?
(VIDEO BEGINS)
SIDNEY POWELL (FORMER TRUMP LAWYER): We're fixing to overturn the results of the election in multiple states. And President Trump won by not just hundreds of thousands of votes, but by millions of votes that were shifted by this software that was designed expressly for that purpose.
(VIDEO ENDS)
HEMMER: So that is Sidney Powell, she is an attorney for the president, claiming they have evidence of voter fraud and she's tying it to a voting machine company called Dominion. The company denies all fraud accusations. The Trump team has not shared their evidence with Americans. Fox News has not seen any evidence. Want to bring in Andy McCarthy, former assistant U.S. attorney and Fox News contributor. Andy, good day to you. I don't know if we're in a different situation now than we were last Thursday when we talked. I saw that interview with Sidney Powell and Maria on Sunday, she sounded convincing. So what now?
ANDY MCCARTHY (FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR): Now is evidence. You know, at a certain point in time, Bill, it doesn't help anymore to say, you know, “a lot of things are rife with possibility for fraud.” You know, December 8 is the day that -- is the safe harbor provision in federal law where the states have to certify their electoral votes. If you want to block that from happening, it's put up or shut up time.
HEMMER: OK, when does that happen?
MCCARTHY: Well, it either happens promptly or it doesn't happen at all, and if it doesn't happen all then Joe Biden will be certified as the next president of the United States.
HEMMER: OK, but you and others like Ken Starr, you’ve been saying this is what’s called evidence gathering. That’s the period in which they find themselves. So are they doing that now? And what or when is our obligation to share that with the public?
MCCARTHY: Well, look, they presumably, according to what Sidney Powell said, they are building, you know, collecting evidence. She said it was like getting it out of a fire hose. In the meantime, people who are on the other side of this have gone public, including some of the people who have been implicated in the remarks made by Sidney Powell and others, and they say it's not true. So I think if you want to have credibility, you have to refute that with hard evidence. They should get their opportunity to do this in court but usually you don't get into court with something like this unless you have some solid evidence.
HEMMER: So they are saying the company Dominion has a software called Smartmatic. Would you need a computer software engineer to go in there and decipher that for us and put it on a sheet of paper and explain it to us?
MCCARTHY: You might but you know your more fundamental problem right now is Smartmatic says it’s not true.
HEMMER: OK.
MCCARTHY:You know, Smartmatic says they have no connection to Dominion. Now, I don't have a way of knowing or brokering that claim -- whether it's true or whether it’s not true. All I know is one party that would have direct knowledge says it's not true and the other party, which is president's team, keeps saying, you know, we are gathering evidence but they’re not putting anything on the table that refutes what the other side says.
HEMMER: In the meantime the clock is ticking and you’ve got people wondering what's next.