Update (5/1/23): Carter did not attend the event because she said she was ill; right-wing commentator Sam Sorbo instead read a message from Carter to the crowd. Homan spoke to the event virtually because he said he had a prior commitment.
Fox News contributors Tom Homan and Sara Carter are set to appear at an event that honors far-right streamer Mel K, who has repeatedly pushed conspiracy theories about Dominion Voting Systems, Smartmatic, and the death of Seth Rich. They are helping celebrate the conspiracy theorist despite Fox News settling litigation with Dominion and Rich’s family, and while the network is still actively involved in a defamation lawsuit from Smartmatic.
Homan, who was the former acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), has been a Fox News contributor since 2018. Carter is a podcast host who joined Fox News in 2017.
Homan recently became the CEO of The America Project, a nonprofit organization that pushes election denialism. It was founded by conspiracy theorist Patrick Byrne, who is facing a Dominion lawsuit for pushing election lies. Byrne is also heavily connected to the QAnon movement. He praised Homan in a statement on the group’s website, saying that the “Nation’s top lawman will CEO the organization whose mission is to defend our borders, protect our rights and freedoms, and secure election integrity.”
The America Project is sponsoring an April 29 gala in Florida for the nonprofit Partners For Family Values called “Celebrating Conservative Women's Voices.” Homan is the keynote speaker while Carter, former Fox News pundit and Trump administration official Monica Crowley, and right-wing commentator Gina Loudon are listed as celebrity guests. (Loudon has also promoted conspiracy theories about Dominion, including tweeting: “#Dominion #StopTheSteal.”) A flyer for the gala describes Mel K as a “celebrity podcaster” and an event “honoree.”
Mel K is a QAnon conspiracy theorist who hosts an eponymous streaming program. She has repeatedly claimed that Dominion Voting Systems rigged the 2020 election. She has also included Smartmatic, a voting systems company that is suing Fox News for defamation, in her conspiracy theories.
During a May 2021 appearance on far-right conspiracy theorist Charlie Ward’s show, Mel K said that a Dominion employee stated “he would not let Trump win. Well, he meant it. And -- they’re so caught there. There's a million reasons. But the thing is, all of this is treason.”
After Ward later said that “Dominion and Smartmatic fixed it” and flipped the votes, she replied: “Yup. It’s happened all over the world.”
During another 2021 discussion, Mel K told Ward on her own show that the two companies are involved in a worldwide conspiracy to rig elections, stating: “We’re talking now Ecuador, Myanmar, Belarus, Haiti, we're talk -- even Brazil. We're talking about this whole Smartmatic/Dominion voting thing being a worldwide issue and being caught one after another after another. It was caught here first. But all of these countries are having the exact same problem.”
She also accused Dominion and Smartmatic of being part of a global conspiracy that’s “caught up” in Pizzagate, the conspiracy theory that prominent individuals have trafficked children through a Washington, D.C., pizzeria. She claimed in February 2021 of this group of people, which includes Smartmatic and Dominion: “They're all caught up in, what, Israel, Pizzagate. And they're all caught up in that. They're caught up in a lot of this stuff. … The Epstein boomerang is what I call it, and it’s coming back soon. They’re all involved. It’s the same people and they’re all involved in all of it. And it's about hiding their own crimes. Because, on a side note, what's going on in Myanmar, which I believe is a sting, too, because it's the same people. Smartmatic, Dominion, the IMF put a huge amount of money in there to control the election.”
During her convoluted rant, Mel K also linked this group of people to adrenochrome -- the QAnon-connected conspiracy theory that elites harvest children’s blood.
She recently claimed that Fox News' settlement with Dominion was actually “an inside merger not a settlement” and the company that owns Dominion is “friends” with the people who control Fox.
Mel K has repeatedly promoted the conspiracy theory that Democrats murdered Democratic National Committee staffer Seth Rich. In 2020, Fox News privately settled with Rich’s parents after the network pushed reprehensible conspiracy theories — including a retracted story — about his death.
On her July 13, 2021, program, Mel K claimed that Rich “stumbled upon a lot of horrible stuff going on at the DNC,” and she later said: “All of this goes back to [Hillary Clinton campaign Chairman] John Podesta. And there was an email released in the WikiLeaks with Hillary Clinton asking John Podesta if he, if they could drone Julian Assange. So basically what happened was after they had Seth Rich murdered, that's when they created the entire Russia hoax.”
On Instagram, Mel K wrote this January that “justice in his case will unlock a Pandora’s box of crime criminals demons and sell outs. … #johnpodesta #justiceforSethRich.” She recently posted a picture of herself with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, calling him “the absolute most fearless boldest bravest voice in America.”
Update (4/27/23): During an April 25 appearance on the far-right QAnon program SGT Report, Mel K spent significant time attacking Fox News and calling for people to not watch the network. During one portion, she said of the network: “Sadly, there's going to be a lot of people out there still watching Fox News, not realizing it's been a captured entity. And it’ll slowly but surely, I believe between now and 2024, turn into a anti-Republican, anti-conservative, anti-God, anti-religion, anti-freedom and Constitution without people realizing it. And that's what I fear, is that enough people won't wake up and shut it off.”