Fox News airs digitally altered image of magistrate who approved Mar-a-Lago search

Written by Media Matters Staff

Published

As the Associated Press reported:

CLAIM: A photo shows Ghislaine Maxwell, the former girlfriend of Jeffrey Epstein who was convicted of sex trafficking, with U.S. Magistrate Bruce Reinhart, the judge who approved the FBI search warrant for Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate.

AP’S ASSESSMENT: Altered photo. This image has been manipulated by combining two separate, unrelated photos. The photo of Maxwell was released in 2021 as evidence in her trial. The photo of Reinhart was published in 2017 on a publicly accessible Facebook page under his name.

THE FACTS: Social media users are sharing the manipulated image that puts Reinhart and Maxwell together, making it appear she is rubbing his foot as he holds a bottle of bourbon and package of Oreos.

“Ghislaine Maxwell and Judge Bruce Reinhart… looking awful cozy!” read one tweet of the image shared by hundreds.

But reverse image searches show that the original photo of Maxwell was with Epstein, not Reinhart. That photo was released in 2021 as evidence in her trial and published by various news outlets. Maxwell was sentenced in June to 20 years in prison for helping Epstein sexually abuse underage girls.

The Associated Press identified the photo of Reinhart on a Facebook profile under his name. The caption indicates he was watching a football game.

Reuters also debunked this image.

From the August 11, 2022, edition of Fox News' Tucker Carlson Tonight

H/T Aaron Rupar

Update (8/12/22): Nearly a full day later, Brian Kilmeade posted a statement on Twitter:

Last night while subbing for Tucker Carlson, we showed you an image of Judge Bruce Reinhart w/ Ghislaine Maxwell that was sourced on screen to a meme pulled from Twitter & wasn’t real. This depiction never took place & we wanted to make clear that we were showing a meme in jest.

We'll let you judge Kilmeade's honesty for yourself.

Hannity: “I think that's actually a picture of Jeffrey Epstein with somebody putting his head on there. I'm just guessing, I don't know.”



Kilmeade: “It might be his plane, who knows?”



Hannity: “I'll let you determine that in the morning.” pic.twitter.com/F7fnHof7Wr

— Matthew Gertz (@MattGertz) August 12, 2022