Former FBI official: 'We can now draw a direct line from a major network to American violence'
In a broad conversation about the national security implications of lies told by Fox News on the United States, former FBI deputy director for counterintelligence Frank Figliuzzi connected the dots between the conservative network and violence in the country.
Speaking to MSNBC on Thursday, former Homeland Security chief of staff Miles Taylor and former acting assistant attorney general for national security at the U.S. Department of Justice Mary McCord both agreed with Figliuzzi that the broad implications of what has been found in the Dominion lawsuit against Fox.
Citing "immense moral cowardice," Taylor recalled Fox people telling him behind the scenes that there was very real danger that Donald Trump proposed to the United States.
"What we're talking about goes well beyond the big lie," he explained. "This goes back many, many years, and some of us have been saying it for years and years that these top elected Republicans viewed Donald Trump and viewed the wider MAGA movement as anti-democratic, as a threat to democracy, as dangerous and said that in private but refused to say it in public. You know, some of us went and blew up our lives to go make that clear and those people were still in denial."
He said he doesn't know what else MAGA voters need to hear to convince them that it is all a lie.
"I mean, we didn't think the big lie could get any bigger and now it's not just about how Fox spread lies about a stolen election, they lied about believing the lie," Taylor continued. "They lied about supporting the big liar itself and now with Jenna Ellis, we see they lied about believing the lies spread by the lieutenant liars. You almost can't make this up how far it goes. And I think at the end of the day, this has now snowballed into the biggest media scandal in history. It has more than media. It has implications, and it has warped our democracy quite substantially and resulted in the hijacking of one of the two major political parties."
But it was Figliuzzi that explained what has happened is part of a much larger problem radicalizing a significant sect of the Republican Party into violence against the United States.
"We can now draw a straight line between a major network in America and outright violence to include violence aimed at overthrowing a lawful election," said Figliuzzi. "So, now you asked the question at the start of the program, now what? Where is the accountability? What happens? Let me quickly offer what I would like to see happen and then what I think and am more concerned will actually happen."
He noted that News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch has been remarkably candid during the deposition, admitting that they all lied.
"He's going to hang some hose out to dry and say they were outside the scope of employment and if you've got any damages to pay, those guys are going to pay them out of their pocket and they're bankrupt and gone," he continued. "What is my concern is going to happen? People say why didn't they just settle? Are they going to go to trial? I think they want to go to trial and they're not settling because they can't change their business model.' They can't."
He went on to say recall the Karen McDougal lawsuit against Tucker Carlson where the executives admitted they were nothing more than rhetoric and hyperbole and the judge agreed.
"I think that's where this is going and we're concerned about that," he explained.
Not only has Fox not pivoted away from the same hyperbole and lies, Figliuzzi later remarked that they just turned around 360 degrees and ended up right where they were before, perhaps even worse given what Tucker Carlson has done this week.
See the full exchange in the video below or at the link here.
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