Following the weekend’s trio of mass shootings, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) lambasted Fox News via Twitter, calling the network a “hate-for-profit machine that gives a megaphone to racists and conspiracists.”
We need to call it out: Fox News is a hate-for-profit machine that gives a megaphone to racists and conspiracists. https://t.co/f1QkIE7sbB
— Elizabeth Warren (@ewarren) August 4, 2019
Noted by The Daily Wire, Warren’s attack was targeted and did not include networks like CNN and MSNBC, despite CNN’s interview with white nationalist Richard Spencer this July.
Robert Barnes, an attorney for the eight Covington Catholic students who recently filed a defamation suit against several high profile lawmakers and journalists, was not happy with Warren’s tweets. (Barnes has written for Law&Crime in the past.)
In a Twitter comment under the Daily Wire’s article, Barnes cautioned Warren from repeating past mistakes, saying “this is the same senator just sued by me for her defamatory, divisive attacks on the Covington Boys which she refused to delete or correct to this day.”
This is the same Senator just sued by me for her defamatory, divisive attacks on the #CovingtonBoys which she refuses to delete or correct to this day. https://t.co/CWEqvcbhT3
— Robert Barnes (@Barnes_Law) August 5, 2019
Barnes’ point in commenting appears to be to ask Warren why she’s attacking (what he perceives to be) the strawman of Fox News following this weekend’s shooting while other networks have profited off of racist guests and rhetoric as well. It also appears to be to remind Warren that she is accused of being the source of condescending comments herself, viz. the Barnes lawsuit. Compounding his point further is the fact that Connor Betts, the shooter in Dayton, was actually a left-leaning Warren supporter.
In fact, according to Betts’ Twitter, he believed in tighter gun control, wanted to abolish ICE, and shared tweets that referred to President Donald Trump‘s administration as part of a “global fascist movement.”
[Photo via Ethan Miller/Getty Images.]