Glenn Greenwald, constitutional lawyer and co-founding editor of The Intercept, told Fox News on Monday night that the rush to judgment of the weekend viral video showing high school student Nick Sandmann wearing a red “Make America Great Again” hat and standing still in front of 64-year-old Native American Nathan Phillips was a “trial by Twitter mob.”
Greenwald, whose reporting on U.S. and British government surveillance in 2013 made global headlines, told Laura Ingraham: “Even in the controlled courtroom setting where there is due process, and all kinds of controls to make sure evidence is prevented authentically and without distortion, it’s very difficult to know who’s telling the truth and who isn’t, what happened and what didn’t. So, when he started having this kind of trial by Twitter mob, it is obvious that there is no way to have any confidence about what took place.”
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Many in the media and Hollywood were quick to slam the group of high school students as aggressors, but by Sunday, longer video showed other aggressors were approaching the students who remained on the steps.
Greenwald was asked on “The Ingraham Angle” whether any xenophobia from the left was responsible for profiling the boys.
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Greenwald said he found it disturbing: “I think the worst thing that you showed was the tweet from a CNN paid commentator, who essentially was urging that a 15-year-old child be physically and violently attacked. I mean, that’s really perverted. It’s not even just perverse, but perverted, to have fantasies about punching a 15-year-old boy in the face, based on things that, as it turned out, there’s at least questions about what he did. Why is there that kind of incitement to violence?”
He appeared to be referencing CNN commentator Bakari Sellers, who reportedly tweeted -- then deleted -- the message, "some ppl can also be punched in the face."
Greenwald agreed with Ingraham that the role of the mainstream media was reckless for enflaming the situation.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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