ABC News has again insisted that no topics or questions were shared with either Vice President Kamala Harris or Donald Trump, and their respective campaigns, in advance of last week’s presidential debate.
The network’s statement came after it declined to directly address allegations—made in an allegedly sworn statement, purportedly by one of its staff—that it helped Harris in the debate.
The claims are made in a document which has itself become a viral sensation among MAGA influencers and been amplified by leading Trump allies like Marjorie Taylor Greene.
The document was first published Sunday—by an X account with nearly 100,000 followers, and the name “Black Insurrectionist”—as a six-page “affidavit,” which claimed to have been written by an ABC technical worker the day before the debate.
ABC Slams Trump’s Latest Conspiracy Theory About Debate Loss
The name of the person who signed the document is obscured, but in the six pages they makes claims which—if true—would be explosive.
The allegations include that Harris’ team allegedly negotiating specific camera angles to portray her more favorably than Trump. The document also claims the campaign negotiated rules with ABC without involving the Trump team, and it managed to get the network to avoid specific topics including President Joe Biden’s health; Harris’ tenure as “Attorney General in San Francisco”; and her brother-in-law and advisor Tony West.
In a statement to the Daily Beast, ABC News did not address any of the specific allegations: “ABC News followed the debate rules that both campaigns agreed on and which clearly state: No topics or questions will be shared in advance with campaigns or candidates.”
The alleged whistleblower’s claims have received support and online bolstering from right-wing figures like billionaire Bill Ackman; a pinned post on X by him is an open letter to Disney CEO Robert Iger demanding an investigation into the matter.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) also rushed to amplify the claims. “If this is accurate—and I do not know that it is—it would constitute one of the gravest violations of journalist ethics in presidential debate history,” Cruz wrote on X. “If true, multiple senior people at @abc should be fired.”
The existence of the affidavit was first raised by the “Black Insurrectionist” on Thursday which posted that they would be “releasing an affidavit from an ABC News whistleblower regarding the debate.”
On the same day, a website called “Leading Report,” which traffics in misinformation, boosted the claim on X that alleged Harris received questions ahead of the debate and received “assurances” only Donald Trump would be fact-checked. Ackman shared that post to his 1.4 million X followers—such as Elon Musk, who responded to the website’s post with “!!” As many conspiracy theories do, it made its way to Trump’s Truth Social feed.
ABC categorically denied to The Daily Beast last week that Harris was given any questions ahead of last week’s debate, shooting down one of the talking points that Trump and other right-wingers tried to use to explain the former president’s dismal debate performance.
“Absolutely not,” an ABC News spokesperson told The Daily Beast. “Harris was not given any questions before the debate.”
The network’s debate rules stated that “no topics or questions will be shared in advance with campaigns or candidates.”
The spokesperson also said no aides were in contact with moderators David Muir and Linsey Davis. Trump aides have attacked the moderators as “agents of the Harris campaign” following their efforts, which have been almost universally lauded.
A source familiar with the matter also dismissed the purported fact-check “assurances” as untrue. Harris’ campaign did not respond to a request for comment on Monday.
The “Black Insurrectionist” account, having grown by nearly 30,000 followers, eventually shared the six-page “affidavit” on Sunday.
The document is dated Sept. 9, the day before the debate. The person—whose name, address, and signature are blacked out, other than they live in “Manhattan New York”—alleges they have been with “ABC news” for over 10 years, but they have somehow observed “significant transformations in the nature of news reporting at the organization” since it was acquired by Disney in 1996.
The person then makes their claims, including that Harris was given a “significantly smaller podium” than Trump’s and would be given “split-screen television views” that would “favorably” present her better than Trump. It also alleged it was “widely known” throughout ABC that Trump would be fact checked and that Harris’ camp demanded he would be—without looping in his team.
It also alleged the network agreed not to raise certain topics, including Biden’s age and allegations that Tony West, an Obama Justice Department official and her brother-in-law, embezzled billions of dollars in “taxpayer funds.”
Donald Trump, left, and Kamala Harris at their ABC debate.
Win McNamee/Getty Images
The document also claims to have been verified by a notary public, though the document does not provide a notary seal.
An article on a little-known blog indicated the alleged whistleblower had been killed in a car crash before they could unveil the affidavit. That proposition was pushed by Greene on X, who claimed that the whistleblower had died “according to news reports.” She then retracted the claim and demanded a “serious investigation” into the document.
Even the Gateway Pundit, a far-right website that delves in misinformation and false stories, warned its readers: “It’s clear to us that this is a complete hoax.” (The “Black Insurrectionist” account later claimed they put the website in touch with the whistleblower’s attorney.)
Still, the “Black Insurrectionist” account has doubled down on the claims and has insulted users who’ve cast doubt. When one user questioned why the document had no notary seal, the account responded angrily: “It was notarized you jagoff (sic), it was blocked out. But that’s OK more to come on this, even though ABC moderators have started to admit it’s true, you can keep groveling.”
Even that claim, however, was untrue. The account later cited a Breitbart article that claimed, “Linsey Davis Admits: ‘Fact-checking’ Was Only Planned for Trump.” It pointed to her comments in an Los Angeles Times interview—though Davis never said she wanted to limit her fact checks to Trump, or excuse Harris from fact checks.
Instead, Davis said she wanted to make sure fact checks were done because “people were concerned that statements were allowed to just hang and not [be] disputed by the candidate Biden, at the time, or the moderators.”
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