Kelly berates Powers and backs it up with false and misleading claims
Written by Tom Allison
Published
Yesterday, Fox News contributor Kirsten Powers poked holes in Megyn Kelly's campaign to promote the phony scandal involving the Department of Justice's handling of the New Black Panther voter intimidation case. Kelly told Powers: “You don't know what you're talking about.” But it was Kelly who made false and misleading statements to back up her case.
During the interview, Kelly told Powers: “And unlike you, I have read the testimony before the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, and Bartle Bull, a lifelong Democrat who worked for Robert F. Kennedy was given a civil rights award by Ted Kennedy, who happened to be at the polling station that day, testified that this was the worst case of voter intimidation...he had ever seen in his life.” In fact, if Kelly read Bull's testimony, she would have known that Bull himself acknowledged that he was “troubleshooting on Election Day for the McCain Campaign.” Bull also told Kelly that that he “didn't like Obama from the beginning” and “thought he was a hustler.” Bull currently serves as chair a campaign to draft Rudy Giuliani to run for New York Governor.
When Powers asked Kelly if she asked conservative activist J. Christian Adams “about when he was in the Bush administration and how politicized that office was and how they only hired conservatives and how there's an entire GAO report?” Kelly responded: “If you watched the interview -- I have asked him.” She later commented: “I did. I asked him.” Kelly did ask Adams about complaints from the left that “the voter registration requirements of the voter registration law were not being followed” and calls for then-Attorney General Alberto Gonzales needed to do more, asking: “What you're alleging now Christian, is it just politics? A tit-for-tat?” Kelly did not, however, ask Adams about his role as conservative activist and "exhibit A" of the politicized hiring in the Bush Justice Department.
Powers also told Kelly: “I cannot believe that this one case, after all the cases that were dismissed during the Bush administration, is getting the amount of attention that it's getting. I find it absolutely shocking.” Kelly responded: “Let me tell you why. Because the voting place is sacrosanct.” Kelly made no effort to square her current outrage with reports that the Bush Justice Department declined to pursue similar allegations against members of the Minutemen, one of whom reportedly carried a gun in 2006 while harassing Hispanic voters in Arizona. The incident was reportedly referred to the FBI, but as Thomas Perez testified, the DOJ “declined to bring any action for alleged voter intimidation” “when three well-known anti-immigrant advocates affiliated with the Minutemen, one of whom was carrying a gun, allegedly intimidated Latino voters at a polling place by approaching several persons, filming them, and advocating and printing voting materials in Spanish.”