Reporter Repeats Conspiracy Theorist Jack Posobiec’s Boulder Shooting ISIS Rumor During Air Force One Briefing

An unsubstantiated rumor from known conspiracy theorist Jack Posobiec made its way into a White House briefing aboard Air Force One when a reporter asked Press Secretary Jen Psaki to comment on the Boulder mass shooting suspect’s motive.

Posobiec posted a tweet Tuesday in which he claimed that President Joe Biden “has been briefed the Colorado shooter had ISIS sympathies, per WH official,” a rumor which rocketed around the conservative media-sphere and whose lack of credibility forced The Federalist to append this correction to its story about suspect Ahmad Al Aliwi Alissa:

Editor’s Note: This story has been updated to remove reports of ISIS sympathies barring further corroboration.

But that didn’t stop one reporter from elevating the rumor as Psaki gaggled with reporters en route to Ohio Tuesday afternoon. It was the very first question:

MS. PSAKI: With that, who wants to kick it off?

Q A couple of questions. First, with respect to the Colorado shooting, what can you tell us about the shooter’s motive? There’s been some speculation that there were ISIS ties. Can you confirm or deny that?

And then, the President talked today about the need for new gun control measures. Has there been talk about attaching any of those to a future infrastructure bill? And if not, has this incident changed his thinking about the filibuster?

MS. PSAKI: On the first question, we’d obviously defer to law enforcement authorities who gave — or provided an update this morning. But they will be in the lead on any determination about motive, reasoning, et cetera. So we’ll look for updates from them. The President will get updated as there is additional information to be provided, and if there’s more to provide to all of you, we will certainly do that.

As it relates to gun safety measures, let me first say that putting in place commonsense gun safety measures has been a passion of the President’s since he was in the Senate. He helped lead the fight to get the Brady Bill passed. He helped pass the assault weapons ban. He was in the lead in the Obama-Biden administration, putting in place more than a dozen executive actions on gun safety. And this will continue to be an issue that he’s focused on day in and day out in this administration.

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