Seb Gorka Spews Fake News While Blaming NYC Terror Attack on ‘Political Correctness’

 

Disgraced White House assistant Sebastian Gorka — who has taken an informal advising role in the administration by constantly appearing on Fox & Friends — peddled the debunked claim that political correctness allowed the San Bernardino terror attack to happen.

Gorka touted the lie that the neighbors of the terrorists were suspicious about their activities while appearing on Fox News this morning. “No more political correctness. Political correctness can kill people. We know in San Bernardino, that the neighbors of the killers, saw suspicious activity but refused to report it because they were afraid of being called racist or islamophobes,” said the fired Trump lackey.

While alleged sexual harasser Steve Doocy may have agreed with Gorka and not questioned him, this claim — as with many Fox & Friends-isms — was not factually accurate.

The real neighbors of the San Bernardino killers actually described the two as “quiet, religious people who didn’t attract attention or suspicion” — not terrorist suspects. The Wall Street Journal even reported that friends and acquaintances of the terrorists were “shocked.” The incident Gorka referred to was a conversation between a neighbor of a neighbor of one of the shooter’s parents, and was not directly linked to the two culprits at all.

Gorka claims the direct neighbors of the terrorists knew something legally questionably was going on, but didn’t report it over fears of being called a racist. However, the closest factual report to this claim says a neighbor of one of the shooter’s parents neighbors noticed “suspicious activity,” but didn’t report it. There are zero credible reports suggesting that Gorka’s InfoWars-esque claim — that the direct neighbors of the terrorists knew they were terrorists — is true.

When New Jersey Governor Chris Christie made a similarly false claim about political correctness causing San Bernardino, the fact-checking service PolitiFact rated the statement as unequivocally “false.”

Of course, facts be damned, the truth didn’t stop Gorka and Doocy from using this botched example as a reason to stop allowing “political correctness” negatively impact policing, immigration, and terror investigating — advice that Trump almost certainly heard and took very seriously, as the president was watching along this morning.

Watch above via Fox News.

[featured image via screengrab]

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This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.

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Caleb Ecarma was a reporter at Mediaite. Email him here: caleb@mediaite.com Follow him on Twitter here: @calebecarma