It Took Fox News to Expose this "Paid Protester" as a Fake

Of all the fake news that steadily dribbled out over the course of the 2016 election, one of the more consistently falsified stories was that anti-Trump protesters were being paid and bussed in to disrupt rallies for then-candidate Trump.

One particular story was a bit out of Austin that managed to mistake tech conference busses as something more sinister and disruptive. It withstood almost zero scrutiny, but that didn’t stop President-elect Trump from tweeting about it. The New York Times later wrote a compelling chronology of the case, and that should’ve been that.

We say “should’ve been” because InfoWars always needs grist for the conspiracy theory mill. On Jan. 16, the Alex Jones-helmed site posted a “new exposé” focused on a group called “Demand Protest,” which supposedly pays operatives $50 per hour to disrupt events and offers a more-than-generous $2,500 monthly retainer.

In the piece, writer Adan Salazar couches everything in tepid “allegedly” language and even points out that the site was created nearly a month after the election, but apparently there was still enough there for both the Washington Times and TownHall to pick up the “story” and run with it.

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Whatever legs the “story” had, though, were cut out from under it when Demand Protest’s “Dom Tullipso” appeared on Tucker Carlson Tonight. In about the time it takes to say “fake news,” Carlson flatly declared, “This isn’t real, your company isn’t real, your website is fake, the claims you have made are lies, this is a hoax.”

But “Tullipso,” whose name could not be found in any background check that Carlson’s team did, still wouldn’t concede the clear antics on display. When Carlson rightly pointed out that Demand Protest would be paying nearly $84 million to its “1817 operatives,” “Tullipso” only had the defense of, “We’re actually paying $80 million.” When Carlson asked again if “Tullipso” would give up the game, he said he wouldn’t, and that Demand Protest would actually be protesting Trump protesters on Inauguration Day. Eventually “Tullipso” sort-of caved and started babbling about Julian Assange, Edward Snowden and the Roswell Papers.

The whole thing is a certifiable shitshow, and you have to wonder how such a thin facade could fool anyone, but of course there are already people insisting “Tullipso” and his organization are “false flags,” because that’s the defense to mount when the truth precludes you.

See the segment for yourself below.

It Took Fox News to Expose this “Paid Protester” as a Fake