Fox News Flash top headlines for June 15
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FIRST ON FOX: Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo., will take legal action against the Democrat political action committee (PAC) that claimed, without evidence, that she was an "unlicensed paid escort," Fox News Digital has learned.
Boebert's attorney sent a letter to the American Muckrakers PAC regarding the claims that she was an "unlicensed paid escort" who had "two abortions," pledging to bring "civil defamation" lawsuits against the PAC.
"Partisan organizations putting out blatantly false and disgusting accusations won’t stop me from advancing freedom and conservative values," Boebert told Fox News Digital in a Wednesday statement. "This group's vile conduct demonstrates why people are fed up with politics. I am not going to stand by and pretend this is normal behavior."
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Rep. Lauren Boebert was targeted by the American Muckrakers PAC with "false and disgusting" claims of being an "unlicensed paid escort." (Photo courtesy of Rep. Boebert's office.)
"This political committee, funded by far-left Democrat donors and run by two left-wing political operatives, published pages of false statements knowing they were completely fabricated," she continued. "The law on this type of defamation is clear and this conduct will be subject to civil and criminal penalties. Attached is a letter from my attorney introducing our response to these lies."
In the letter, which was exclusively obtained by Fox News Digital, Boebert's attorney Jonathan Anderson wrote that the PAC published "a series of false and defamatory statements" about the congresswoman through the Tuesday release and pointed out that while "Muckrakers has marketed itself as a ‘watchdog group,’ the truth is that Muckrakers is a political committee that exclusively opposes conservative candidates, is funded by established Democrat donor sources, and is managed by Democrat political operatives."
"We have irrefutable evidence that each one of these statements is patently false. You knew this though," Anderson wrote. "Muckrakers published these outlandish statements knowing they were fabricated but you likely operated under the inaccurate assumption that publishing false statements against a public figure would not create legal liability."
"This will be a costly miscalculation for Muckrakers, Wheeler and Muckrakers’ donors," the attorney added.
Rep. Madison Cawthorn was targeted by the American Muckrakers PAC in his primary election. (AP Photo/Nell Redmond)
Anderson noted that proving a defamation case against a public figure has a "heightened standard of proof" and said that what "is legally, and financially, disastrous for Muckrakers is the fact that we also have evidence, including internal Muckrakers’ text and email communications, that demonstrates Muckrakers did in fact publish statements knowing those statements to be false."
"In addition to the civil defamation claims that will be filed, Muckrakers’ actions are criminally liable. Colorado statute expressly prohibits the circulation of ‘knowingly or recklessly’ false information meant to influence an election," Anderson wrote. "In addition, Wheeler also sent letters to the State of Utah and State of Colorado requesting an investigation. Wheeler’s letters contain multiple knowingly false statements."
The press release accuses Boebert of working as an "unlicensed escort" for the sugar daddy website and that she met Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, when hired by a "Koch family member" in Aspen, Colorado. The release also claimed the congresswoman had a pair of abortions and said that the allegations came from an anonymous source.
Additionally, the release included heavily redacted text messages where the PAC staffer appeared to lead the unknown person on the other end to suggest Boebert was blackmailing Cruz for political backing as well as photos of a woman the PAC claimed to be Boebert from her sugar daddy website page.
The text messages also claimed Boebert and her husband had a "Meth drug problem" and that the congresswoman was "stripping at the time," as well.
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None of these claims were backed up with hard evidence.
Rep. Lauren Boebert is threatening legal action against a PAC making seedy allegations against her. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
In fact, the woman in the photos cited by the PAC was identified last year as Melissa Carone, a woman who made unsupported voter fraud claims during the 2020 election that were cited by former Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani.
Additionally, it appears as though the PAC removed one of the photos they were trying to say was Boebert from their copy-pasted press release on their website — but the currently active link on the website to the release as well as its archived version still have the photo.
Liberals have been quick to jump on the seedy allegations, which spread like wildfire across social media.
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David Wheeler, the president of the American Muckrakers PAC, said in response to Fox News Digital's questions about the alleged claims that the "one person that can answer all of these questions is Lauren Boebert" and that they "stand behind" their source.
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