Two Fox News contributors, Jonah Goldberg, 52, and Stephen Hayes, 51, have resigned from the network after 12 years following the release of a documentary by Tucker Carlson about the January 6 Capitol siege.
The pair have left the broadcaster after the film entitled, Patriot Purge, appeared to 'baselessly suggested that the January 6 insurrection was a 'false flag' plot orchestrated by the federal government.
The documentary accuses President Joe Biden of setting up the entire event in order to 'conduct an ideological purge and persecute conservatives.'
Jonah Goldberg, 52, left and Stephen Hayes, 51, right, have resigned from the network following the release of a documentary by Tucker Carlson about the January 6 Capitol siege which they have described as 'truly dangerous' and 'factually inaccurate'
'Whether it's 'Patriot Purge' or anti-vax stuff, I don't want it in my name, and I want to call it out and criticize it,' Goldberg said to the New York Times. 'I don't want to feel like I am betraying a trust that I had by being a Fox News contributor.'
The duo say they are also concerned about the potential the documentary might have to incite further violence and also influence Fox's direction of news coverage in the post-Trump era.
'Over the past five years, some of Fox’s top opinion hosts amplified the false claims and bizarre narratives of Donald Trump or offered up their own in his service. In this sense, the release of Patriot Purge wasn’t an isolated incident, it was merely the most egregious example of a longstanding trend,' the pair wrote in a statement on their website.
'Patriot Purge creates an alternative history of January 6, contradicted not just by common sense, not just by the testimony and on-the-record statements of many participants, but by the reporting of the news division of Fox News itself,' the pair contend.
Tucker Carlson's Patriot Purge documentary 'creates an alternative history of January 6, contradicted not just by common sense, not just by the testimony and on-the-record statements of many participants, but by the reporting of the news division of Fox News itself,' Goldberg and Hayes determined
Goldberg and Hayes had been longstanding figures on the cable news channel having joined in 2009 while they still worked for conservative political magazines.
Ten years later, in 2019, they partnered to set up The Dispatch, a conservative website with nearly 30,000 paying subscribers each paying $100 for a yearly subscription.
In a statement released on their website, the pair said the release of the Patriot Purge film, which is airing on Fox Nation, led them to an impasse where they were forced to choose between remaining loyal to Fox News or to their own publication.
'Fox News still does real reporting, and there are still responsible conservatives providing valuable opinion and analysis,' the men wrote. 'But the voices of the responsible are being drowned out by the irresponsible.'
The pair say that after Trump's defeat in 2020 that they had hoped Fox News might 'right the ship' but the fact they were pushing ahead with the Patriot Purge documentary was 'a sign that people have made peace with this direction of things, and there is no plan, at least, that anyone made me aware of for a course correction.'
The Fox Nation special airs a range of conspiracy theories about the Capitol siege
The documentary suggests January 6 insurrection was a 'false flag' plot by President Joe Biden to 'conduct an ideological purge and persecute conservatives'
'This [false flag] is not happening. And we think it's dangerous to pretend it is. If a person with such a platform shares such misinformation loud enough and long enough, there are Americans who will believe — and act upon — it,' Goldberg and Hayes said in a statement.
'This isn't theoretical. This is what actually happened on January 6, 2021.'
Some news outlets have described Patriot Purge as 'disturbing evidence of right-wing radicalization, complete with January 6 denialism and paranoid descriptions of a 'new war on terror' targeting Republicans.'
Goldberg and Hayes no longer wanted to be apart of it.
Another one of Carlson's colleagues, Geraldo Rivera, has also described the false flag theory that was aired int he documentary as 'bulls***'.
Tucker Carlson, meanwhile, was pleased Hayes and Goldberg were finally leaving the network and said it was 'great news' and the network's 'viewers will be grateful.'
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