Kyle Rittenhouse, who was freed of murder charges on Friday, is being urged by prominent conservatives to sue corporate media outlets and others for slander.
A jury cleared Rittenhouse of charges of intentional homicide, reckless homicide, attempted intentional homicide, and two counts of reckless endangerment after a roughly two week trial and four days of jury deliberation. In the aftermath of the verdict, some supporters of the teen are pledging to donate to a fund so he could take legal action against outlets and prominent figures that called him a white supremacist and other labels without evidence.
“What happened to him in this mob justice is grotesque. Absolutely grotesque,” conservative radio host and Blaze Media CEO Glenn Beck said in a video posted to Twitter. Beck said that the media portrayal of Rittenhouse since the teen killed two men and wounded a third in self defense last year has had an irreversible negative impact on his future.
“Where’s he going to go to work? You go to work now and you apply for a job and they immediately Google your name. You think he’s going to be fine, he’s going to get a job?” Beck asked. “I will tell you, and I hope you would feel the same way, I’d give money … for his offense, to now go on the offense and sue the crap out of corporate media for what they’ve done. They lied about him the whole time. They destroyed his life. It is time to say enough is enough with the corporate media.”
Beck also called for President Joe Biden to apologize to Rittenhouse after his account posted a tweet last year suggesting that the teen was a white supremacist. “President Biden should be issuing an apology today. He has smeared him. Everybody has smeared this guy. Where are the apologies?” Beck said.
“This was a kid that was smeared as a domestic terrorist and a white supremacist, not just by media members but by the now sitting president of the United States,” Owens said on a live stream after the verdict dropped. “I want vengeance. I want to make sure that Kyle, until he’s 92 years old, is suing every single person [who defamed him.]”